Love at Fourteen, Vol. 9 (Volume 9) (Love at Fourteen, 9)

Love at Fourteen continues it's slow burn, now with an end in sight! Of course, it took nine volumes to traverse something like six months, so with three months to go, who knows how many more years it has in it. I just hope Shiki gets a happy ending (and no one ends up going jail!).The series' home publication, Comic Rakuen (available from Amazon.jp with 4 day shipping to just about anywhere), comes out 3 to 4 times a year I believe, which would explain the higher number of intermission chapters. Worryingly, Rakuen (le paradis it's called in the afterwords and if you want to search it on Japanese Amazon), only came out twice this year, so it may be a while before volume 10 is released in Japan, let alone in the US. If for some reason the publication or the series get axed, we may only get one chapter to end the story if we're lucky.This series is still a must for romance fans, and even for fans of Mizutani's yuri work in Tsubomi. You will see a lot of the same tropes and themes of forbidden, hidden love common to yuri genre fiction play out over many different relationships.

I hope this is not the conclusion but I have read no indication of future volumes. The end is not even a poor cliffhanger, but a cop out that the author may have writer’s block. The sad part is that for eight and a half volumes, this was something special. Two very likable main characters and the lesser players were equally interesting. Instead, we get three story arcs which just hang in limbo. I hope it is just the author taking time off or a translation issue because ending this series here is bad form.

'Love at Fourteen, vol 9' has finally come out, and though they've been getting closer, they're still keeping up their mature acts, even as their friends help them through challenging times. Something I find amusing is the chapter list here, which reveals that we're on Chapter 41 of their love story... and Intermission 56 of everyone else's. :) It's still a really cute series, with beautiful and expressive art, and a lot more emotional drama in this volume as the winter months seem to bring things closer to some sort of end? The balance here between staying 'mature' for their school life, while learning to be open and in love with each other, is something I continue to really appreciate. I'm looking forward to the next volume, whenever that comes out, to find out what's going to happen to them next.