It's the summer and not much is going on at the Hinata House besides a lot of moping around by Keitaro after learning that Naru's crush was his current employer Seta. The Hinata gang soon finds themselves at the beach, however, working at Haruka's beach café. The book features a few defining moments for the series – as well as several convoluted character driven short stories – but overall the volume is one of the best the series has had so far.

The status quo of Love Hina has been following the same routine for the last four volumes, and will probably continue until the end of the series. The series is built around the continuing pursuit of Keitaro getting into Tokyo U and the "will they or won't they" budding relationship he has with Naru, punctuated with random short stories about the various girls that aren't featured heavily into the love story. Most of the time the character driven stories do a good job at rounding out the girls and placing the spotlight on fan favorites that don't get too much book time otherwise, but sometimes the stories fail horribly. The character stories win out more than they lose in the fifth volume, with Shinobu's being the best.

Love Hina 5

Shinobu's is a lighthearted look at kissing, as she starts to wonder what it must feel like, and her subsequent investigation into the matter with the other girls in the Hinata House. The story features some first kisses – not necessarily between who (or what) you might think – but overall it's just a really cute story about a young girl wondering about love. Even Su has an enjoyable (though farfetched) character story this volume, and she is one of the characters I usually enjoy the least while reading Love Hina. Kitsune's story, however, is fairly standard and predictable, while the story about Goku – starring the Love Hina cast – is plain boring.

The story of Keitaro and Naru's budding relationship has always been (and will always be for all that I know) the most exciting aspect of Love Hina. I love the constant misses the two characters have at getting together, and though their situation is exaggerated for the sake of comedy, it feels genuine and is always a joy to read about each volume. Volume five of Love Hina, however, features some of the greatest highs and lowest lows of the series' run (not in terms of quality, but rather the events that happen to the two characters).

Besides the character stories that simply didn't work, the only other complaint I have is over the reintroduction of Keitaro's friends – Haitani and Shirai. The two characters were Keitaro's only friends for the longest time, and yet when he finally sees them again, he can't even remember their names. I know it's "supposed" to come off as a funny aside to readers and the fact that they haven't been seen in ages, but instead it comes off as extremely fake and annoying.

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