Teasing Master Takagi-san (2018)

[からかい上手の高木さん]

Volume 8

Author/Artist: Soichiro Yamamoto
Publisher: Gessan Shounen Sunday Comics Special

Synopsis:
It's Valentine's Day and Nishikata is expecting chocolate with some extra teasing.

Story/Characters:
We get two Valentine's chapters, one about Nishikata expecting to get chocolate from Takagi (and getting the runaround for it) and the other about Mano's clumsy efforts to give chocolate to Nakai amid Tanabe-sensei's vow to confiscate any chocolate he finds. (The ending is great.) We then have Nishikata trying to trick Takagi into a kendama challenge, but his negotiating skills are as bad as his acting. Next we get to see that his deductive skills aren't any better as he makes a challenge of trying to figure out why Takagi didn't bring her bike that day. After that is a couple classic PE scenarios: Takagi treating Nishikata's scraped knee in the nurse's office and the two of them getting locked into the gym's storeroom. We then have some winter fun, first with a snowman-making contest and another contest that involves carrying a sheet of ice. Next we jump to the summer where they try their hands at skipping stones and do we have a possible win for Nishikata?

Art:
Nishikata and Mano are in a dead heat over who can look the most flustered on Valentine's day. It's a good thing they're not paired with each other or they might blush themselves into oblivion. While the whole series is ship-teasy, we get a number of especially nice moments. Some of Takagi's sly expressions are also of a particularly impeccable quality.

Other:
We have an omake of Takagi giving Nishikata Valentine's chocolate. I don't know if it's supposed to be extracanonical or simply occurring on a different year than the one where "Valentine (1)" happens.

Conclusion:
I'd almost give this one an "own it" just for "Valentine (2)". Of course, the other chapters bring all the charm you've come to expect from the series, though a few do seem to be dialing up the ship tease a notch, like we're hurtling toward (Moto). Fans don't even need to ask. Add this one to the collection.

Rating:
Own It