Honey Lemon Soda Vol. 6

Title: Honey Lemon Soda Vol. 6
Author: Mayu Murata
Publisher: Yen press
Language: English
Format: Paperback
Pages: 176
Genre: A slice of life, romance
Publication date: July 23, 2024

The story

In part 6 of Honey Lemon Soda, Ishimori comes to her senses and chases after her father after realizing he was out for a walk to clear his head. Apparently she wasn’t the only one who wanted to find him, because her bullies from the beach came looking for him as well. They all find him together (but separately) and Ishimori finally opens up, admitting that she was bullied in middle school and that she lied to him so he wouldn’t bother her or worry about her. After she clears things up and her bullies apologize, on top of her friends showing up and declaring their friendship with Ishimori, her father relents and allows her to continue going to school… although he still doesn’t approve of Kai.

After that, they switch places in the school and Kai is getting further and further away from Ishimori. She starts to notice that Kai is pushing himself further and further away as they get closer. She even goes to the storage room and finds that it was taped off. The teacher tells her that Kai is the one who reports that someone is coming in and out. Ishimori wonders why Kai would tell the teacher about his secret hiding place like that and then realizes that he is, once again, pushing her away.

She becomes suspicious and follows Kai. She discovers what is going on, but does not know why he does what he does. Unfortunately, she is caught and Kai realizes that she knows her secret. He even tells her that it is best that they stay apart for the time being; Ishimori, however, is not willing to accept that.

Characters

While Ishimori’s backbone was the theme of the previous book, her confrontation with her father and being honest about everything was the last thing needed to complete her new rock solid backbone! Good on her for finally crossing the threshold and admitting everything that happened to her. Her new attitude even convinced her bullies to apologize for the way they treated her in high school. It definitely showed a great progression for her character and with the author’s note at the end of the book about what’s to come in book 7, we’ll see if that new backbone of hers is put to good use! I like how she’s a bit more confident in everything and how she’s starting to show more interest/concern for Kai.

Ishimori’s father came to his senses pretty quickly. I thought it would take a while, but the resolution was pretty quick… even though he still doesn’t fully trust Kai, I’m sure he did, because that will be addressed later. This is a romance series, so it’s inevitable that Kai and Ishimori will eventually get together, and I expect him to be an obstacle in the future… otherwise there would be no point in that dialogue.

Kai is hiding something; but we don’t know what that something is. All we know is that Ishimori has discovered what he’s done, but the reason remains unknown. A few times in the book, it’s been said by various characters that they would describe Kai as someone who has a lot of things on his mind, but they don’t know what those things are. That’s pretty accurate, but it seems like with the way this book ended, we’ll be finding out at least some of those things soon… hopefully.

Final thoughts

Despite the situation with Ishimori’s father being resolved rather quickly, I felt like this was more of a transitional volume than anything else. With Ishimori back at school, we went through the typical simmer before turning up the heat again. Now it looks like we’re entering a new arc that focuses on Kai’s new mysterious circumstances. And if you read the note in the back of the book from Murata-sensei, you’ll know that the “set-up arc” where we get used to our characters and surroundings is over and we’re moving on to the true purpose of this series.

After six volumes it’s about time because I don’t know anyone who calls their series a romance and waits six volumes to get to the actual romance! No! I don’t know anyone who would do that! (**whistles as he steps in front of his AR Dragonfly light novel series which did just that**)

Hey, sometimes stories need a good setup before we get to the meat and potatoes! Call it the appetizer for the main course. Now that we’ve had our fill of crusty bread and fried cheese bites covered in chili oil, it’s time for the main course and that’s exactly what Volume 7 aims to deliver!

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This item was provided for review by Yen Press