Title: Shortcake Cake Vol. 6
Author: suu Morishita
Publisher: Viz Media
Language: English
Format: Paperback
Pages: 176
Genre: Slice-of-Life, Romance
Publication Date: November 5, 2019
The Story
Volume six of Shortcake Cake picks up with Riku apologizing for kissing Ten. Sadly, it wasn’t meant to be as Ten rejects Riku by putting him into the friendzone. With that cliffhanger from the previous volume resolved, the volume shifts focus to Ten and Riku. Ten is having regrets for turning Riku down as her feelings for him only begin to strengthen. She musters up the courage to ask Riku out but Riku assumed that it was for planning Ageha’s birthday. Still, the two of them spend the day together running errands to which Ten truly enjoyed herself. So much so that she asks Riku out a second time but this time… it’s just the two of them!
The story was very simple and straightforward. It ended up being a really quick read as the dialogue was kept to a minimum in this volume. Still, everything that was said became impactful and helped shape the story of the volume itself. I left the new cliffhanger ending out of it as to not spoil anything that happens on the second time Ten asks Riku out but it does leave you on the edge of your seat wanting more which is what a good cliffhanger is supposed to do.
I think the reason why this was such a quick read was that it mainly focused on the whole Riku x Ten factor and left the rest of the characters out of the volume. Our supporting cast wasn’t even put on the back burner for this one… they were flat out taken off of the stove completely. Sure, a couple of them like Ageha and Ran were sprinkled in just to remind us that a world exists here but this was all Riku, Ten, and Chiaki from beginning to end. I don’t necessarily think that’s a bad thing as this was something that needed to happen in order to focus on the story being told. Sometimes in situations like this, you don’t want to muddy the story by detracting it with your cast of characters. The only time this becomes a problem is when characters get completely ignored for massive lengths on end.
Characters
This will be a short section because the story itself was also all character development. When story and development have meshed together as one, it’s hard to dedicate an entire section to characters when the story already did that for you.
Essentially, the takeaways from this are Chiaki being turned down and how he’s trying to be supportive of Ten. He wants Ten and Riku to be happy but it doesn’t mean that he’s going to give up on Ten altogether. It keeps the rivalry between Chiaki and Riku alive and let’s Ten know that he’s willing to fight an uphill battle in order to win over her affection.
Ten has done a lot of inner monologuing in this volume. You get to see inside of her head and how she’s processing the entire situation. Then you get to see that processing and through process applied to the situations that she’s put herself into. All the while, you get great reactions from Riku which shows how oblivious he is to what Riku is thinking but the problem with doing that is sooner or later, no matter how much you hide it, you end up wearing your heart on your sleeve and you’re bound to get caught and I think it’s exactly what happened here with Ten. Too much overthinking and over-analyzing. It separated her body from her mind.
Final Thoughts
Even though it was a quick read, it was an entertaining volume. It shows that suu Morishita has a clear-cut direction that she wants to go in with this story. Unlike a lot of other romance stories, there seems to be little misdirection in this one. Everything is clean-cut and laid out in front of us without masking things in a way where you’re constantly guessing who is going to end up with who. Everything is obvious and while that may seem boring to some, Morishita is doing a fantastic job of taking the plain and obvious and making it interesting to read!
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This item was provided for review by Viz Media
