The Case of Ritsu Onodera No.3

“The Case of Ritsu Onodera No.3” (小野寺律の場合 No.3, Onodera Ritsu no Baai No.3) is the third full chapter of The Case of Ritsu Onodera in the Sekai-ichi Hatsukoi manga series.
==Release Information==
"The Case of Ritsu Onodera No.3" was first released in The Ruby magazine in its third issue on November 13th, 2007.https://www.kadokawa.co.jp/product/200710000158/ Alongside "The Case of Ritsu Onodera No.3," "The Case of Chiaki Yoshino No.3" was released in the same issue in the form of a light novel chapter. Both would later be compiled in volumes, Sekai-ichi Hatsukoi: The Case of Ritsu Onodera Volume 2 and The Case of Chiaki Yoshino Volume 2 respectively.
== Short Summary ==
In "The Case of Ritsu Onodera No.3," Ritsu Onodera is working on a publication proposal, which Masamune Takano initially rejects. Ritsu continues to struggle with his feelings for Takano, and the situation becomes more complicated when he hears about Takano and Takafumi Yokozawa's history together from Yoshiyuki Hatori, when he hears about Takano's reputation from his former coworker Saeki, and when he sees Takano out with a woman. Takano confronts Ritsu since he saw Ritsu out with Saeki, and he pulls him into his apartment, but Ritsu runs out on him again. The chapter ends with Ritsu nervously heading to a meeting at Marukawa Publishing where he will present his publication proposal. Takano reassures him, but Ryuichiro Isaka makes a joke that he and Ritsu have both ridden their parents' coattails, embarrassing Ritsu, and Takano laughs at him.
== Long Summary ==
“The Case of Ritsu Onodera No.3,” opens with a flashback to Ritsu Onodera and Masamune Takano’s school days. Ritsu finds Saga sleeping at a table in their school library and Ritsu attempts to get a look at the open book in front of him. However, when he begins picking up Saga’s book, he stirs in his sleep a bit, scaring Ritsu into thinking he’s about to wake up, and he dashes away. As he looks through different books in the library in search of more books that Saga had checked out already, Ritsu thinks about how he loves Saga. Right after the thought passes, Ritsu wakes up, discovering that he had been having a dream about his time with Takano in high school. He is very upset about this, and refers to it as a nightmare.
Later that day at the Emerald Department, Takano rejects one of Ritsu’s first publication proposals for a series by Yukina Mutou that he is in charge of after barely spending any time looking at it. Takano continuously points out all the problems with the proposal, eventually just telling Ritsu that he has to do the entire thing over again. Ritsu spends time on the proposal until most of the people on the editing floor have already left, to the point where Takano is surprised to find him still in the office when he walks back into the office.
Takano quickly figures out that Ritsu is still working on the proposal and asks to see it, but Ritsu insists that he can handle working on it himself. They continue to argue about it, until Ritsu slaps Takano’s hand away and nearly makes him spill the cup of coffee he had been holding. This finally calms things down a bit, and Takano takes a seat next to Ritsu at Kisa’s desk. He begins listing off questions that are relevant to the proposal, involving things like poll results for Mutou, how many copies of her manga have been sold, estimates for future sales, and more. Ritsu begins to take notes on all the things that Takano is listing for him to consider, After he finishes writing everything down, Takano leans over and kisses him.
Ritsu doesn’t take well to being kissed in their place of work and punches Takano on the head. It just so happens that Takafumi Yokozawa was walking into their cubicle right as the kiss happened, and caught the two of them kissing. Yokozawa informs Takano that the head of the sales department wanted to talk to him about a TV series for one of Yoshikawa Chiharu’s series. As Takano leaves to go meet the head of the sales department, Yokozawa scolds him, most likely for the kiss he had just seen. As the two of them talk, Ritsu excuses himself to the bathroom in an attempt to hide.
After a bit of time passes, Ritsu re-enters the Emerald cubicle, hopeful that both Takano and Yokozawa were gone so that he could just go home. To his surprise, Yokozawa is still there waiting for him. He tells Ritsu that Takano is his, leading Ritsu to say that there is nothing going on between himself and Takano. Yokozawa calls him a liar and leaves the cubicle to attend to his own work. This makes Ritsu wonder about Yokozawa and Takano’s relationship, and he begins to think that the two of them might be dating.
The next day as he approaches the Marukawa Publishing building, he asks Yoshiyuki Hatori about Yokozawa and Takano’s relationship. He tells Ritsu that he’s heard that the two of them used to attend the same college, and that Yokozawa had been the one to get Takano into the publishing business to begin with. As they enter the building, the two of them have to go their separate ways right as Takano shows up. This leaves Ritsu and Takano alone in an elevator, the last thing that Ritsu wants right now. Takano goes to grab a piece of lint from Ritsu’s hair, and Ritsu slaps his hand away, not knowing what he had been doing. The moment that the doors open to their floor, Ritsu runs away, embarrassed.
After work finishes up for the day, Ritsu goes to Marimo Books and stocks up on manga so that he can do some research and focus on work instead of thinking about his current relationship problems. He happens to run into Saeki, a former co-worker from when he worked at Onodera Publishing. The two of them go out to eat at a restaurant and catch up. Not long into their visit, Takano arrives at the same restaurant to meet up with Erika Ichinose, one of Emerald’s authors. Ritsu has never met her before and isn’t aware it’s a work affair.
After Takano walks away, Saeki, a fellow shoujo manga editor, realizes just who Takano was. She talks about how he’s a famous editor in their circle for making Emerald what it was in a single year. She also mentions that she’s heard rumors that Takano gets around a lot in his private time, and Ritsu thinks to the woman that he saw with him, getting progressively more jealous as he thinks back to what Yokozawa had said to him back at the office.
When he returns to their building, Ritsu finds Takano waiting for him outside of their apartments. Takano accuses Ritsu of neglecting his work to spend time with women, referring specifically to Saeki, and ends up dragging him into his own apartment to continue their conversation. Ritsu discovers that he had misunderstood who Takano had been with back at the restaurant and is mortified. Ritsu begins to insist that Takano should be doing things like this with Yokozawa instead, and Takano is confused, saying that Yokozawa is only a friend to him.
Ritsu continuously tries to leave, but Takano keeps blocking his only path out. He asks Ritsu if he’s in love with him, saying that Ritsu has done nothing but jump to conclusions. Ritsu keeps denying that he has feelings for him, until Takano finally kisses him. Kissing escalates to touching, and Takano forces Ritsu to reciprocate this touch. Once things calm down a bit, Takano asks Ritsu again if he loves him. Ritsu says that he’ll never fall in love with him, and he pushes Ritsu onto the floor in anger as his phone begins to ring. Ritsu is able to finally push Takano off of him and leave, escaping to his own apartment.
Takano answers his phone, a call from Yokozawa. He asks Yokozawa just what he’s been saying to Ritsu, and Yokozawa talks about Takano’s usual policy of not mixing work with his private life. Takano insists that he isn’t mixing the two of them, but Yokozawa doesn’t let up. Takano hangs up on him. The story then cuts back to Ritsu’s apartment, where he’s hunched over in his entryway, absolutely convinced that Takano is only teasing him.
An undisclosed amount of time later at work, it’s time for Ritsu to present his publication proposal that he was shown working on at the start of the chapter. In his nerves, he forgot to grab the paperwork, Takano bringing it to him. The two of them board the elevator, and Ryuichiro Isaka joins them on a lower floor. Takano introduces the two of them to each other, revealing that Isaka is the Senior Managing Director of the entire company. Isaka compliments Ritsu’s work on the proposal that he’s about to present at the meeting, and Takano says that such praise was pretty rare. This only makes Ritsu even more nervous about the upcoming meeting.
As they approach the conference room, Isaka calls out to Ritsu. In front of quite a few employees, he talks about how both of them are the children of company presidents, referring to both of them as coattail riders.
The chapter closes off with a countdown box that reads: 302 days left until Ritsu falls in love.
==Adaptations==
=== Drama CD ===
The Drama CD adaptation of “The Case of Ritsu Onodera No.3” is part of Drama CD 2. The CD set was released October 31st, 2008. No.3’s adaptation is part of the second disc, on Tracks 4 through 9.
=== Anime ===
The anime adaptation of this chapter is Episode 7 of Season 1 of the Sekai-ichi Hatsukoi anime, Coming Events Cast Their Shadows Before Them, having been released on May 21st, 2011. The anime adaptation of this chapter doesn’t directly show any of the more sexual content of the original chapter, opting to cut away from most direct touching, focusing more on facial expressions. Additionally, this adaptation completely removed when Takano tackled Ritsu onto the floor before he ran out on him.
== Character Introductions ==
* Saeki
* Erika Ichinose
* Ryuichiro Isaka
== Trivia ==
* In the official English release, which is published through Viz Media’s imprint Sublime Manga, there is a mistranslation in the scene which takes place after Ritsu leaves the restaurant. In this translation, there is a sequence in which Ritsu briefly thinks about how he missed so much school after the breakup with Saga that he was almost held back a year. There is nothing close to this in the original Japanese text.
== Gallery ==
File:The Ruby magazine vol 03.jpg|The Ruby Vol. 3</br>Cover
File:Volume02cover.jpg|Sekai-ichi Hatsukoi</br>Vol. 2 Cover
==Navigation==
== References ==
Category:The Case of Ritsu Onodera
Category:Manga Chapters
Category:Volume 2