By Takehaya and Poco. Released in Japan as “Rokujouma no Shinryakusha!?” by HJ Bunko. Released in North America digitally by J-Novel Club. Translated by Warnis.

I’ve been trying to catch up with Rokujouma, which threw me off my schedule by coming out in packs of 3 for a while. This is the first of the “post-finale” volumes, except of course it isn’t post-finale at all, there’s still stuff to be done. Forthorthe has “come out” to Earth, and now all sort of treaty negotiations have to take place, which will involve not screwing things up on either end. Third parties are trying to “fix” things on either side, they still can’t quite admit the presence of the magical world and the underground dwellers as well just yet, and even the yakuza is getting involved, thanks to finding a well-meaning chump – you can probably guess who that chump is. It’s also the start of a new school year. Mackenzie’s sister is now a first year, and is horrified to find her brother dates around. And we also meet a new transfer student from Forthorthe, seemingly the sister of a reporter who’s there as part of an initial exchange program, but boy, she sure seems familiar…

This book was not quite as solid as the last few have been – three’s a sense of “your series is too popular to end, please write more” to a degree. The bad guy is nephew of the bad guy from Forthorthe, and is there to be a bad guy and not much more – likewise the big battle near the end, while it is nice to see all the girls joining together to fight, felt like nothing we hadn’t seen before. And much as I love Yurika no matter what, I’m not as much a fan of her when she’s in Big Stupid mode, so seeing her happily running drugs and weapons for the yakuza, having not bothered to ask what’s in the suspicious boxes, made me feel a bit annoyed. That said, I did really like the bit where it’s pointed out to a despairing Yurika that Koutarou is being mean to her, meaning he’s not actually worried she’s in real trouble with the law here.

More interesting are the two new students. Nalfa Laren is, of course, the goddess whose plot we resolved in 29. She erased everyone’s memories, including her own (with an escape hatch for Kiriha in case of an emergency) and is living the life of a happy-go-lucky student – perhaps a bit TOO happy-go-lucky, given her clumsy tendencies which even make Yurika worry. We also get to meet McKinley, who idolized her brother till she found out he dares to date multiple women and is now furious with him. Alas, her adoration of Koutarou is fully justified, because Koutarou really IS that awesome – after all, he may have 9 (10?) women in love with him, but that doesn’t mean he’s dating any of them. Yet. She is basically a little sister character who is overly romantic, and that’s fine.

The next volume is another “half short-stories, half book” one, only in this case the half-book is the promised alternate universe, this first one being “Koutarou chooses to date Harumi”. We’ll see how that goes. Till then, enjoy Rokujouma 30, which is dancing a bit too fast to justify the ongoing plot, but is still decent.

By Takehaya and Poco. Released in Japan as “Rokujouma no Shinryakusha!?” by HJ Bunko. Released in North America digitally by J-Novel Club. Translated by Warnis.

I’ve been saying for a while now that the “harem total” in this series is not going to get larger or smaller, and in this volume I am proved wrong. That said, if you’re going to add someone to a pile of girls who are as much a found family as romantic rivals, go big or go home. God joins the party here, in the presence of the being who greeted Koutarou in Volume 1. For a while it was thought to be Harumi/Alaia in some way, but now we know that that wasn’t thinking quite grandiose enough. Before we get to that point, though, we continue the theme of the previous books, as one by one the cast vanish from Koutarou’s life, essentially his worst fear, and he has to deal with it. He doesn’t deal with it very well. Fortunately, the dwindling group of women in his life are able to figure out what is going on long enough for him to go back to the place it all began… and also set up some intriguing alternate universes.

The cover art… and the plot… and every single thing about the book, really… might make you assume this is the last book in the series. It’s certainly the final part of the “main” plot that the author originally came up with – this is where he envisioned it ending, no matter how many books it turned out to be. But the cast are becoming third-years (except for the graduated Harumi), and we’re going to be seeing what happens next starting with Vol. 30. As for this book, there’s not much to it aside from emotional beats. They’re very good emotional beats, don’t get me wrong, but I do wish Koutarou had sort of figured out that when he is standing next to a girl and reminiscing about all the good times they’ve had since book 1, she’s going to be the next to go. There is a bit of a “memory reset” at the end, but it’s entirely voluntary, and you understand why they did it.

The interesting thing, to me, was the concept of the alternate universes brought up by Nalfalaren. The one we’ve been reading is the only one in like 5 billion or so where Koutarou revives her with all nine girls who are “part of her” at his side. In other words, this is the only harem end universe. We see one of the alternate universes towards the end of this book, as Koutarou has to deal with a world where none of the cast ever showed up in Room 106 and he ended up dating Shiori Kashiwagi, who readers may recall as having a crush on him a few books back, and is entirely a normal girl. It’s good to know someone is there to help Koutarou get over the tragedies in his life regardless, but it’s still nice to see the ending I think readers wanted, which is ambiguous but also feels right.

Next time we’re getting a continuation, but we’re also going to start to see some of those “alternate universes” where Koutarou was able to settle on one of the girls. Either way, you don’t have to worry about the cast vanishing from your lives anytime soon.

By Takehaya and Poco. Released in Japan as “Rokujouma no Shinryakusha!?” by HJ Bunko. Released in North America digitally by J-Novel Club. Translated by Warnis.

The author admits that this was supposed to be the last book but it got too big, so it’s split into a two-parter with a cliffhanger ending. It also gives some extra attention to Clan and Maki, two of the last to join in the Koutarou sweepstakes, and therefore the ones with the least development with him. That said, Clan going with Koutarou to the past gave her a leg up on the others, and Maki got a book of her own as well. The plot machinations involved mean we get a “greatest hits” compilation with those two, which is sweet and reminds you of why you like them, and also writes them out… at least for now. Because the girls are disappearing, starting with those two, and no doubt that feeds into the final book of the “main” series. Fortunately for the reader, they seem to know what’s going on, even if Koutarou doesn’t. It’s probably connected to the ancient ruins he fell into in the first book.

The main thrust of the book is not the disappearances, though, but Forthothe going public. After spending so much time trying to cover up the existence of alien worlds, and parallel magical worlds, and underground dwellers, they’re all coming out at once, and Earth is trying to deal with the fallout. And I do mean all of Earth – the fact that all this cool stuff is centered on Japan means that other countries are upset, and are not going to simply smile and nod. As a result, we have spies following our heroes around trying to prove their connections to everyone. Mostly this happens because, well, Theia used Forthothe’s own past as part of her drama club show, so it has everything written down. Koutarou, Maki and Clan’s job is to make the spies think the girls – particularly Kiriha and Yurika – are normal. They do a good job.

Though the book has not explicitly made this a “everybody wins” sort of series, that’s clearly the way that it’s heading, and the books have set this up very well, emphasizing the close bond everyone has with each other. That said, I do also appreciate that everyone is not magically OK with everything – when, in the classroom, Koutarou and Maki have a telepathic conversation, we see the other girls jealous of their closeness. One of the running themes of the series is that each of the girls desires what the other one has – Harumi wants to be roughhoused with, Clan wants to be cared for, everyone wants the closeness that Koutarou and Yurika or Theia have… they’re not a hive mind. Or at least not yet… if the disappearances and the “globes” that we see at the very end are anything to go by, Koutarou may have to handle this final crisis by himself.

The 29th volume (31st in the series – remember the .5s!) has the original “main” cast on the cover, as befits an ending volume. Of course, it’s not ending. But this is a good setup for a sort of finale. Fans of the series should enjoy it. Also, it’s quite short.