By Kazuki Amamiya and Gin. Released in Japan as “Haibara-kun no Tsuyokute Seishun New Game” by HJ Bunko. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Esther Sun.

One of the things that folks tend to forget about teenage years as they grow older is how wonderful, how absolutely cathartic it can be to see your friends, your pals, those you are closest to and hang out with all the time, be complete and utter dipshits and make the worst choices imaginable. Not in a dangerous and life-threatening way – I don’t mean “I’m gonna take heroin” or that jazz. No, I mean things like “hey, I bet I can eat all these hot pockets in one go” or “I wonder how far I can go if I went down this steep slope on a garbage can lid?”. Dumb teen stuff. So when the cast here try to work out how to get Reita to listen to them and not throw away his entire life, Natsuki is the one who understands: we need to do the dumbest thing. Only that can save us. And it does, of course, because they’re teens, and also because this is a romcom.

Reita’s been suspended for a week for getting into a fight outside school. What’s more, there’s a video uploaded to social media of the fight, which is clearly staged BY Reita to destroy his own reputation. Everyone tries to get him to open up, and they all fail – he is really, really determined to throw himself under the bus. A visit to his home gives Natsuki some answers, but not many – home life not the best. But there has to be something there that’s more than just “I wasn’t thinking about Miori, I am a terrible person”. This also isn’t helping Miori much either – her reputation is not in the dirt anymore, but that’s because Reita is trying to say he forced her to do everything. Can Natsuki come up with a plan to solve everything in one go? See above re: dumb things.

Obviously Reita is the bulk of the book, but there is also the traditional romcom that is the reason you’re reading this. I appreciate that Natsuki and Hikari are dating and yet there’s still an acknowledgement that Natsuki also has feelings for Uta and Miori – in fact, as Hikari points out, right now his feelings for Miori are probably greater. But all of that is irrelevant – it has to be. Yes, he can’t let go of those feelings so easily. But he can reject the others girls and dedicate himself to dating Hikari, which he has done. The last part of the book is a classic Christmas Eve date, and it ends with a big ol’ confession and kiss. I will admit that sometimes this series is a bit too fastball-down-the-middle – Natsuki’s rainbow colored life feels a little too easy – but then again, he already suffered in his first life. And he did get the crap beaten out of him in this book. It evens out.

We’re caught up with Japan again – Book 8 is out early next year – so how things go from here is unknown. I can’t see this series going on too much longer, though. But it’s good overdramatic stuff.

By Kazuki Amamiya and Gin. Released in Japan as “Haibara-kun no Tsuyokute Seishun New Game” by HJ Bunko. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Esther Sun.

There’s always been an element of drama to this series, which has sort of waffled between teen romcom and teen angst at times. But this volume pretty much jettisons the humor entirely, and any romance we get is of the tortured variety. This is also to be expected. Natsuki may have 7 extra years on the rest of the cast, but that does not make him any less of a dumbass when trying to see feelings that are so close to his nose that they’re invisible to him. We also not only get a nice round of high school bullying here, but also how how it ties in to elementary school bullying from the past, and that “conformity”, needless to say, is rewarded, while being an outcast gets you… well, even more outcasted. And then of course there is Miori, who has apparently decided that everything is her fault, that she’s the worst person alive, and that the only solution left to her is to fix the “alive” part. Fortunately, this isn’t quite THAT dark a high school romantic drama.

Nasty rumors are spreading throughout the school, helped along by a girl who really hates Miori (because of her relationship with Reita, of course), and Miori has actually been home from school for a week. Though honestly that’s more due to the fallout from realizing just how much she loves Natsuki and despairing about how it’s far too late to do anything about it. Natsuki, of course, is also not being helped here, given that he’s accused of cheating on his girlfriend with another girl. As for Hikari, everyone’s worried about how she takes this, but honestly we may need to be more worried about what she feels after she hears the actual truth. Unfortunately, Miori eventually snaps and decides to run away… and Natsuki worries she may take things even further.

So yes, word of warning, there is a suicide attempt in this book. That said, it’s resolved fairly quickly, and there are not many “real world” aftereffects, mostly as only Miori and Natsuki know what she was about to do. That said, honestly, the best scene in the book comes right before he rescues her, when he confronts Reita, who is determined to rescue her first and win over Natsuki. Natsuki, naturally, is livid, pointing out that Reita is only thinking of himself and not Miori at all. Accurate, and this leads to the cliffhanger of the book, where Reita apparently decides to solve his problems by becoming a delinquent and getting suspended. I think these teens need better coping mechanisms, honestly. I’m sure Reita will be the subject of the next book, though how his relationship with Miori will fall out (or fall apart) remains to be seen.

The next book is gonna be a bit, though – this volume only came out in December. So feel relief that Natsuki was able to defuse things, and hope that Hikari can get over her hangups about cooking. And Miori, please feel better soon.

By Kazuki Amamiya and Gin. Released in Japan as “Haibara-kun no Tsuyokute Seishun New Game” by HJ Bunko. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Esther Sun.

In my review of the last book I mentioned that I was not entirely sure where the series would be going after this, since it seemed to end so decisively with the fourth volume: Natsuki has confessed to Hikari, rejected Uta as best he could, and also done a “God Knows” musical moment on the crowd. But of course, having a fulfilling high school life is the goal that he had when he went back in time, and romance is not the only thing in high school. That said… it is a pretty big thing. The Fellowship is still a bit broken after he made his confession, with Uta pouring everything into basketball and Tatsuya completely remaking his entire personality. And there’s the fact that he’s childhood friends and best friends with Miori… which makes everyone think they’re ALSO dating, and makes Hikari a little jealous (though she won’t say it out loud). That said, most of what we get in this volume is the other high school mainstay: sports!

No, it’s not a full blown sports festival (which is a shame, as I wanted to see some bread eating and scavenger hunt antics), but a ball game competition. The class divides into groups, each doing a different sport. For Natsuki’s class, the boys have basketball and the girls have soccer. That’s fine by Natsuki, who has all the training he got in his past life when he was trying desperately to be a cool athlete. But the actual cool athlete, Tatsuya, is still in an incredible funk over giving Uta up to Natsuki and then having Natsuki reject her anyway. As a result, he’s trying to BECOME Natsuki, pouring effort into studying to raise his grades. But does Uta even want someone who’s “just like Natsuki”? Also, is Miori finally going to snap, or will that wait till next book?

We’ve guessed that Miori has a hidden crush on Natsuki since the start of the series, but it’s now getting a lot less hidden. For one thing, she’s dealing with nasty rumors that she’s cheating on Reita with Natsuki, because they’re both on the Sports Committee and also clearly close. She’s also not dealing with with his new relationship with Hikari, trying to distance herself from him but failing, and pulling off a genuine “What if… I was in love with you all this time… ha ha just kidding… unless?”. Most importantly, Reita is well aware that she loves Natsuki, and is basically patiently waiting for her to either get past it, confront Natsuki, or break up with him. None of those things is happening. She and Natsuki are both much better at giving advice on love than dealing with it themselves, to be honest – Natsuki is flailing around trying to figure out how to behave when dating someone, and both he and Miori are fantastic when getting their cute nerd friends to confess to each other but less so otherwise.

So yeah, it turns out that returning to high school not only gets you a rainbow-colored youth but also typical high school drama. Still a fun series in the high school romcom genre.