Haganai: I Don't Have Many Friends (2018)

[僕は友達が少ない]

Volume 16

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

Synopsis:
Before returning to the Neighbors Club, Yozora reflects on a failed friendship in her past.

Story/Characters:
Way back in Volume 6, I told you to remember the Yamiko story that Yozora told when the gang was at Sena's summer home. Turns out that most of that didn't come from her imagination and it helps explain part of the reason why her views on friendship are so twisted and why romantic entanglements hit so hard. Back in the present, we have the gang all back together and things seem to be going fairly normally until Sena finds out that Yozora had been staying at Kodaka's place, which kicks off this bizarre contest of one-upmanship on the different situations they've found themselves in with Kodaka, culminating in Yozora bringing up the bathroom incident as her trump card, which then leads into big rant about everything she's lost (with the implication that she's letting go of all of her hang-ups to move forward).

Now that things have settled down, we have Rika bring back the Romancing Saga (not to be confused with the similar-sounding Square-Enix franchise; this is "Saga" as in the Japanese prefecture) VR game. Kodaka gets stuck as a joke character again and though Sena and Yozora cooperate better this time around, it all ends in tragedy once more. Once that's done, we skip ahead to an onsen trip. Kodaka was invited by the student council and the rest of the Neighbors Club invite themselves as they don't trust him to be alone with them. This gives us an opportunity to properly introduce the quartet. We've already spent some time with Aoi and Hinata and now we get to know Akane the vice president and Karin the secretary more. We then learn the reason for Yozora's antagonism with Hinata. (I won't spoil it here, but I can't avoid talking about it when I review the next volume.) I quickly took a shine to Akane as she took charge of the situation and worked to get the two groups to mix and get to know each other better. As Pegasus came along as the chaperon, he and Kodaka have a bit of a chat about things. Chapter 74's cold open drops a bombshell and then we have to go back and build up to that moment. We learn that Karin is an incredibly lusty lesbian who's got her eyes on Yozora (and her proclivities will come back into play later in the story). We then have Kodaka and Sena unwittingly meet up in the mixed bath and the scene gets twisted to amusing effect.

Art:
The VR game once again shows off action we wouldn't normally see. Yukimura's in-game character is particularly nuts, but if I had to venture a guess, she was playing to Kodaka's tastes. (I did like how much it annoyed Rika.) As you would imagine, the onsen trip is very fanservice-heavy. That may or may not be a draw for you.

Other:
We get a variation of the cover, a two-page spread of the gang focusing on Yozora and Sena, an afterword from Itachi with yet another variation on the cover, and the character commentary.

Conclusion:
We get over our period of estrangement and the gang is back on track. The return of Romancing Saga is a nice throwback to the early days of the series. The onsen trip provides a lot of character building opportunity while fleshing out the student council. There are some good character moments, but I don't think it hits the same heights as the last couple volumes. Worth a read, but not quite a must-have.

Rating:
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