We recently started reporting Yamada-kun’s manga to Lv999 no Koi wo Suru, or loosely “My Love Story with Yamada at Lv999”. We’ve also started covering anime, so check it out if you’re interested.
Let’s read the next volume of this developmental story with our related heroine Akane and our game lover Yamada!
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Volume 2 picks up where Volume 1 left off – Akane’s first offline meeting. We meet 3 new characters – a man around Yamada’s age, a young girl around middle school, and an older man. If you’re reading this while watching the anime, you’ll know that’s where we’re at; but buckle up, because we’re about to go beyond it.
First, Akane is confused about Liuli Ji’s true identity. We learn that, in reality, it’s not a young Lolita girl, but a man about Yamada’s age. We learn that the middle school girl is named Runa Sasaki and is the younger sister of the man (Eita Sasaki). The older man is Takezou Kamota, and he’s one of my favorite older men in all of the manga. He is a strawberry farmer.
After Akane learns everyone’s names and identities, she tells Yamada that she is lying that she thinks he has a girlfriend, whom she believes is “Rurihime”. Yamada told her he wouldn’t lie about such a thing, and Akane smiled and said she was happy.
Runa immediately dislikes Akane, interjecting to ask if she just said she’s glad Yamada doesn’t have a girlfriend. She immediately demands to know if Akane likes Yamada.
Eita jumped in, covered Ruina’s mouth and apologized to Akane. Akane tried to ignore it, but when she took a sip, she glanced at Yamada who was staring at her. Sissy dropped her glass and panicked. She started scrambling to pick up the debris, but Yamada grabbed her hand and told her not to do that, but to wait for the workers to sweep up because she might cut herself. Qian took her hand away and shrank away from him in embarrassment.
Yamada stood up and said he would take a call and left. Eita follows him and asks why he lied – in fact, Yamada just sits there. Yamada said he felt that Akane didn’t want to be near him at all, so he chose to leave for a while. Yingtai smiled at him, clearly seeing that Akane was flustered because he grabbed her hand.
By the end of the meeting, Kamota-san (the old man) had grown fond of Akane, and Akane seemed to become more comfortable around everyone. Runa still doesn’t like her and starts plotting.
Yamada and Akane take the same train home, and Akane falls into Yamada’s arms. She begins to doubt her opinion of Yamada and whether she really likes him.
When they returned home, Yamada stopped by a convenience store and bought a pudding for dinner. Akane is shocked by this and tells Yamada to wait ten minutes before she races home. When she came back, she had all kinds of rice and curry for him to eat for a few days.
Now, avid readers and viewers who don’t rely solely on my reviews will know that Akane is said to have cooked many home-cooked meals for her predecessor, Takuma. Qian’s move seems to be a conditioned reflex of liking someone! She wanted to make sure they were well fed and eating good food. Isn’t that cute?
Anyway, before they parted, Akane took a call on her cell phone. It was Runa, who told her she wanted to be friends and meet up that Saturday.
As they leave, Yamada notices that on Saturdays, he and Ruina have a cram school. I don’t know if I heard it wrong, this obviously conflicts with the plan of the two just now.
Now, the next set of circumstances really played a bad role for Runa. She dumps Akane, saying something happened so she can’t; but only after Akane arrives at their meeting place. Plus, she’s sent a “friend” in her place – a random guy who’s not only a little eccentric, but has a crush on Eita’s online persona, Rurihime. He is misled by Runa into thinking that Akane is actually behind this Rurihime character.
Yamada was very sad when he learned about this in Runai’s tutoring class, and immediately told Eita, and Eita notified Kamota-san. Luna is angry.She does it because she’s mad at everyone for putting all the attention on Akane, yet through this gimmick, she caused All attention is on saving Akane. In typical middle school style, Runa has been grumpy the entire time she’s forced to accompany the group on Operation Save-Akane.
When they arrived, they noticed a wound on Akane’s leg. When Eita demands to know what happened, they learn that Akane was afraid of the man, and when he scared her, she bumped her shin against the toilet seat in the bathroom. Runa starts to cry and runs away, but when Akane stands up to chase her, her legs give up and she falls. Luna changes direction and instead runs to Akane, asking if she’s hurt.
Akane notices this change of heart and realizes that Luna isn’t a scary person, but she’s been lashing out as these strange emotions come to her. When Yingtai really wanted to go to bed with her and scolded her severely, Qian asked everyone to go to a nearby pharmacy to buy some medicine for her stomach problem, so that she could spend time alone with Luna.
During their alone time, Luna told Akane about her plan and started crying, saying she was really sorry. Akane said she would leave all the lectures to Eita because she really wanted to get along with Luna. When everyone is back, Akane and Luna are on good terms.
This becomes clear when we switch to another day. Both Akane and Runa play Woods of the Saviors in Akane’s apartment. Akane’s roommate Taozi is also there. They started talking about gear and so on, and Yamada even went online at one point. In this scene, we see that Runa and Momoko don’t quite get along – Momoko doesn’t like middle school students, and Runa doesn’t like anyone other than her best friends.
However, their little date comes to an end when Akane’s laptop starts smoking and shuts down abruptly. Akane panicked and didn’t know how to fix it, but Ruina left with Yamada and came back, saying she “called a repairman”. Taozi has already left at this time.
Both Yamada and Ruina were at Akane’s apartment because he was fiddling with her laptop. Akane makes lunch, but Ruina notices some strange but delightful chemistry between Akane and Yamada. She snapped a photo while the two were not looking, and sent it to Eita with the caption: “Good vibe.”
Eita jokingly replied that he wanted a love story to develop, so with her sense of “romance” twisted from comics and romantic tropes, Runa decided to do something to help speed up the process. She asks Akane and Yamada if they plan to go to the shower soon, since she often notices “accidents” in the bathroom. If that doesn’t work, she takes some bread from Akane and toasts it, and puts it in her mouth; but Akane doesn’t understand what she’s doing, and she eats the toast.
Runa gets a little frustrated and pushes Akane towards Yamada, and they go down together. Akane’s lock of hair hit Yamada’s eye, and he snorted, so she immediately grabbed his face for him to show her. The close encounter made Yamada uncomfortable (or rather, flustered), and he said he’d be right back because he needed a tool to mount her laptop.
Akane tied up her hair, and Yamada left. When he came back, he found Akane and Luna both asleep after lunch. Noticing that Akane’s hair hadn’t been tied up with a barrette, he sat beside her and gazed at her sleeping face. He reached out to undo the hairpin and watched as it fell below her shoulders.
The tender moment is interrupted when Akane’s doorbell starts ringing and a friendly but unwelcoming face shows up: Akane’s ex-boyfriend, Takumi.
This concludes this volume.
Opinion/Analysis
This volume really fleshes out Runa, and as we’ll see later, Runa is sure to start seeing Akane as some sort of “big sister” figure. Here, we can already see this starting to happen, as she soon tries to frame her and Yamada.
Yamada, this volume, also has quite a few panels where he just… stares at Akane. It doesn’t tell us exactly what he’s thinking, but even earlier when Runa asked to know if Akane liked him, Yamada was staring at her. Akane likes to feed or take care of people she likes, and Yamada definitely seems to be the kind to stare. Even when Akane is asleep, he stares at her before messing with her hair.
Wow, TAKUMA is here again? What do you think of his appearance? Do you think he’ll end up playing a bigger role in the story? Let us know your predictions in the comments!
For more reviews, check out our other articles on LAN!
Magic Destroyer Episode 5 Review
Koi Yori Aoku Chapter 1 Review
The legendary hero is dead!Episode 5 Recap
The Café Terrace and Its Goddess Episode 5 Review
