Title: Mint Chocolate Vol. 13
Author: Mami Orikasa
Publisher: Yen Press
Language: English
Format: Paperback
Pages: 160
Genre: Slice of Life, Romance, Comedy
Publication Date: October 28, 2025
The Story
The preparations are complete, and it’s time for the school’s culture festival. While things start off rather smoothly, some tensions between Nanami and “Prez,” but rather than be anything overly dramatic, they played it off in a comedic way; however, that doesn’t mean that this festival is free from drama!
It all started when Shouta appeared! He sure is an independent little scamp because he made it to the festival all by himself. It seems that he came to see Kyou; however, he ran into Nanami instead. She was still on her shift at the class café, so she treated him to some food and told him to wait until she was done. Afterward, she brought him to meet Kyou; however, he dropped the bombshell that he didn’t come alone, revealing that Koto wasn’t far behind. Everyone thought it was cute that Shouta brought Koto with him; however, when Koto mentions that she came with her mother, a sudden feeling of doom washed over them, especially when Nanami and Kyou’s parents also showed up!
This turned into a scramble to keep Kyou’s father from running into his biological mother. They decided to split up, with half of them keeping their parents busy, while the other half searched for Kyou’s mother to try and get her to stay away. Plus, with Koto getting separated from her, it provided the perfect cover to go and look for her.
What will happen if/when they find her?
Characters
Thinking back on this volume, there wasn’t much in the way of character development. As I mentioned earlier, tensions were still there between Nanami and the President; however, nothing truly emerged from it. I think things are starting to smooth over between them, but with the comedic fanfare exhibited, it feels as if they are in a holding pattern until the manga can dedicate the time to truly resolving things between them.
Kyou didn’t seem phased all too much about his mother being there at the festival, although when it came time to confront her, he did hide behind a corner and watched from afar as Nanami reunited Koto with her. Nanami tried to say something to her about Kyou, but she couldn’t muster up the courage to do so, either. In that sense, they were very similar and, in the end, it was probably the best option for them to go down. There was no need to add any more drama to the festival, as there was enough of that to go around already.
But that was the only significant character development to come out of this volume. It was more story-focused than ever, although we did learn a tiny bit of information about Kyou’s mother and father, but I’ll leave you to discover that on your own.
Final Thoughts
I will admit… at first, I thought this was going to be just another boring cultural festival. Let’s face it… when you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all. There’s either a café (there was), a haunted house, or some other trope activity. The theme of “spending time with my crush” is typically the central focus, and then either couples get shipped, or some sort of distractions happen to prevent our main couple from getting together. It’s almost a paint-by-numbers formula by now, so was I extremely thrilled when this series called upon one of its most intriguing plot points to give us a dose of high drama?
You are darn right, I was thrilled. While we did get some of the basic tropes one could find at a festival like this, using Kyou’s mother AND having Kyou and Nanami’s parents there at the same time caused quite a stir, making things memorable and exciting! The only complaint I have with it is that the whole “searching for Kyou’s mother” bit ran a bit too long, and it was kind of becoming redundant. Also, the outcome seemed rather conservative as I was hoping for a deeper resolution to things.
Still, regardless of what we were given, it was a breath of fresh air that added so much-needed (and unique) excitement to what has been a rather stale trope in many of the series I’ve read (which is just about every series that takes place in a high school). When we got past everything, we ended up with a sweet ending, but not one you could consider a cliffhanger. Because, as such, I have no idea where we are going in Volume 14, so it’ll be a nice surprise whenever it comes out (hopefully, it won’t be another year from now.)
Still, a great volume that surprised me, but then again, this series has been doing that the whole time.
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This item was provided for review by Yen Press.
