Title: I Want to End This Love Game Vol. 3
Author: Yuki Domoto
Publisher: Viz Media
Language: English
Format: Paperback
Pages: 201
Genre: Shojo, Romance
Publication Date: August 13, 2024
The Story
We open up the third volume of I Want to End This Love Game with Miku sleeping over at Yukiya’s house. Of course, we’re back to our typical little “did your heart flutter?” moments throughout the night; however, there was a moment where Yukiya contemplated ending the love game! Despite this, he recalls how the love game changed him and Miku does the same thing. In the end, they decide that the love game is more than just trying to find a way to confess to one another, it’s a way for them to continue to grow and abandon the past selves that they despised so much.
At school, they end up playing the love game and they get caught by a new character! She is Shirayuri, the student council president… and she’s known to be someone that you don’t trifle with! Despite her iron will, she ends up accidentally revealing that she has feelings for a childhood friend who constantly helps her out at school. His name is Kakeru and he’s pretty athletic. In fact, he’s the only one who can withstand one of Shirayuri’s death punches! After going full tsundere on him, she turns to Miku and Yukiya and asks them to teach her how to play the love game!
They give her some lessons to which she tries to ply! After this, we get left on another cliffhanger as we join Yukiya and Miku sharing from spoof-named Pocky. Ever seen The Lady and The Tramp? If you have, then you know how this volume ends!
Characters
Both Yukiya and Miku developed the same exact way… by realizing that the love game is more than just a love confession with extra steps. It was a life-changing experience that helped them become better people than what they perceived themselves to be in the past. In a way, I guess you could say that it became a tool… or more so… a crutch for them to lean on. I call it a crutch because up until the moment when they realized that they had changed because of the love game, it was a tool to help them grow. Now that they realize what it is, they choose to continue using it to grow even more. In other words, they didn’t understand that they didn’t truly need the game and almost seemed afraid to let it go… especially when they were about to do just that because realizing the impact it had on them. It makes you wonder what more they feel needs changing to where they still need the game. Therefore, it’s more like a crutch than a tool that fulfills its use.
Now, we have our new character… Kazane Shirayuri. Here’s someone who comes off like a typical hard-nosed, live-and-die-by-the-rules type of student council president; however, she’s just like any other girl with her own unique set of feelings. The fact that she gets all mushy over a childhood friend gives her a rather cute side. On the other side, she’s also a tomboy. She admits to always being rough around friends, especially boys, and she has been known to throw a punch or two. It also earned her a rather unfortunate nickname that she’s not too fond of. I hate to say it but she’s way more diverse and flavorful than our two main characters. She has so many sides to her that I found her to be way more interesting.
Next, we have another new character in Kakeru. Not much to say about this one except that he loves baseball and is always helping Shirayuri… even when she doesn’t want help… and is good at taking her punches. It is uncertain if he likes her romantically but since they grew up together, he could just see her as a close friend and nothing else. That’s why Shirayuri wanted to learn the love game… so she could figure out the answer. Until we do… he’s just a plain guy who likes to help out. Seems rather friendly enough, though.
Final Thoughts
It took a bit for the series to get interesting but I’m happy that volume three picked things up. Sadly, the first half was still filled with the same thing we’ve been given since the start… running gag after running gag all ending in “Did your heart flutter?” “AS IF!”
It got old and I think Domoto-sensei realized it too because they even had the characters remark about how it was getting old. The introduction of Shirayuri changed the dynamic of this series because it turned the love game into a tool to use to help others discover things about the people they love, too. Plus, as I mentioned in the characters section, it became a catalyst for Miku and Yukiya’s growth. In other words, the game became more than a game and that’s exactly the kind of twist that this series needed to stop it from becoming a rather mediocre attempt at a rom-com.
The only problem is that Shirayuri is a way more balanced and interesting character than Miku and Yukiya and I found myself wanting to read more about her and her quest to win Kakeru’s heart than I did for Miku and Yukiya. That’s kind of a bad thing when your two main characters take a backseat to a side character… and one that has only been around for half a volume at that.
Now that the game is more than just a game, maybe Yukiya and Miku can find new ways to freshen themselves up because they’ve got some stiff competition. We’ll see how it all unfolds in volume four but at least this series took some steps down a better path!
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This item was provided for review by Viz Media
