Star⇄Crossed!! Volume 3 Review (Spoiler‑Free)

It doesn’t seem like Azusa and Chika can catch a break.

While in Chika’s body, Azusa suddenly gets kissed by Haru and freaks out. Unable to avoid the P4U singer for long, Azusa reveals her and Chika’s secret, adding yet another person to those in-the-know. Though Haru doesn’t believe her at first, a quick visit from god sets things straight. But there is more to Haru than meets the eye, and these two Chika stans are about to butt heads.

The Good

Junko doesn’t slow down with the laughs, tension, or fanservice in this newest volume. And now that yet another person has joined into this love-triangle-thing, their lives get even crazier. Azusa and Haru are constantly competing over Chika, and the fact that she’s still in his body makes it even more interesting.

There is quite a bit of character development in this volume, too. I loved seeing Chika get a little more comfortable with who he is, and his drive to work on things he’s passionate about is super heartwarming. Azusa’s dedication to helping him and their blooming friendship is just the icing on the cake.

The Bad

Despite the great character development, this is the weakest volume so far. Junko pulls from quite a few artificial plot-lengthening devices that I personally dislike.

It’s revealed at the beginning of the volume that Haru knows a game-changing secret, but he purposefully keeps it to himself despite knowing how important it is. It’s easy to see that this decision will lead to conflict later on in the series, and the fact that such an overused trope was put in despite Junko doing such a good job of adding new and fun twists to everything else so far really didn’t sit well with me.

My biggest fear when I picked up this series finally came true, and while it’s something I personally don’t like, I know it comes with the territory when talking about major K and J-pop fans, and that’s the belief that an idol can’t be their own person and instead belongs to everyone. This forced projection on idols to not be real people and instead be the property of their fans is just awful any way it’s put. Again, I know this comes with the territory, but the fact that Junko had avoided Azusa being like this until now is part of what made me like the series. Luckily, the drama added to the volume revolving around this issue doesn’t take up a lot of page space, and it does seem like it’s brought up to be a talking point later in the series as to why this isn’t healthy. As long as it does that, I can be fine, and I think it would be a great topic to expand on in that way.

The Verdict

Star⇄Crossed!! volume 3 is yet another good entry to a strong series. While I had my issues with some of the content, I still highly recommend the manga as a whole. Volume 4’s physical release is still a ways away, and there’s no doubt I’ll be getting it.

Credits

Story and art by Junko

Translation by Barbara Vincent / amimaru

Lettering by Mohit Dhiman / amimaru

Editing by Vanessa Tenazas

Published by Kodansha Comics