Title: I Belong to the Baddest Girl at School Vol. 3
Author: Ui Kashima
Publisher: One Peace Books
Language: English
Format: Paperback
Pages: 184
Genre: Romance, Comedy
Publication Date: March 15, 2022
The Story
Volume 3 is just one giant tease after another! After Unoki realized his feelings for Toramaru, he simply wants to die. Of course, Toramaru loves Unoki, too, but they are still both oblivious that they like each other. With Unoki purposefully distancing himself from Toramaru, she gets suspicious… until he faints from the summer heat. She takes him inside and tries to nurse him back to health but Unoki won’t have any of it.
Of course, with it being summer, that means summer break is coming up and Toramaru asks her brother what to do since she won’t see Unoki until the new semester. He suggests taking an overnight trip together but she’s worried that Unoki would say no. He said yes anyway so she leads him to her parent’s house where they go river fishing. That night, Toramaru wanted to show Unoki something special so she took him outside to see the night sky. In typical trope fashion, Unoki let a little line slip; however, Toramaru basically blew him off.
This ends up making things awkward between them once they get back. They run into each other by coincidence when Unoki was on his way to school. Even during summer break, he has animal duty to make sure all of the school’s pets get fed and, basically, don’t die. After a weird conversation, he makes it to school and begins to feed and check on the rabbits. Suddenly, a certain event happens that could complicate things drastically!
Characters
Before we get to Unoki and his development, it’s not the only love story developing here in this volume! Yutaka lost her phone and Unoki discovered it and when she came to claim it, she admitted to Unoki that she has a one-sided love interest in Matsuri! Yutaka also realized that Unoki is in love with Toramaru, too. The two of them form this bond where they are rooting and supporting each other which I thought was rather cute!
As for Unoki… people are noticing how much he is changing. It’s all thanks to Toramaru and his crush on her. Instead of worrying about himself (i.e. being picked on, bullied, etc), he’s worrying about himself in regards to Toramaru. She’s all he ever thinks about and is slowly becoming the world to him. He made a bold move which is great but when it wasn’t returned, it was kind of a shot through the heart for him. Even though Toramaru was completely aware of what it meant, she, too, didn’t have the courage to accept what he said… despite the fact that she already considers herself his girlfriend.
Maybe her mindset is what prevented her from doing so or maybe she’s happy with just pretending that they are in a relationship? Either way, we are almost halfway through the series (four volumes to go) so them getting together before the end is not going to happen. If the remainder of the series were to focus on them as a couple, they would have pulled the trigger here and now but since they didn’t, it’s obvious that they will get together as the ending of the series… probably when it’s time to graduate and Toramaru realizes that she’s about to lose her final chance to make him her boyfriend for real. At least, that’s what I’m guessing.
Final Thoughts
After the first two volumes, the third continues with a strong offering. While the majority of it focused on Unoki and Toramaru’s inability to truly confess to each other, all of the situations that they put themselves in were cute. It built that typical tension in a rom-com manga where you wanted to scream at the characters and just tell them to kiss and get it over with. That tension is a classic staple and it is being executed perfectly here. The only thing I fear is that a lot of series will build that tension and then have a severe letdown for the payoff. Sometimes, couples don’t get together or they leave it open to interpretation with a non-committal ending. I really hope this series doesn’t do that as I love hard, concrete confirmation that they end up together… complete with a heartwarming confession!
I like the yuri dynamic to this series as well! Slowly, I’ve been getting into more and more yuri stories because it’s interesting to see the romance genre from all different angles. I’ve even tried a couple of light yaoi series as well. My motto is that as long as the story is good, I don’t really care what the genre is. The fact that this series is mixing in two types of romance into its story is a good thing. Yutaka has her own challenges to overcome here with Matsuri but I’m confident that she will get through those barriers. Since they are side characters, I would expect them to get together sooner than later while leaving our two MCs to be the stars of the show.
All in all, another fantastic volume and I can’t wait to check out Volume 4! Time to find out who this new character is and why, most likely, it’s not going to amount to anything besides jealousy on Toramaru’s part. (It is a little predictable).
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