By Kyosuke Kamishiro and TakayaKi. Released in Japan as “Mamahaha no Tsurego ga Motokano datta” by Kadokawa Sneaker Bunko. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Gierrlon Dunn.

I’ve talked a lot about the fact that this is in many ways a very typical Japanese high school romcom. There’s an obvious winning couple. But there’s also a second, losing love interest who is far more interesting than the main one, mostly because she has no filter whatsoever. Isana would be a nightmare to deal with in real life, as Mizuto and Yume have both observed, but as fiction she’s wonderful. And there’s also the fact that these are all teenagers, about 17 years old, and they are seriously horny. And this series has never been shy about its fanservice, having a very, very high “count the number of times the main characters think about breast size” ratio. This only increases with this book, as we get a new supporting cast when Yume joins the student council. There’s a cute-first year who’s short but stacked. There’s a spunky second-year who’s also… seemingly… top-heavy. Yume’s not small. Isana is very large. You get the ideqa. This book is for guys.

Yume is now on the student council, and is dealing with several things at once. The most normal is that the sports festival is coming up, and the council have to help out there. Also, one of the council members regards Yume taking first place as offensive, and declares herself a rival who will take first place in the next exams… even if that means studying a bit TOO hard. But most importantly, there’s Yume’s desire to try to break down Mizuto’s emotional walls. There’s humorous ways to try (which I’ll discuss below) and heartwarming ways, such as their joint birthday party, where we also learn that their parents actually met much earlier than either of them knew. That said… all of this may be for naught when Isana’s bra breaks during the sports festival and creates misunderstandings galore.

The funniest part of the book, if only as it has the most characters acting completely ludicrously, is where Yume gets advice on seducing Mizuto by taking a bath with him. This idea comes from Akatsuki, who does just this sort of this with Kawanami, but Yume does not really realize that Akatsuki is a TERRIBLE person to get seduction advice from. The scene almost turns heartwarming, but is also seriously funny, especially when Mizuto’s towel drops and… well, Yume’s not disappointed, at least. Other than that, Isana has pretty much resolved herself to being as blatantly forward as possible until Mizuto stops her, and most of the sexual humor in the book is hers. (Most of the painful comedy is hers as well – falling on your breasts while not wearing a bra and getting dragged along HURTS.) As for the main romantic relationship… baby steps. The presents were nice, but Mizuto is still not quite ready yet. This may take till graduation.

So yeah, another decent volume in this series. It won’t light a fire under you, but it’s cute and fun and has likeable leads.

By Kyosuke Kamishiro and TakayaKi. Released in Japan as “Mamahaha no Tsurego ga Motokano datta” by Kadokawa Sneaker Bunko. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Gierrlon Dunn.

This series is definitely one which enjoys being for otaku nerds, and expects its readers to keep up. Fortunately, it also has Yume, who is not an otaku nerd, and who sometimes needs things explained. (There’s a Haruhi Suzumiya joke here, and it’s remarked on how old that series is.) It also leans heavily on the sort of stereotypes such fans enjoy. And Isana Higashira leans heavily into those stereotypes. She’s the weird one. She talks like she’s from the 19th century. She’s got a really big chest. The whole nine yards. She’s also a hoot to read. I was quoting this book on Twitter while I read it, and everything I was quoting was one of her lines. That said, there’s a reason why, despite her plotline supposedly wrapping up in the second volume, the author came back to look at her in more depth. It’s because real life is not like light novels, and people don’t really get over being rejected by their first love that easily.

Mizuto and Yume return from their trip worse off than before, thanks mostly to Yume’s inability to spit her feelings out and Mizuto’s talent for rationalizing anything as “not in love with me”. They’re back home, though, which means that Isana can come over. A lot. And hang out with Mizuto, and get in compromising situations with Mizuto, and go out on a date with Mizuto (and Yume, who invites herself along), and introduce Mizuto to her mother. It should not really come as a surprise that, when school finally goes back into session, the rumor among the class is that Mizuto and Isana are dating. And Yume, trapped by her own inability to get her own feelings across, can’t say anything. Unfortunately, suddenly being the center of attention, and having the reason for that be a lie that everyone believes, makes Isana very unhappy.

The subtitle of this volume comes from Isana’s awesome mom, who sounds like she starred in a light novel series of her own as a teen. Isana suffers from an inability to read social cues, and when she asks things that to her are not obvious, she binds that everyone gets upset and she’s isolated. Mizuto is the first person her own age she’s met who not only does not get upset by her but is able to interact with her as a friend. This is why she fell for him so hard, and it’s also why, despite everything she’s told him, she can’t get past being rejected quite yet. The author mentions in the afterword that he originally ended the volume with Mizuto being more cool and dramatic, but that Isana was telling him that something wasn’t working there, so he went back and wrote the ending we have now, which feels more in character.

Yume will still eventually get together with Mizuto, of course, whenever this series ends. That said, I can understand why the author says Yume “feels like she’s losing” after this book. Isana, if nothing else, deserves her own spinoff.