Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai
僕は友達が少ない
Haganai: I Don’t Have Many Friends Volume 6
Haganai! Vol. 06 (manga)

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***SPOILER!!!*** Summary/Synopsis:

Highlights from this volume start with Kodaka remembering his childhood past as the Neighbors Club takes a trip to Sena’s beachfront summer home. While the fun happens, Sena has Yozora put sunblock on her back, but Yozora decides to do it with her feet instead, repulsing Sena. That night, Yozora wants to chat with Kodaka, but bails out after seeing him with Sena on the balcony.  As the trip winds down, the club decides to engage in summer ghost stories, leading to some frightened members.

A local festival is going to happen, so the club decides to attend, Rika and Yozora only wanting the takoyaki.  At the festival, Yozora and Sena have a nice chat before eating takoyaki. Rika and Yozora are going to leave, but get talked into staying. Sena and Yozora have a festival game battle while Rika, Maria, Yukimura, and Kobato accompany Kodaka to other places on the festival grounds to have fun. The club then comes together to play with fireworks, where an accident causes Yozora’s hair to be burned. She leaves and doesn’t return to school for several days. When she finally shows up with short hair, Yozora recognizes her as his childhood friend Sora, and she tearfully but happily addresses him as Taka.

Well, I had figured that Yozora was Kodaka’s childhood friend after her weird behavior after his memory dream.  As I said in volume 2,

With Kodaka’s childhood being explored via those magical memory-dreams becomes somewhat interesting based on Yozora’s reaction to Kodaka’s words. This seems like such an obvious flag, I’m actually loath to spout it, but it seems that Yozora was Kodaka’s childhood friend.  If I’m right, then why she hasn’t said anything before now is more of a mystery.  However, her actions and words after Kodaka wakes up does strongly suggest she’s the one.

It seemed a bit too obvious of a clue, but I guess not.  So my question still remains — why has she not introduced herself from the start?  It seems one of those poor story elements where the story could easily be resolved if certain things are done or said, but instead, the plot is extended just by not going from point A to B, choosing instead to skip B and go to random other letters before finally coming back to B.

As an aside, I do like that Itachi-sensei pokes fun in the extras at the whole notion that they weren’t trying to hide the fact that Yozora was Kodaka’s childhood friend.

Speaking of calling things, I still think Yukimura will turn out to be a girl, but we’ll see.

As for Sena, she seems to be falling for Kodaka. It was clear that she liked Kodaka to a degree, but in this volume, her chats with Kodaka seem to imply a bit more, especially when she smiles and tells him he’s not like the other guys.

On the Seven Seas side of things, Japanese honorifics are retained, as per usual. Yay! There are four color pages at the beginning, which I like. The “commentary” by the club members for the various stories was amusing. There’s a one page manga on the inside back cover.

In the end, this volume was more enjoyable that earlier ones, with the big prediction coming true about Yozora. I haven’t looked to see how many more volumes there are, but I am at least somewhat interested to see where things go.