In volume five, Kaya and Mihane develop a surprising friendship. While it’s probably the world’s most shallow friendship, it’s still nice watching Kaya get out there and talk to different people, even if it is for a nefarious purpose.
You can check out a sample of this series for yourself below!
Author
Genre & Tropes
Info about this series (ongoing)
There are currently 10 volumes in Japanese, and five in English.
TL;DR thoughts
This series continues to be one of the messiest, but most fun, series in my collection. While quite a few characters do some rather awful things, nothing is ever black and white, making it impossible to judge.
My thoughts on this volume (Slight Spoilers!)
So, it’s already been well established that Kaya is a very broken person. He’s been abandoned time and time again, and has been constantly used for his looks by the women around him up until now. If you’ve also been reading this series casually you may have forgotten, but Kaya is a middle schooler. So, while a lot of the things he does are rather toxic and sometimes downright abusive, it’s important to remember that he’s not coming from a mentally stable place.
Ranko and Nasu’s budding relationship causes Kaya to spiral quite a bit in this volume, causing him to act out a little more than usual. From a reader’s perspective all of this drama is incredibly entertaining, but I know I wouldn’t be able to handle it if I was in Ranko’s shoes. In case you forgot about some of the relationship dynamics, here is my interpretation of everyone come the end of volume five:
Ranko – A shut-in who only enjoys interacting with others occasionally. She seems to see Mihane as a genuine girl-friend, but is a little awkward with her. She clearly has a crush on Nasu, but due to a lack of self-confidence, doesn’t think he’ll ever like her back. She sees Kaya as a cute younger step-brother.
Mihane – A girl who is very boy-crazy, but not necessarily a bad person. She is apprehensive to try to befriend women because of her past, but clearly is fond of Ranko. She is in love with Kaya’s face, so she will let anything he does slide. She finds Nasu attractive, and is casually pursuing him.
Nasu – A boy who very clearly has romantic feelings for Ranko, but is unable to fully express that. He has seen the dark side of Ranko and Kaya’s relationship, and is worried about Ranko’s safety when with him. It’s unclear still what he thinks of Mihane, but I doubt he has feelings for her besides friendship.
Kaya – It’s difficult to fully understand exactly what he sees when he looks at Ranko, but it’s safe to say that she’s his entire world. He sees Mihane as an ally that may be able to help him, but their relationship is rather shallow and fragile. He clearly sees Nasu as his rival in love.
It’s important to remember (at least for me), that Ranko and Kaya’s relationship is rather complicated—Ranko’s mother married the man who took Kaya in about three weeks prior. I don’t know if this would even have them technically be considered step-siblings, as the man who took him in is not his father by any means. All of this causes Kaya and Ranko to have very different views of their relationship.
Moving on, I found this volume to be as entertaining as any other! The growing love triangle between Ranko Kaya and Nasu just adds more fuel to the Kaya fire, and I really can never guess what he’ll do next. While I did feel rather bad for Ranko in this volume—the poor girl really does have some low self esteem, and Kaya is probably adding to that—I ended up more focused on all of the scheming that Kaya had been doing.
The boy went out of his way to meet up with Mihane, instructing her to “capture / kill” Nasu by making him her boyfriend, effectively putting a stop to the relationship Nasu and Ranko have. Honestly all of this plotting, in my eyes, is rather unforgivable. No matter what the intentions may be, this is such a terrible thing to do! But…my goodness was it ever entertaining. Mihane went along with everything because, well, she’s Mihane, and we were forced to watch poor Ranko go through some mild heart break.
Honestly I feel really bad for Ranko whenever she talks about Kaya to her friends, as it’s clear that she really does love him like a step brother. Like, she goes as far to lie about situations just to spare his feelings and to potentially save his new friendships! She’s genuinely such a good sister to him, I feel so bad whenever I’m reminded of it.
I just really hope that somehow everyone will be able to have their own happy ending… In the meantime, I’ll continue enjoying the drama.
Maddies Manga 
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