Haganai: I Don't Have Many Friends (2012)

[僕は友達が少ない]

Volume 6

Author: Yomi Hirasaka
Artist: Itachi
Publisher: Media Factory Comics

Synopsis:
The Neighbors Club goes to Sena's summer home.

Story/Characters:
We open on a flashback to ten years ago, right before Kodaka moved away, which serves as a bit of a framing device for this volume. Back in the present, the gang is making their way to Sena's summer home. We then have antics on the beach. It would seem that Yozora opened some doors for Sena when she applied suntan lotion to her. I do like how Kodaka managed to handle the aftermath. It's times like this where his savviness dealing with the girls makes him stand out from a lot of other romcom MCs. The exchange of ghost stories that evening is pretty good. Remember Yozora's Yamiko story. It'll come back later.

We then get another staple of summer stories, the summer festival with the food stalls, the carnival games and the fireworks at the end. There's some particularly nice stuff with Kodaka and Sena. The fireworks are fun but end on a bit of sour note. However, that leads us into the payoff that we've been waiting for, connecting Kodaka's experience from ten years ago to the present. It's one of the big moments of the entire series. Good stuff.

Art:
We get plenty of beach fanservice. Yozora applying suntan lotion to Sena is... something. The art shift for Yozora's Yamiko story delivers the creepy effect nicely. We also get yukata fanservice at the summer festival. Lastly, there's a nice watercolor two-page spread for the climax of Chapter 28.

Other:
We get a color page of Yozora and Kobato and another of the gang at the beach with a focus on Yozora and Sena. We get a thanks page with illustrations of Yukimura and character commentary.

Conclusion:
While I've liked this series plenty well, I've been conservative with my ratings so far as I feel it can be rather divisive. However, I feel the character work in this volume is strong enough in a general sense to warrant special note. Also, we get one of the big payoffs we've been building up to for a while, which is fairly satisfying, enough for me to bump this volume a notch.

Rating:
Own It