An advanced reader of this book was provided to me by the publisher on NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I love this series so much. When I saw that volume 6 was available to request on NetGalley, I clicked the request button so fast that it could have broken my laptop keyboard. This manga series has helped me get through 2020 with how cute, relatable, and nostalgic it is of high school.

This volume starts right from where the cliffhanger ended the story in volume 5. The readers were quickly put out of our misery and we saw the ending of it. The story then moves to the school festival. I really love the school festival sections in mangas because I feel like that's where we get to see the most progression with the characters relationships and we see it here in this book. I won't say much because I don't want to spoil it for others, but I really liked seeing both of the relationships develop. I read this book in two sitting and really fast. I was really sad to get to the cliffhanger endings again but I can't wait to pick up the next volume. I would highly recommend this series if you are a fan of high school romance shojo manga!

COMICS & MANGA
ADVANCED REVIEW: ‘Love Me, Love Me Not,’ Volume 6
12/17/2020 - by Kate Sánchez
SHARETWEETPIN ITSHARE
Reading Time: 3 minutes
Love Me Love Me Not Volume 6



Love Me Love Me Not is from popular shojo mangaka Io Sakisaka. The series has focused on two friends, their crushes, and the road paved with assumptions and misunderstanding along the way. Love Me Love Me Not Volume 6 is adapted by Nancy Thistlethwaite, translated by JN Productions, and features touch-up art and lettering by Sara Linsley and localized in English by VIZ Media’s Shojo Beat imprint. Last volume, Akari confessed to Kazu, and Rio finally accepted his crush on Yuna.

Now, in Love Me Love Me Not Volume 6, all of our characters in this messy love triangle are having to finally decide if they should hold on to their feelings, let them go for real, or lie about them to make the other person feel better. This volume is largely centered and Akari and Rio. Despite Akari’s growth in the last five volumes, which involved learning to accept her emotions and allow herself to feel them, she finds her heart silenced again. Having confessed to Kazu, and of course, Kazu thinking that Rio is still in love with her because he witnessed their kiss, Akari’s first reaction is to tell her crush that she can just turn it all off. Which to her credit, she has shown that she can do, or at least trick herself into believing that she can. But in young love fashion, this causes Kazu to question the reality – how can Akari like him if she is so willing to give up?

While I tend not to like backtracking with characters’ growth, the way that Sakisaka writes this element for Akari is by making sure that her words are a reflection of her need to preserve her friendship with Kazu and not about her actually attempting to become numb to her feelings for him. This Akari is very different. Are her words the same? Yes. But her reason behind them and the way she struggles to maintain it are worlds apart from the brash girl who thought she could choose exactly when to fall in love.

An equally important element of Love Me Love Me Not Volume 6 is that Rio has fully realized that he likes Yuna now. But of course, he may be too late, as he suspects his friend Agatsuma likes her too. While the love triangle has shifted, this one seems to be easier to navigate out of. While this volume is light on Yuna, it is heavy on the fact that Rio has finally decided to speak his feelings and pursue Yuna in a very real way by telling Agatsuma that he likes her.

The number of people tangled together in love triangles in Love Me Love Me Not is high. To be honest, this series is messy, but so is young love. It’s easy to dismiss the actions of the characters as something that they’re stuck in, but they’re kids. One of my biggest problems with reviews of high school-focused shojo romances is that I often forget the messiness that comes with adolescence, the fear of not knowing if your emotions are reciprocated, and the struggle of finding out if your feelings are real enough to ruin a friendship. Our leads aren’t mature enough to open up about their hearts, and at the same time, they’re not mature enough to know that things can and will be okay if they open up.

The entirety of this series is about stumbling through young love and learning about yourself and others along the way. In Love Me Love Me Not Volume 6, readers finally get some semblance of emotional progression with both Rio and Kazu voicing their feelings for Yuna and Akari respectively. Even though it isn’t to the girls, it does show that the story’s pace is beginning to speed up, and we’ll head towards a bit of emotional closure and progression. Making this volume a great addition to the series.

This volume was just want I needed in this series. Lines are drawn in the sand, and miscommunications are being cleared up. The only thing I didn't like about this volume was the very clear interloper for one of the relationships. But, we had to have some conflict there. So, I hope it's resolved quickly like a lot of the other conflicts.

As with any manga series, sometimes there are volumes that just don’t satisfy you like the others and that was the case for this book.

One thing I enjoy about this series is the plot twists. Although this one left off on a cliffhanger, it just didn’t grab my attention to where I am wanting the next volume right away. It kind of just put me in a lull. There are still a lot of love triangles going on and even though I enjoy reading about them, I just want things to happen already!

I do still really like the main four characters and the journey they are all taking when it comes to their feelings. They are working through them and trying to make sense of it all even when it isn’t easy to share those feelings with the ones who need to hear it the most. I think it is also nice to see Rio be jealous when the girls are always after him but now he is ready to battle with another guy for her affection. Communication could definitely solve a lot of problems but it’s not always an easy skill to have as a teen. I know that all too well.

Overall, it was still a good volume but my least favorite out of the series. Hopefully the next one will pick back up and maybe there will be some confessing of feelings.

Nice and cute, another slice of life gem in VIZ’s vault. I’ve been following the story from vol 1 and I like how the mangaka (author) has been building the relationships.. I did feel that the story of getting the main protagonists together in this volume was slightly ‘stretched’ unnecessarily though. Waiting fir the next English volume to see where it goes from here!