Title: Sakura, Saku Vol. 4
Author: Io Sakisaka
Publisher: Viz Media
Language: English
Format: Paperback
Pages: 177
Genre: Romance
Publication Date: August 13, 2024
The Story
The lie between Kotono and Haruki continues and carries them through the exams leading into summer break; however, leading up to their break, Iryu notices Saku’s awkwardness and pulls her aside several times to check on her. It gets to the point where everyone is starting to wonder if Iryu and Saku are starting to get better acquainted with one another. While it doesn’t become a major focal point, it is something that lives in the back of everyone’s heads.
Things take a turn when Haruki asks Saku for a math tutoring session. During the session, they keep bumping into each other while trying to reach for an eraser so Haruki snaps it in half. Back at school, a fellow classmate asks for an eraser but Saku panics and gives him a new one instead of her half. Kotono sees this and begins to piece things together. As a result, she makes a decision that she might regret.
Once summer break arrives, they decide to go camping for a day. While there, there are some hijinks but as everything is about to come to an end, Kotono and Saku can no longer keep things up. They have a one-on-one talk and some things get said that should shape the future of their friendship… and alongside them is Mitoshi who pulls a shocking truth out of Kotono!
Characters
Saku gets some great advice from Iryu. When he sees how much she is lying to protect Kotono, he tells her that once you lie, you’ll need to keep extending that lie until it becomes a natural habit. This gets to her and makes Saku think about everything; however, before she can come to a decision, Kotono makes the first move. This allows her to be honest with herself and makes her realize that honesty is the best policy after all.
As for Kotono, I’m not sure if you could call this development but she simply reacted to Saku and how she was lying and took matters into her own hands. What she did didn’t end up solving anything regarding her problem but we did get a huge swerve with her right at the end of the volume when she was talking to Mitoshi. I’ll leave that for you all to read!
The last person who did a bit of developing was Iryu. He is still brash and as forward as ever; however, at the very end of the book (as in the last page), there is a bit of a revelation with him. Although, the revelation makes no sense and is kind of pointless given how the story is going but I’m sure they’ll try to build off of this and turn this into an unnecessary story arc. We’ll see, though.
Final Thoughts
Hmm… I’m not completely sure how to feel about this volume. I’m glad that Saku and Kotono cleared the air but it never solved Kotono’s problem and we’re right back to square one… which means that we just wasted nearly three volumes of content trying to figure out how to deal with it only to end up back at the beginning. As a result, we have a plot point that should have been resolved by now dragging forward for whatever reason. On top of that, with the way this volume ended, as I mentioned, it seems as if Sakisaka-sensei wants to take Iryu in a pointless direction. I hope that’s not the case because it wouldn’t make sense outside of artificially extending the series at this point.
Ao Haru Ride was pretty good although there were some gripes I had about it but then she came back with Love Me, Love Me Not which felt more structurally sound. Now, with Sakura, Saku… I feel that the plot is getting sloppy and (again, I hope I am wrong) heading into a typical cliché trope of making a side character have interest in the main character… the only problem is that the story is written to where Saku and Haruki are pretty much a lock so any introduction of a plot like this is a moot point and a waste of time.
We’ll see if it goes the predictable route or if it ends up surprising me. With five volumes left, it should be focused on building Haruki and Saku up and not diverging with any more distractions.
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This item was provided for review by Viz Media
