His Favorite (manga, vol. 8) by Suzuki Tanaka, translated by Katherine Schilling

His Favorite is a m/m romantic comedy. It's published by SuBLime.

I opted not to include any read-alikes in this post. Check out my posts for volumes 1 through 5 if you'd like some.

Review:

I've written this review assuming that anyone reading it has either read the previous volume in this series or doesn't care about spoilers for past volumes. You've been warned.

Okay, so this volume basically has four separate stories. First, Sato is bummed because he's going to be forced to go on a family trip from Christmas to the start of the new year. Yoshida accidentally upsets him and then meets an old man who may or may not be Santa Claus. In the next part of the volume, Machiko, the student council president, comes up with a plan that she thinks will guarantee her a spot next to Sato at a warm kotatsu. After that, readers get to see where things stand between Azuma and Nishida. Sato proves to be more helpful than I expected. The volume wraps up with a class field trip, which is particularly special because it's Sato's very first field trip ever.

His Favorite (manga, vol. 7) by Suzuki Tanaka, translated by Ivana Bloom

His Favorite is a m/m romantic comedy. It's published by SuBLime.

I opted not to include any read-alikes in this post. Check out my posts for volumes 1 through 5 if you'd like some.

Review:

Yoshida is secretly still stressing about being a virgin. When he once again meets that cute high school girl who inexplicably has a crush on him (and who he still doesn't realize is Murakami, a guy in drag), he wonders if he might soon have an opportunity to lose his virginity.

After that, the volume focuses on a new transfer student, Takeru Azuma. Azuma hates Yoshida on sight even though, as far as Yoshida knows, they've never met. Nishida may know what's going on, but first Yoshida has to track him down – the guy is constantly busy saving people.

His Favorite (manga, vol. 6) by Suzuki Tanaka, translation by Ivana Bloom

His Favorite is a m/m romantic comedy. It's published by SuBLime.

I opted not to include any read-alikes in this post. Check out one of my past posts for this series if you'd like some.

This review includes slight spoilers.

Review:

In the first chapter, Sato tells Yoshida he wants Valentine's Day chocolate from him. He also enacts a plan to keep all the girls at school from giving him chocolate. Then Sato, Yoshida, and Yoshida's friends investigate the creepy rumors that have been going around the school, much to poor, easily frightened, ghost-fearing Yoshida's dismay. Finally, Sato, Yoshida, and friends “vacation” at Tsuyako's tropical island, leaving Yoshida with some intense memories.

His Favorite (manga, vol. 5) by Suzuki Tanaka, translated by Ivana Bloom

His Favorite is a m/m romantic comedy. It's published by SuBLime.

Review:

Clueless Makimura has a brand new crush: the beautiful student council president. What he doesn't realize is that he's being used by her to gather information about Sato – he's close to Yoshida, who is known to spend a lot of time with Sato. The student council president has pretended to be uninterested in Sato in order to wait for what she thinks is her best chance to win him for herself: a marathon in which the grand prize is a one-day pass with Sato (who wasn't consulted about this and never gave his permission to be used as a prize).

After the marathon, the students deal with an unusually high volume of litter on the school grounds - specifically, banana peels. Several students slip, lose their memories, and then slip again, regaining their memories. After the banana peel incident, several of the girls give Sato some home-made Madeleine cookies. One girl begs Yoshida to steal her cookies back after she realizes, to her horror, that they're awful. The volume wraps up with a chapter in which it seems like everyone's catching a cold except Sato, who says he never gets sick.

His Favorite (manga, vol. 4) by Suzuki Tanaka, translated by Ivana Bloom

His Favorite is a m/m romantic comedy. It's published by SuBLime.

This post includes a few spoilers.

Review:

I'm starting to think that the first volume of this series was the roughest, because everything after that one was much better. Volume 4, in particular, was really good.

At the beginning of this volume, Yoshida gets upset when some of the girls call him “ugly” and say that he looks a lot like one of the monsters in an amusement park haunted house. Although Yoshida is terrified of haunted houses, Sato forces him to go to the one the girls mentioned. After that, we get an extended flashback to Sato's elementary and middle school years. When he's 12, his parents tell him he'll be going to a boarding school in England. What they don't tell him is that the “boarding school” is actually a brutal fat camp that uses dangerous and unorthodox methods (like combat against wild animals) to help kids lose weight. The volume ends in the present, with Nishida and Sato battling for the right to date Yoshida and the school's girls battling to win a contest that will give them a full day with Sato.

His Favorite (manga, vol. 3) by Suzuki Tanaka, translated by Ivana Bloom

His Favorite is a m/m romantic comedy. It's published by SuBLime.

Review:

The series continues to have a bit of an episodic feel, as each chapter has its own “story.” In this volume: Yoshida feels stressed and preoccupied because a cute girl has asked him out; Yoshida gets upset when he learns that Sato isn't a virgin (I had thought he and Sato had had sex already, but apparently not); a heat wave makes everyone feel gross and cranky; Nishida, an openly gay student, confesses his love to Yoshida; and readers get to see more of Torachin and Yamanaka now that they're a couple.

This series has grown on me, even though I still have some issues with it.

I'm glad that Sato seems to have mellowed out some. He's still a secret jerk, but he doesn't mess with Yoshida quite as often as he did in previous volumes, and there were some nice panels of Sato and Yoshida just hanging out and enjoying each other's company. I still wonder if Tanaka ever plans on digging a little deeper, bringing Sato's emotional issues out into the open, and really dealing with them.

His Favorite (manga, vol. 2) by Suzuki Tanaka, translated by Ivana Bloom

His Favorite is basically a m/m romantic comedy. It's published by SuBLime.

Review:

One half of this volume is devoted to the main story, and the other half is mostly a couple completely unrelated shorts. I never know how to handle stuff like this, but I suppose I'll treat the shorts like extras.

The main story starts off with Yoshida and the other less popular (and less attractive) guys in his class being forced to act as cheerleaders in the upcoming school sports matches. After the sports stuff is over, Yoshida learns that Sato is modeling for one of the school's art students. Then Yoshida encounters a friend from junior high at his current school.

His Favorite (manga, vol. 1) by Suzuki Tanaka, translated by Ivana Bloom

His Favorite is basically a m/m romantic comedy. It's published by SuBLime.

Review:

I went into this not knowing much more about it than its premise and that, according to the “reception” section on its Wikipedia page, one reviewer mostly liked it but was annoyed by its lack of sex. I didn't even bother to read the full review – I just ordered a bunch of volumes in the series and hoped for the best. My wish was for it to be cute and funny fluff. Unfortunately, I didn't really get what I wished for.

First, the story: Yoshida is an awkward and funny-looking high school kid who would kind of like to have a girlfriend. However, all the girls hate him because Sato, the most popular guy at school, keeps turning them down, saying he already has plans with Yoshida. Which confuses the heck out of Yoshida, because as far as he knows he and Sato don't even know each other all that well. He hates being used as Sato's excuse. And why doesn't Sato ever throw anyone else to the wolves (girls)? Is the guy just messing with him or something?

Yoshida eventually realizes that he and Sato do know each other, which is about the same time that Sato starts hitting on him. It embarrasses Yoshida and freaks him out a little...but he also kind of likes it. Except Sato doesn't seem to be nearly as affected as he is, which upsets him even more.