The fun festival arc concludes in this volume, with the winners announced and the mysterious saboteurs caught. Ashiya's dorm wins the honor of being in first place when the festival ends, thanks to her fast feet in the final relay race, but she only is able to compete after the boys from her dorm rescue her from the evil boys in Dorm 1 who kidnap her in an attempt to keep her from competing. Turns out they are some of the boys lower in the ranks trying to impress Tennoji, dorm leader, and none of the other dorm members knew about it. All is water under the bridge, though, as Dorm 2 wins the competition. After the festival, another portion of the manga is devoted to the back story between Ashiya and Gil, her friend from America. Since I know that Gil will make a personal appearance later for a romantic triangle between him and the two leads, this introduction was fun and made me eager for later. The rest of the book is composed of Nakatsu's struggle with his feelings for Ashiya, and the introduction of a reporter who is all about Sano. The volume ends with Nakatsu giving a sleeping Ashiya a kiss. Eee! I again really liked this entry in the series. The festival was an exciting arc, and Nakatsu is so adorable in his conflicted feelings. I also like Gil. All around, this continues the fun of the series, with a light atmosphere, great character interactions, and bubbly romances that make a fan girl happy. Books like this one are the reason I read all twenty three volumes of this series. ( )

A lot of fun, but not as much fun as the first four volumes. But still, I really liked the flashback story about Mizuki and Gilbert, and Sano is getting pretty adorable. It may not be as laugh-out-loud as the previous volumes, but it's far from uninteresting!

Second time reading: As said last time, Sano is really adorable in this volume. I'm still really enjoying Hana-Kimi. While I liked the story about Mizuki and Gilbert, it kind of struck me as random and odd too. I would love Gilbert to make an actual appearance though, I think that would be pretty interesting. ( )