Title: Love and Heart Vol. 6
Author: Chitose Kaidou
Publisher: Yen Press
Language: English
Format: Paperback
Pages: 160
Genre: Romance, Thriller
Publication Date: December 13, 2022
The Story
With the truth exposed, Haruma is continuing to play 5D Chess. In this volume, the school’s cultural festival is coming and with Kunie gone, the committee is down a lot of members. Most of the team left are just girls so a lot of the heavy-lifting jobs are falling on Kinoshita. Suddenly, Madoka returns and ends up as the chairwoman of the committee and she lets it get to her head. She orders any and all male volunteers around while not even lifting a finger herself. Her high-and-mighty attitude draws everyone’s ire but all they need to do is push through to see it completed.
Meanwhile, Yoh is trying to find a way to patch things up with Touya. In addition, she wants Haruma and Touya to make up with each other as well. Yoh’s wish is to have all of them together as friends; however, this is going against Haruma’s wishes and so, another elaborate scheme is hatched… only this time, things don’t go his way.
Touya ends up getting framed when their equipment storage room gets destroyed by a flame retardant. There, Haruma’s backpack is completely shredded. Since Touya has a grudge against Haruma, blame is instantly placed on him by none other than Madoka. Even though Touya clears his name, we learn that Haruma counted on that all along. He hatches his true plans which will further drive a wedge between everyone so that only he and Yoh remain. During the enactment of this plan, Haruma drops a bomb on Yoh… one she wasn’t expecting at all!
Characters
Ever since the reveal in the last volume, Haruma hasn’t really changed all that much. We now know the endgame of his goals but Yoh wasn’t ready to accept things just yet. Even though she loves him, she still has a life to consider before accepting Haruma’s offer. Haruma did lie to Yoh about wanting to grant her wish of all of them becoming a happy group of friends, though. He still wants her to himself and in this volume, he clearly shows that he is going to go to any lengths to make that happen.
Touya, on the other hand, is in a really tough spot. He has a breakthrough in his character but that breakthrough was exactly what Haruma was hoping for because, in the end, he knows it would only push Touya and Yoh further away from each other. It’s really painful to see someone as pure and kind-hearted as Touya do what he thinks is right only to end up as the bad guy through just being naïve. He really deserves better than this but I’m sorry to say… because of that naivety, he’s kind of an idiot.
The same can be said about Sawako, too. She ends up confronting Haruma about everything and Haruma confesses that she’s correct in all of her accusations but he uses that to manipulate her into doing his own bidding. He forces her to choose who is more important to her… Yoh and her friendship, or Touya and her love for him. Because she’s not smart enough to say the correct answer of “I like them both equally and I will never choose,” she makes her choice and becomes a new pawn for Haruma. Again, an idiot.
Then we have Madoka who does the most unbelievable 180 I’ve ever seen. Again… Touya is an idiot so there was no way he could have ever known that her sudden pivot was just as fake as she is. As soon as she told Touya everything that he wanted to hear, he became her pawn which set him up for his breakthrough moment.
I just can’t wait to see Madoka’s face when she realizes that she’s being played like a fiddle in Haruma’s little chess game.
Final Thoughts
In my last review, I referred to this series as Stockholm Syndrome: The Manga and it’s even clearer this time around. Yoh is, effectively, brainwashed. Sure, she remembers everything now but Haruma has her wrapped around his finger so much that even remembering the past isn’t enough for her to realize what’s going on. Touya saying everything to her face wasn’t enough, either. At this point, it’s going to take a miracle to get Yoh to understand what’s truly happening and the question that Haruma posed to her was the perfect setup for him to get his way.
As plans unfold and the wedge gets driven, it increases the odds that Yoh will say “yes” and take Haruma up on his offer. With that one simple question, the endgame for this manga is now in sight. We have four volumes left to go and I suspect this little mind game fiasco is going to continue until it is decision time. The big hook here is whether or not Yoh will smarten up and realize everything that is happening around her or if she’ll continue to fall for it.
The sad part is… Haruma is kind of justified for doing all of this. He simply just wants Yoh to himself because of his feelings for her. Feelings that he couldn’t act upon because he was sent to America for so long. He never forgot her and it became an obsession. I truly think Haruma does love Yoh but I think being away from her and the fact that she forgot him pushed him a bit over the edge. In a crazy way, I honestly think Yoh is safe with him but he is taking overprotectiveness to levels that shouldn’t exist. Maybe there is a way out and Haruma himself can be made to come around. I seriously doubt it but that would be an interesting twist.
Despite that, it’s pretty clear. Haruma needs to be stopped and the whole Touya x Yoh ship needs to happen. Despite Haruma’s intentions being twisted, yet, somewhat justifiable, I think he’s past the point of redemption.
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This item was provided for review by Yen Press.
