Honey Lemon Soda: Way to her First Love

It’s already February, and I really lament the fact that I haven’t seen as many anime series as I planned to. January just moved so fast, like there’s no time for me to breathe, and just like that, I’m a year older again. Yeah, you read it right—my birthday already passed, and a lot of things happened in between those days, so much like what happened to the main character in the anime I just finished this Friday. For the first time this year, it’s a shoujo, and perhaps that’s because February is approaching. Now that the first day has already started, I decided it’s the perfect time to share this anime about a girl who took a really risky step into the new world she yearned to be part of. But would she perfectly fit in it? Or would she again be the stone that would always be ignored and tossed aside?

About the Anime

Honey Lemon Soda is a shoujo anime that was released last winter, 2025, and it aired from January 9 to March 27. This 12-episode-long school romance anime was animated by J.C. Staff was based on the shounen manga written and illustrated by Mayu Murata. This anime follows the life of our shy and timid FMC, Uka Ishimori, who after experiencing a hellish middle school, decided to move on to a school that is completely out of her character. Supposedly she’s bound for Shinsei High School; however, a fateful encounter with a lemon-colored-hair boy changes her prospects. So from Shinsei she went into Hachimitsu High School—the very same school that the lemon-colored-hair boy went into—hoping that would also be the school that she would belong to.

However, things didn’t go as smoothly as she expected because even in her first week, she immediately got accidentally soaked with lemon soda with Kai, the same lemon-colored-hair boy she met. After that, their once opposite worlds slowly became closer as Kai deliberately encouraged her to speak up. Of course that didn’t happen easily, given all the anxiety and worries pent up in her, yet little by little she learned how to come out of the shell that she caved in for a long time. But having him in her life didn’t magically change it because it’s still up to her if she’s brave enough to make decisions for herself and face the consequences that come with it.

Slowly and steadily, she braved her way towards forging friendships with people who appreciate her, yet as soon as she became more aware of herself and the people around her, she realized something. It all started like a subtle bubbly feeling, but as soon as he became more involved in her life, those feelings began to stir and threaten to fizz up violently. Can she express those feelings before they blow up, or will she let it calm and be contented with the friendship she has?

Watching this reminds me so much of Say I Love You, only that the FMC here isn’t feisty. The first few episodes became a struggle for me because I’m not really into this kind of FMC. I badly wanted her to immediately change for the better because I can’t tolerate watching her knees suddenly buckling. I wanted her to fight back, but no…that’s not her, so I became really patient with anticipating her character improvement. Although I’m not fond of the FMC, I like how she slowly improves herself through the challenges she encounters. True to her nickname, Stone—she’s indeed like one because even though her way towards that character improvement wasn’t easy, still she didn’t let those break her. I may initially find her improvement slow, but I guess that’s one of the charms of this anime because once she started moving forward towards that better version of herself, she didn’t regress later on even in the face of doubts and anxiety.

Further, I like how she didn’t solely depend on Kai and his friends on her journey to self-improvement. Yeah, he became the catalyst of her change, but that didn’t mean her changes were entirely dependent on him. I really agree with what Serina said to her, that with Kai she’s stronger and not just dependent on his help. She worked her way to become more open and truer to herself, and that’s something I didn’t expect this anime would portray well. I thought it would solely focus on the budding romance between Uka and Kai, so I didn’t expect that it would dwell more on Uka’s improvement. Anyway, it really highlighted how important it is to establish yourself before entering a relationship because usually the tendency is if you rush romance, there’s definitely one of them that ends up dependent, and that would subsequently become toxic later on. I already watched anime with concepts like that, and it turned out pretty stressful to me, so I’m glad this anime didn’t repeat that mistake.

Despite its charm, I can’t deny that its plot was far from unique—I mean, the-shy-girl-meets-the-popular-boy was pretty used up. Also, the side characters were kinda familiar, like the super friendly FMC’s girl best friend, the cool ex-girlfriend, the perceptive MC’s friend, the daft friend, and many others. Anyway, that isn’t that detrimental to the plot; however, I couldn’t help but notice that. Aside from the familiar plot and generic character, I can’t help but also notice how the progress of Uka and Kai's relationship was so public, like it seems that almost the whole school knows their status. I just find that odd because it seems that their relationship progress became the center of everyone’s business. Like even their teachers know that. It’s fine if it’s just their close friends and some perceptive classmate knows that, but in their case, it seems not only the whole school knows that. Perhaps I’m saying this because I do want to see other ships thrive and get focused too, not only the main ones.

So much for that; as for their visuals, they’re cute and beautiful. It’s definitely the shoujo style with their expressive eyes and ikemen boys. The first episode was particularly enthralling, especially the cherry blossoms, which served as a really nice background, and also the symbolism that it had aligns well with the beginning of FMC's high school journey. The animation wasn’t that impressive, but it’s not jarring on the eyes either, so it’s fine. The soundtrack was cool, yet for me I like the ending song more than the opening because the tune is more heartwarming, plus the visuals of the whole class joining in look so cute. Their ending song really did make me stay until the end, and it’s definitely a sweet way to end an episode with good vibes!

Overall, this anime is a 7.9/10 for me because there are moments that really felt dragging to watch...perhaps because I’m not much into romance. I’m not aware that it’s a slow-burn romance, so there are times that I get impatient, especially with how uncertain Kai is in the early episodes. Even I, a viewer, was confused on how he really felt for her because there were times that he seemed to want to get close to her, but the moment they got closer, he suddenly was out of reach again. That made me relate to Uka much more because he’s too unpredictable. Anyway, despite those, I somehow still enjoyed the majority of it, and if you’re into the usual shoujo with an FMC that gets satisfying character improvement, then you should try Honey Lemon Soda.

Before I end this up, I'll share with you its trailer, so—

Have you seen this anime already? Or is it your first time encountering it? Well, if you have something to share, then feel free to write it down in the comments. And that would be all for now, minna-san~ Hope you enjoyed reading my review.