Manga Review: Kimi ni Todoke: From Me to You, Volume 16, by Karuho Shiina

Rating (Out of 5): ~4-4.5

Publisher: VIZ Media (Shojo Beat)

Volumes: 18+

Spoilers?: No.

Buy it here: Amazon. Barnes and Noble. Powells. RightStuf.

Goodreads Synopsis:

Sawako Kuronuma is the perfect heroine...for a horror movie. Nicknamed "Sadako" after the haunting movie character, everyone is afraid to come near her for fear of being cursed. But her whole life changes when she befriends the most popular boy in class, Shota Kazehaya. While their friends’ romantic relationships deepen, Sawako feels Kazehaya pulling away. Will a big Christmas party bring the troubled couple back together, or will Kazehaya continue to hide his pain from the person who most wants to help him?

Reads R to L (Japanese Style) for teen audiences.

Review:

I love this series. I don’t even care what’s happening anymore, who the focus is on, or how long I have to wait between volumes. I just love this series, it’s so good. And I think I’m going to keep this review short, because I don’t want to go into too much detail about what happened this time, nor do I have too much to talk about (I don’t think).

This was a bit of a slow volume, whereas progress shows. Chizu and Ryu are in pretty much the same position as before, with very little-to-no attention given them as a couple. Chizu seems to mostly be thinking about things, about Ryu and what she wants to do.

Meanwhile, it’s obvious that Kento has feelings for Ayane. Ayane, though is hesitant, and trying to avoid him and stop anything from happening. Kento, surprisingly, has a cute, helpful conversation with Kazehaya about it. And Ayane talks with Sawako about some stuff, including her bad self-image.

The big couple, Sawako and Kazehaya, are being stupid. Sawako has no idea what Kazehaya is thinking, doesn’t understand why he’s pulling away from her, when all she wants to do is be closer to him. And Kazehaya is conflicted about her, including kissing her, and is just reacting to everything badly. To sum it up, they’re miscommunicating, or just not communicating at all, which they seem to be very good at, as we know from before the became a couple. They need to learn to just talk things out, go to each other and talk about it if they have a problem. I really hope that they clear stuff up soon.

Christmas is coming, and the volume ends with everyone arriving to their class Christmas party. Which is surely to be good. I’m rather excited for everything, for whatever happens next. I really hope that it focuses on Sawako and Kazehaya, but I would be happy if it focused on someone else, too.

Overall, just very happy and excited about this series.

Oh, there was also a lot of extras at the end of the volume, all of them being drawn by other known mangakas, some of it just pictures of the Kimi ni Todoke cast, but some of it also little comics. Some of them were just okay, but some were also funny, and very pretty, and I find it neat seeing other mangakas, particularly ones that I read, drawing another authors characters.