I finally started on this volume because I didn't have much to do at Fanime2007. Looks like I won't be opening up the next volume for a while for a couple of reasons. For one, I just got the new Haruhi novel (i.e. I've got my priorities straight). Second, this series is not all that interesting to me.
Yuuichi gets thrown around, joked around, played on, and beat. What a hapless kid he is. And I'm not talking about Rika doing that to him. There's no doubt that the main focus of the story has been Yuuichi's growth as a character, and maybe I'm expecting too much from an average 17-year old kid, but his slow progress and repeated blunders often get on my nerves. At least Rika's selfishness is fully explainable. What is Yuuichi's problem? His dad was a worthless piece of @@@? I don't think that makes for a good excuse. If anything, it should have taught him better. Oh well. Maybe I'm just too old to relate to kids his age.
