March Comes in Like a Lion - Vol. 14 Ch. 152 - Autumn Scenery (5)

[ViSpace]

Why is nobody talking about the colossal Honey Clover reference in this chapter?

 

[apstorm]

Now, another year.
It’s like sangatsu no lion welcomes me to a new year every year.
But it’s just makes me want the year to hurry up and end so I can read the next volume. Lol.

This chapter was cute af though.
Hina was so damn cute at the end I wanted to squeeze her.
Lots of people shipped kiriyama and Akari.
I did slightly as well.
But kiriyama and Hina is also wonderful.
As time goes on this ship gets better and better too.

It's also the only ship that actually has had serious progress, despite never actually setting sail officially yet. So many more touching moments between Rei and Hina than any other, and that has been by design. From the very beginning of the story. It's made all the more apparent, to me, when animated, though.

Akari x Rei fans just have gone ignoring all the little moments between him and Hina. They got so much more development, but because neither of them are willing to say anything, it's been this same way for so long. They kept getting closer, but never actually starting a relationship.

There were so many times where it was obvious how he felt before Hayashida realized it in-comic, and even Hina has shown a tendency to be receptive to Rei on certain things that seem more on the romantic end, to be honest, like when he complimented her new haircut when picking her up for her first day at high school? She was totally so happy, but also super embarrassed, to hear him say that, and then he just kept reiterating it and she just kept getting more bashful... also the way she reacted to that abrupt and indirect proposal, like her heart was about to explode and her face burn off from the intense feelings.

Before those moments, you also had that moment of relief and elation after the bullying was more-or-less resolved, and she led him by the hand (handholding!!! scandalous!!!) and started dancing along the riverside.

And the event before that along the river in Kyoto, she couldn't believe her eyes that he was there, in a time of need far away from home. Upon reflection, that reaction wasn't just a 'close friend has come to my rescue'. That's more of a 'my prince/hero has come to save me', potentially.

I could probably think of more, but I'll leave it at that. Or, actually... Well, this moment isn't so much for her, but maybe it was a first time she potentially saw him that way- the moment he promised her that he would stay by her side (though admittedly with a condition of until he had repaid her for what she had done for him)... I mean, that was tantamount to a marriage proposal, to an extent. The people who didn't see that having romantic connotations are willfully ignorant.

 

[apstorm]

Wait, how much time has passed since the other dude Hina liked went away?

Also worth noting that, far as I could tell, he stopped being her crush and more of a guy to admire that was also coincidentally a childhood friend by the time he moved away. I'm pretty sure by then Rei had already surpassed him in Hina's heart.

 

[my0tis]

peak

 

[Kaarme]

Shimada will be sleeping with the fish if he tries to admonish those mafia thugs too much.

Now I understand what somebody meant in a couple of chapters ago, talking about how the manga handled Hina's true feelings: her feelings might not be lukewarm but the handling was.