The Case of Ritsu Onodera No.4

“The Case of Ritsu Onodera No.4” (小野寺律の場合 No.4, Onodera Ritsu no Baai No.4) is the fourth full chapter of The Case of Ritsu Onodera and the fifth overall chapter of the Sekai-ichi Hatsukoi manga series.
==Release Information==
“The Case of Ritsu Onodera No.4” was first released in The Ruby magazine in its fourth issue on June 13th, 2008.https://www.kadokawa.co.jp/product/200805000086/ Alongside “The Case of Ritsu Onodera No.4,” “The Case of Chiaki Yoshino No.4” 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.4," Ritsu Onodera struggles with the decision to transfer back to editing literature. Ryouichi Sumi, an author Ritsu used to work with at his former job, reminds him of his passion, and Sumi’s editor Hasegawa lets Ritsu know that it would be easy to transfer to the literature department. Ritsu runs into Masamune Takano at the library, and trips while running off, and runs into Takafumi Yokozawa as he's dropping off his cat at Takano's. Yokozawa warns Ritsu off again. Ritsu receives a call from Yukina Mutou, who thanks and encourages his work as a manga editor, and Takano gives him some reassurances as well. Takano notices that Ritsu is bleeding from his fall earlier and bandages the wound, and they get intimate, but they're interrupted by another call from Mutou to work on a manuscript. The next day, Ritsu comes into work fully prepared for the next meeting, having decided to stay on as a manga editor and not transfer.
== Long Summary ==
“The Case of Ritsu Onodera No.4,” opens with Ritsu Onodera waking up in his apartment entryway, having fallen asleep there the night before when he got home from exhaustion. It’s the morning of a departmental meeting that he’s supposed to sit in at Masamune Takano’s request, and he’s running late, so he quickly grabs an energy packet and rushes out the door in the clothes he wore yesterday. He arrives a bit late, but the meeting hasn’t started yet because Ryuichiro Isaka, Marukawa Publishing’s senior managing director, was included in the meeting and was running even later than Ritsu was. With everyone now in attendance, the meeting begins. 
With representatives from order processing, sales, and editorial departments as well as upper management through Isaka, the group works to decide how many copies of one of the manga being made in the Emerald department should be printed. The three departments argue quite a bit, with Takano insisting the first run print total 300,000 copies, Yokozawa insisting on 260,000 copies, and a woman from order processing not willing to go higher than 230,000. While the three departments argued amidst themselves, Isaka decided to ask Ritsu if he had anything to say, and after he says he’s sure the book will sell, everyone yells at him that of course it would.
After the meeting, Ritsu leaves the conference room, only to run into a familiar face in Ryouichi Sumi, an author that Ritsu used to do editing for back during his literature days at Onodera Publishing. Sumi is with his current Marukawa editor, Hasegawa. The three of them talk, and Sumi is shocked to hear about Ritsu’s career change from editing literature to instead editing girls manga. He ends up introducing Hasegawa and Ritsu to each other, the former of which is surprised to hear about Ritsu’s connections to Onodera Publishing. Ritsu isn’t thrilled to have that mentioned to someone that he’s just met, but when Takano walks by, Ritsu ends up calling him over to introduce him to Sumi.
After hearing that Takano is Ritsu’s current boss, Sumi asks Takano to not shut him out of working with literature completely, and then takes his leave. The editors all see Sumi off, and Takano quickly takes his leave back to the editing floor, leaving Ritsu alone with Hasegawa. The two of them get to talking about how Ritsu came to be at Marukawa despite having been at his familys’ company in the past. And not long after, Hasegawa begins to bad-talk Takano and his methods when it comes to work. Ritsu is quick to jump to Takano’s defense, and Hasegawa drops the subject.
Later on when Ritsu is back in the Emerald cubicle, Takano scolds Ritsu and accuses him of day-dreaming when he’s looking at one of Sumi’s novels and tells him to do his work. Just then, Hasegawa enters the department with a large stack of novels Sumi has published through Marukawa, offering them to Ritsu. Despite already owning all of them, Ritsu accepts them, and the conversation turns into Hasegawa asking Ritsu to go out drinking with him later. Takano, despite not being part of the conversation up to this point, interjects, rejecting the offer in Ritsu’s place. Hasegawa laughs it off, and mentions to Ritsu that he can easily transfer departments if Takano was being a demon boss and he wanted to work in literature again.
Despite having complained about his placement many times up until this point, this is the first time that Ritsu had considered just transferring departments over quitting. It weighs on him, and he continues to think about it throughout the day.
After work was finished for the day, Ritsu walks to the local library to return a book. As he stands around enjoying the evening breeze, Takano shows up, also having some books to return. It turns out that the two of them both frequent this library for similar reasons-they have a lot of rarer books that can’t be found at stores anymore.
Ritsu tries to leave, but Takano initiates conversation, ordering Ritsu not to be overly friendly with people from other departments at work, referring to the interactions with Hasegawa from earlier. Ritsu accuses Takano of being jealous, expecting him to deny it and laugh, but Takano just stares at him with a serious look. Ritsu ends up dashing off down a flight of stairs, and he ends up slipping on some fallen leaves. He would have hit his head if it weren’t for Takano catching him. Takano yells at him to be more careful and hugs him. Ritsu tries to wiggle his way out, but Takano squeezes onto him harder, keeping him in place.
He begins asking Ritsu how much he remembered about their time together a decade ago. Ritsu gets flustered, shoving him away, until Takano mentions that he knew who Ritsu was before he even confessed. This makes Ritsu pause in shock, and Takano takes the opportunity to kiss him. He tries to take this further until Ritsu ends up slapping him, leaving a mark on his cheek. This finally gives Ritsu the opportunity to get away, and he ends up tripping again, this time onto his front, dropping some papers in the process.
Back at their apartment building, when Ritsu gets to their floor, he’s surprised to see a cat walking out of Takano’s front door. It turns out that Yokozawa was over and had opened the door. At first, Yokozawa thinks that Ritsu was there for something work related, but upon finding out that he actually lives nextdoor he calls him a stalker. Ritsu insists that it was a coincidence, and that he only discovered they were neighbors after he began working at Marukawa. Yokozawa continues to push though, telling Ritsu to not mess with Takano.
Ritsu continues to insist that he and Takano are only boss and employee, that he didn’t appreciate Yokozawa’s insistence that he was messing with Takano. Yokozawa scoffs at this, and begins to detail how he knew Takano during their university years, how one day he became a complete wreck. It was all because of a high school breakup, the guy that Takano had dated in the past had ended up being engaged the entire time they were dating. Ritsu quickly puts together that Yokozawa was talking about him and his arranged engagement, and insists it’s all one big misunderstanding. Yokozawa doesn’t care, grabbing Ritsu by the scarf, yelling at him.
After Yokozawa lets go of Ritsu, Takano arrives, surprised to see Yokozawa. Ritsu bows out as the two of them talk, but can’t help but overhear Takano calling the cat Yokozawa had brought over Sorata. He suddenly remembers that when they were younger, Takano had rescued a cat in the rain, who he went on to name Sorata. He struggles to figure out why the cat was now in Yokozawa’s ownership.
As he enters his apartment, his thoughts slip back to transferring departments again, thinking back to what Hasegawa had said to him earlier. Looking around him, the messiness of his apartment reflects how busy and fatigued he’s been from work recently, how he’d barely slept in his bed recently, and he finds himself questioning why he’s even working as a manga editor to begin with.
Suddenly, Takano is at Ritsu’s front door ringing the bell. It turns out that Ritsu hadn’t picked up all the papers he’d dropped in front of the library after tripping earlier, and Takano had come to return them. Ritsu insists that he just put them in the mail slot and leave him be, but is eventually convinced to properly open the door to accept them. Takano grabs the door to hold it open so they can continue talking, asking Ritsu if he really wants to transfer departments. Before he can answer, his phone goes off. It’s a text from somebody from the production department concerning one of Yukina Mutou’s manuscripts. Takano tells Ritsu to call her right away about it, and he does so.
His conversation with her quickly turns to the events of The Case of Ritsu Onodera No.2, as the manuscript involved was the one that they ended up getting out despite a flu ravaging Mutou and her assistants. She expresses her thanks towards Ritsu for his hard work, mentioning despite being afraid of working with him at first since it was his first time working with manga, that she’s very glad he’s her editor now. Having just moments ago been considering switching departments, this praise was the thing that Ritsu needed to hear to stick around in Emerald.
After hanging up, Ritsu returns to Takano in the apartment entryway, asking if he believes that Ritsu can become a proper manga editor. He explains what had just happened on the phone with Mutou, and Takano points out that Ritsu had just essentially received the highest praise he could as an editor, going on to say that if Takano hadn’t thought Ritsu could do it he wouldn’t have been giving him all the work he was to begin with.
As Takano goes to leave Ritsu’s apartment, he notices blood running down Ritsu’s leg from his fall earlier. Since Ritsu doesn’t have anything to disinfect the wound, Takano insists on bringing him to his own apartment to apply first aid there. But Ritsu doesn’t want to go there, because Yokozawa might still be there. It turns out that Yokozawa had already left because he had a business trip to Kyushu the following day. Leaving it at that, Takano just tells Ritsu to wait in his entryway, that he’d be back with a first aid kit. Ritsu considers locking the door, but before he can do so, Takano is already back with supplies.
As he begins to wrap Ritsu’s wound with bandage, Takano tells Ritsu about his relationship with Yokozawa, how they’ve known each other since their university days and how Yokozawa was the one that got him his current job at Marukawa. Ritsu’s mind is somewhere else though, wondering things like if Yokozawa and Takano used to date, why exactly Yokozawa had a key to Takano’s apartment, whether or not Takano had really been hurt in the past by the whole fiancee thing and more. He ends up asking none of these questions.
Wound taken care of, Takano guides Ritsu’s head up, making him look him in the eye. He’s noticed that Ritsu has gotten really quiet and asks him what’s wrong, but Ritsu goes to shove him away again. Takano grabs him again, and tells him not to stop running away from him. He kisses Ritsu once, a second time, and the scene quickly turns into something sexual. Before they can go all the way though, Ritsu’s phone begins to ring, and it’s a ringtone that Ritsu specifically set for Mutou.
She wanted to go over some changes that Ritsu marked on one of her storyboards, and Ritsu is quick to oblige, pulling on some pants in a hurry, retreating to his living room. When Takano joins him, now also fully clothed again, Ritsu scribbles on some scrap paper a request for Takano to leave. Before doing so, Takano kisses him on the cheek, leaving Ritsu shocked into silence mid-sentence with Mutou. She’s worried to hear him go silent all of a sudden, and after gathering himself again, Ritsu insists that he’s just fine.
The next morning at work, Ritsu has a refreshed view towards his work as a manga editor after having received encouragement from Mutou and Takano the night before. He explains his new attitude to Shouta Kisa, Yoshiyuki Hatori, and Kanade Mino, and as Takano enters the cubicle he scolds Ritsu, saying he’s wasting time. At this, Ritsu challenges Takano, telling him that he’s going to become the best manga editor that anyone has ever seen and that he’ll steal Takano’s job as editor-in-chief one day.
Just as Ritsu says this, Isaka happens to be walking by, saying that he’ll be looking forward to the day that happens, saying that Takano should watch out. Ritsu immediately finds himself regretting his actions.
The chapter closes off with a countdown box that reads: 270 days left until Ritsu falls in love.
==Adaptations==
===Drama CD===
The Drama CD adaption of “The Case of Ritsu Onodera No.4” is part of Drama CD 3. The CD set was released February 28th, 2010. No.4’s adaption is part of the first disc, on Tracks 1 through 8.
===Anime===
The anime adaptation of this chapter is Episodes 11 and 12 of Season 1 of the Sekai-ichi Hatsukoi anime, It never rains but it pours and After a Storm Comes a Calm, having been released on June 18th, 2011 and June 25th, 2011 respectively. The anime adaptation of this chapter completely omits the sexual content, limiting Ritsu and Takano’s contact towards the end of the chapter to just kissing fully clothed. On a smaller note, while Ritsu is introducing Takano to Sumi, he refers to him by his full name rather than just calling him Takano as he does in the manga.
==Character Introductions==
*Ryouichi Sumi
*Hasegawa
== Gallery ==
To be added.
==Navigation==
== References ==
Category:The Case of Ritsu Onodera
Category:Volume 2