Kare Kano, Volume 20

While Kare Kano has sometimes been a teensy bit of a chore to finish at times, it's always been a fun read. This volume ventures into the backstory of Soichiro's parents and how they met. We also get to see a bit more of Soichiro & Yukino as they get closer & closer to the birth of their first child. As another reviewer has already given a wonderful synopsis, I won't bother going into more detail. Needless to say, it's a great volume. I've really enjoyed this series. Even when it's been a little tedious, it's still been enjoyable to look at. The artwork is usually gorgeous to look at and the characters are always fun. I have to admit though, it's a bit nice to come to the end of it & finally start to see how everything will finish.

In this penultimate volume of the series, the long story of Soichiro's parents concludes. Then, a chapter is dedicated to Soichiro's adopted mother. Finally, Yukino reveals her pregnancy to her mother, Soichiro, her father (with the rest of her family), and Soichiro's adopted parents. For the past few volumes, I felt that Tsuda-sensei had lost her way as she got bogged down in Soichiro's backstory. As a result, we lost touch with the main characters. However, she manages to bring Yukino and Soichiro back into the story as she wound down the story of Soichiro's real parents. Chapter 96 shifted to Soichiro's mother. Since it was only one chapter, it didn't get bogged down and was interesting in that we get to see how she and Soichiro's adopted father met. Chapter 97 returns the story to Yukino and Soichiro as the focus and this is where it became really enjoyable again for me. I liked how the pregnancy issue was dealt with -- a nice mix of humor and seriousness. A word on the TokyoPop translation. With this volume, TP returns to the use of honorifics for the translation, which in this readers mind makes the reading of the manga more enjoyable by keeping more of the Japanese flavor. It is unfortunate to me that the majority of the series had the honorifics stripped and ignored, but I'll take it here. Bottom line: Tsuda-sensei is wrapping up the series and finally returning the focus to Yukino and Soichiro. As such, this volume is an improvement over the previous few volumes.