Title: A Star Brighter Than the Sun Vol. 6
Author: Kazune Kawahara
Publisher: Viz Media
Language: English
Format: Paperback
Pages: 176
Genre: Slice-of-Life, Romance
Publication Date: June 2, 2026
The Story
We open up with the shoji match between Kamishiro and Ayukawa. While Kamishiro sucks at shoji, the two of them talk about Iwata. In the end, Ayukawa admits defeat, and Kamishiro and Iwata begin to date officially. The majority of this volume focuses on them as a newly formed couple.
The first thing that happens is that rumors and gossip begin to circulate throughout the school. Some say that Kamishiro only picked her as the first girl he saw; others can’t believe that he’s dating the “big girl,” etc. It’s all a bunch of baseless crap that teenagers often make up; however, they are lucky that they have a bunch of great friends who won’t sit back and let all of that stuff spread around.
This leads us until exam season, and Onodera realizes that she’s an idiot and needs help studying, so the gang gathers to prepare for exams. Shortly after, we move into the most magical time of the year… Christmas, except Kamishiro has no idea how to ask Iwata out for the holiday. He ends up just coming forward about it, but when it’s about to end, Iwata wants to buy him a present, and she thinks that she has found the perfect gift!
Characters
Obviously, the biggest development here is that Kamishiro and Iwata have begun their lives as an official couple, but before we got there, we did get treated to some nice backstory between Kamishiro and Iwata, thanks to Kamishiro’s talks with Ayukawa. We got to see how they were in elementary school, how they got split apart in middle school, and how Kamirishro had a crush on her the entire time. It was absolutely adorable, which made their getting together much more endearing.
As a couple, they needed to adjust to one another, but even Iwata admitted to her friends that nothing felt all that different now that they were dating. Of course, they were walking home together now, but outside of that, it’s just like it was before they started dating. Of course, his friends find that boring as they hoped for something spicier, but hey… You can’t rush these kinds of things!
The only thing that feels a bit flat is the fact that now that the two of them have started dating, every other character feels as if they were relegated to back-burner duty. I know they all wear the title of the “Support Character,” but that’s all they felt like they were there for. Whether it was getting the talk about them to stop, or offering help to study, they went from feeling like a part of the story to just being there. I know this was slightly intentional because why would you want your cast interfering when the main couple gets together and has the spotlight on them? I just hope this isn’t the normal going forward, and we get a bit more story for each of them.
Final Thoughts
Overall, the big moment we’ve been waiting for happened, and with this series still releasing in Japan, it’s quite obvious that just because they are dating, it doesn’t mean it’s about to end. I like series where couples get together, and then we get to see what it’s like for them once they start dating. The only thing I don’t want to see happen is your standard fare of normalcy. By that, I mean just turning this into an episodic series where we see them take part in random scenarios after random scenarios. Dates and everything are cute, but I would love to see their relationship deepen more through some dialogue rather than pulling old tropes out of a hat.
Whether or not we’ll get that remains to be seen, but so far, we’re off to a good start. While I wouldn’t call a study session a date, having them together during Christmas was the right call, and I think that Iwata’s gift that she chose for him suits Kamishiro perfectly!
When things don’t end on a cliffhanger, it’s hard to tell what is to come next, but it’s quite obvious that we’ll get to see more of Kamishiro and Iwata spending time together. They did tease some stuff with their sports teams, so we might dive into that, too. There are a lot of directions we could go in, so it’ll be interesting to see how things continue from here!
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This item was provided for review by Viz Media
