By Hajime Kamoshida and Keji Mizoguchi. Released in Japan as “Seishun Buta Yarou wa Hatsukoi Shoujo no Yume wo Minai” by Dengeki Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Andrew Cunningham.

One of the things I like best about this series, which sets it apart from many of its contemporaries, is its use of short, quick sentences. The book reads fast, with dense paragraphs kept to a bare minimum and most of its page count being dialogue or inner monologue of some sort. However, this does not mean that it sacrifices any emotional impact – in fact, in many ways it’s heightened. The start of this book was always going to be a killer, and the prose makes it even more so. The sheer despair that Sakuta is feeling, the grief and rage that Mai’s mother and Nodoka have as they blame him for her death and cry out as to why it happened, it’s absolutely visceral and raw. Even knowing that this is not going to be permanent, that Mai will not remain dead (a series does not kill off its main draw), this is still a painful read. It gets better. But at some cost.

When we last left our heroes, Mai had just been hit by a truck. Sadly, she is not reincarnated in a fantasy world, but is simply dead. This shatters Sakuta, and things are not helped by the fact that a superstar actress died in order to save the life of her ordinary boyfriend – most of Japanese media is out to get him. refusing to accept Mai’s death, he returns once more to the beachfront we’ve seen in most other books in this series, and finds the older Shouko there once more. She reminds him of what almost everyone has experienced so far – Adolescence Syndrome – and that this might actually be a future we don’t want to see, rather than the present. But can Sakuta return to his “present” even though he’s already there? Will anyone notice him? And even if he can stop Mai from getting killed, who’s to stop HIM from dying?

I do wonder if there’s a fanfic out there showing what happened in that bad future if Sakuta couldn’t fix it, because the implication is there is no way the media would allow him to survive. Sakuta’s grief infuses over half of this volume, making it by far the least funny of the books to date, but that’s fine, you don’t want laughs here. When they come later, they’re as much a relief for Sakuta as they are for the reader. It’s also nice to see Mai reminding us that she is quite a sweet and loving partner, to the point where Sakuta has to actually find ways to upset her in order to have her be cool and menacing towards him (his professed fetish). And then there’s Shouko, whose life and death also rides on this book. The ending may be a bit sappy and unrealistic, but given the nature of the series, realism is not what I want. That said, it’s VERY abrupt – you’re waiting for another epilogue.

It’ll be interesting to see where we go from here, with the main backstory plotlines pretty much resolved. The next volume promises a return to Kaede’s attempts to go to school. Till then, please enjoy this cry of grief from the heart, and be thankful it all ended well.

By Hajime Kamoshida and Keji Mizoguchi. Released in Japan as “Seishun Buta Yarou wa Yumemiru Shoujo no Yume wo Minai” by Dengeki Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Andrew Cunningham.

In my review of the last volume in this series, I mentioned I wasn’t aware of what happened in the next two books beyond it being sad. I’ll admit: I was lying. Generally these days, if you are following a series in any capacity on the internet, and the anime has already come out, there is no real way to avoid being spoiled. I didn’t have the main story beats of this book spoiled to me, but I knew what the last five pages would be, and so they are. That said, let’s not talk about those, let’s instead discuss the previous 250 or so pages, in which we find that Sakuta’s own adolescence syndrome has a very different cause from what he (and the reader) thought, learn exactly what’s going on with Shouko, and discover that it’s still hard to say you’re different from Bakemonogatari or Oregairu when you decide the best way for the hero to fix things is to sacrifice himself to save the girl.

Sakuta’s apartment is getting a bit crowded. Kaede is back, though with her “original” personality, and is struggling to catch up with the two years she’s lost. College-age Shouko is there, being very mysterious and Kasumi Tendo-ish. And Mai stays over once as well, because frankly the situation screams “my boyfriend is cheating on me with an older woman who’s also a middle-school student”, and who among us hasn’t felt agitated when that happened to them? The drama starts then Sakuta discovers that Shouko is back in the hospital – and getting worse. She has an old elementary school assignment about dreams for the future she never completed, as “die” would upset the teachers. Now it’s mysteriously being filled out… and the details seem to match up with college-age Shouko very well. Sakuta is concerned about the “get married’ part, though…

One of the more interesting things about this series is that it has all the wacky misunderstandings that harem anime usually has, but without any of the actual misunderstandings themselves. Mai and Sakuta are simply too sympatico with each other to really believe that there’s cheating or lying going on. Indeed, the fact that they’re so in tune with each other is what leads up to the tragedy in the final pages. Other than that, the most affecting part of the book for me may not have been the ending but everything leading up to it, as Sakuta drifts through school looking like a man who’s about to die. When even Kamisato is deeply concerned with him, in her own “drop dead” way, you know things are bad. And Rio and Mai’s scenes are even worse. Everyone seems to know what’s going to happen, but they also know that talking Sakuta out of this is next to impossible. As indeed it proves to be.

So what’s next? Well, if this were the movie, we’d only be halfway done. But it’s a book, so we’ve got to wait a few months. Rest assured I doubt it will kill off a main character, but I’m not as optimistic about its dreaming girl. Till then, enjoy an emotional gut-wrencher.

By Hajime Kamoshida and Keji Mizoguchi. Released in Japan as “Seishun Buta Yarou wa Orusuban Imouto no Yume wo Minai” by Dengeki Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Andrew Cunningham.

The first four books of the series had its main character, Sakuta, helping out a different girl each time who had what he termed “Adolescence Syndrome”, where an inner issue they were suffering from showed itself in an exterior way. Mai was turning invisible, Tomoe was time looping, Rio twinned herself, and Nodoka bodyswapped herself with her sister. Through all this, though, we were also learning of Sakuta’s own past – both his encounter with a high school girl named Shouko (who he rediscovers but not in high school) and his sister, whose reaction to bullying, and his frustration and reaction to her own pain, is what jumpstarted all of this. Now, at last, in this 5th book, we finally get to focus on Kaede. She’s more determined than ever to leave the apartment and go to school, to the point where she has a list of tasks in her diary. Together with Sakuta, can she succeed? Well, yes, but that’s not necessarily a wonderful thing for all involved.

Much of this book is about moving forward and trying to take a next step. For Sakuta that means actually applying himself. Mai, despite her celebrity, is going to college, and Sakuta wants to follow her there a year later. For Kaede, this means a whole lot of things. Just going to school is fraught with tensions, given that whenever she sees someone she doesn’t know, especially someone wearing her school uniform, she has a panic attack. She’s also re-exhibiting signs of her adolescence syndrome, which is definitely not a good thing. (Given that when this happened before, the authorities thought her mother abused her, I worried they might zero in on Sakuta, but thankfully this does not go there.) And there’s another, even larger issue: Kaede, as we discover here, has no memories from before two years ago. Given the way amnesia works, there’s a danger that she might lose herself no matter what the outcome.

There is a large chunk of this book that is very heartwarming. Seeing Kaede’s determination is great, trying to take small steps despite her terror. Sakuta strikes exactly the right notes, knowing when to push and when to retreat. The scenes at the zoo were magical, and brought a smile to your face… which of course makes the last fifth of the book all the more tear-jerking. It’s startling to see not just Kaede but also Sakuta re-develop symptoms from adolescence syndrome, and of course it happens when Mai is out of the city and can’t help him. Fortunately, he has Shouko – the older version – to help him once again. That said, she’s not Mai, and I wish that Mai had been there to talk him out of it. Mai remains the best part of this series. In any case, I’m not sure where Sakuta’s family relationship will go from here, but hopefully his romantic relationships will survive the cliffhanger. They probably will, she’s eminently sensible.

I joked on Twitter that the next two books would be light and fluffy – trust me, I saw the movie reviews, and while I don’t know what’s going to happen I know it’s a tear jerker. But so is this, in its own way, as we take a look at what makes up a person’s identity, and how fragile that can really be.