Rascal Does Not Dream of Santa Claus

September 1, 2024 by Leave a Comment

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

You know, Rascal Does Not Dream turned into a horror series so gradually, I didn’t even notice. Oh sure, each volume has had its share of horror and suspense – far more than you’d normally expect from a high school romcom. Starting with Mai potentially disappearing and Sakuta’s horrible scars, each volume has sometimes looked deep into the abyss. But I don’t think we’ve had a volume lean quite so hard into actual horror than this one. Even Vol. 6 and 7 was meant to be a tragedy, not horror. Here we get the ongoing Touko plot blending into loss of identity, and over the course of the book we realize that it’s not just Nene who’s dealing with the loss of identity, but A LOT of other people. And now they’re all invisible Santas. And they’re trying to kill Mai. As I said. Creepy as hell. Sakuta manages to resolve the immediate issue this time around, but only by getting physically injured to protect his love. Also, the ending is not reassuring.

Sakuta has a Christmas dream that Mai is singing at a concert, then announced publicly that she is Touko Kirishima. What’s worse, a whole lot of other people had similar dreams. Other, more disturbing dreams are also happening. Kaede dreamed she had reverted to her alternate self again. Futaba dreamed that she and Kunumi were on a happy date together, which is ominous given that he’s still together with Kamisato. And Mai… didn’t have a dream at all. It all has to relate to the Santa-wearing Touko, and Sakuta spends most of the book looking into Touko, as well as the girl he thinks she is, Nene. The answer to how to solve her problem is a lot closer to Sakuta than he thinks, but… is that really the actual problem? Is he just treating a symptom? And what’s with the dream of Mai getting injured and falling into a coma?

As I said, there’s a lot of scary stuff here. Particularly the ending, showing Mai surrounded by about 100 Santa-clad Toukos that no one else seems to be able to see. I did enjoy the wrapup on Nene’s plot specifically, but it also made me wonder how she and all the other Toukos are meant to reintegrate into society after having “vanished” for about 10 months. The book, unsurprisingly, decides to elide over that. I also enjoyed seeing the friendship/codependent helper relationship that he and Ikumi have, is only because it’s just nice to see him have someone reliable to talk to who can help deal with everything even when no one else can. And, honestly, that may end up tying into the next book. Because anyone who thinks the next book is not going to start with Mai saying that she’s Touko is fooling themselves. The whole volume is a setup for that.

There are two books to go, and they come out only two months apart (the final one is in October in Japan), so Yen may wait and try to release them the same way here. The identity of the antagonist is not hard to guess (hint: what major girl hasn’t got a cover yet?) but I have no idea how it’s going to resolve. In the meantime, there is fun banter here, I promise, but it’s getting thin on the ground.

Filed Under: rascal does not dream, reviews

Sabikui Bisco, Vol. 8

August 31, 2024 by Leave a Comment

By Shinji Cobkubo and K Akagishi. Released in Japan by Dengeki Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Jake Humphrey.

OK, this is starting to irritate me. This is not the first time we’ve had a volume of Bisco that felt like the final volume except that there are clearly more coming, but it’s the first time I felt angry about it, because this really was a fantastic ending. It wrapped up most of the plots we’d had so far, it featured an epilogue that screamed “this is it, I have finished the series”, and it’s also one of the best books in the series. Sadly, after that ending you get the usual “movie trailer” preview that says Book 9 will be BISCOOOO… IN… SPAAAACCCEEE!. Now, this could be quite good, and I’ll definitely be reading it. But I’m getting kinda tired of this author wrapping everything up and then just continuing to roll along. Sometimes series can just END, y’know. In any case, back to Book 8 itself. If you’ve been annoyed by the heterosexuality in this book, particularly Bisco and Pawoo having a kid, boy do I have good news for you. It’s mpreg time, baby!

A mysterious ark, led by someone who looks and acts suspiciously like a United States President (not a specific one, honest, just… in general) is sucking up valuable specimens around the world, which ends up including most of our cast. Meanwhile, Milo has been trying to hide from Bisco that he’s been having mysterious morning sickness. That’s right, when they merged their powers earlier, it led to a magical daughter with Milo as the “mother” and Bisco as the “father”, who they name Sugar. Sugar rapidly grows to be a child from hell, especially when Milo and Bisco are taken in by the ark and made into specimens. Fortunately, she has a cat guardian to help… except she’s not really listening to them. More fortunately, Maria, Bisco’s mother, has shown up to help out… wait, WHAT?!? Wasn’t she dead? And is she really helping?

Maria is easily the best addition to this book, and she’s exactly what you’d imagine Bisco’s mother to be like. Her reasons for faking her death are… well, understandable is the wrong word, but they make sense for the character. I also really enjoyed her scenes with Pawoo, who still doesn’t get a lot to do here, but gets a lot more to do than she has in the last few Bisco books. This includes giving birth, which surprised me. The cover art made me think we’d get a time skip, but no, Sugar just grows up almost immediately. Then I thought we’d get one near the end, as Pawoo was only a couple months pregnant…but we live in magical mushroom country, and we’re also here to fight God, so babies need to be born when it suits them. I also really enjoyed the epilogue, which I don’t want to spoil too much, but I feel may have drawn from the author’s own experience… and also reminds us that, no matter how big a fantasy this is every time, it’s still Japan, not an isekai.

So yeah. Space Bisco. FINE, I guess. In the meantime, this was fantastic, and a great ending to the series.

Filed Under: reviews, sabikui bisco

My First Love’s Kiss, Vol. 1

August 30, 2024 by Leave a Comment

By Hitoma Iruma and Fly. Released in Japan as “Watashi no Hatsukoi Aite ga Kiss Shiteta” by Dengeki Bunko. Released in North America by Yen Press. Translated by Kiki Piatkowska.

Tempted as I am to just write “Christ on a cracker” and let that be my review, I suppose I should get into the nuts and bolts of this thing. First of all, I feel retroactively annoyed with Adachi and Shimamura 11. I’ve mentioned many times before how this author has a cast of characters that are all part of the same “world”, and they flit in and out of each other’s series. That was the case with Adachi and Shimamura 11’s review as well. Little did I realize just how MUCH those characters took up all of Book 11, to the point where it now reads as nothing more than an ad for the author’s darker yuri series. (A&S 11 came out the same day as the final volume of this one.) The author also states in the afterword that this is a “romantic comedy”, then admits readers will get annoyed at them for saying it. Which is very true. This is a trawl through the sewers of love, and it will make you feel dirty.

Takasora is very, very surprised when her mother one day brings home someone she knew when she was in school, along with the woman’s teenage daughter, and announces that they’re now living there. The other teen, Umi, is very pretty (a fact Takasora will mention over and over again throughout this book), but also doesn’t seem all there, and there’s clearly something going on behind the scenes that Takasora… really doesn’t want to get involved with. Unfortunately for her, not only does she slowly begin to get obsessed with Umi as the days go by, but she also notices Umi going out late at night and frequently staying out all night. And there are rumors that she’s doing compensated dating. Are the rumors correct? The other half of the book is Umi’s story, which tells us that a) yes, they are correct, and b) it’s far more desperately awful than we’d like.

So, first of all, the opening of this novel features physical abuse of one of the heroines. FYI. Secondly, the rest of the book features emotional manipulation of the same heroine. Takasora is the easier part of this book. She’s immediately very attracted to Umi, can’t really work out why, and spends the book realizing that she’;s in love. Umi has spent most of her life bouncing from house to house with her mother. The better households ignore her, the worse ones abuse her. Then six months ago, she meets a gorgeous older woman who wants to pay her lots of money to have sex with her. And Umi falls for this lady HARD. It’s the first caring and affection she’s ever really received, and even though she knows the woman is a creepy pervert, and that this is illegal, and that love is not involved, she still confesses and begs her to NOT pay her anymore and just date her normally. (Something which the other woman notably does NOT do.)

A brief extra note to talk about the connections to Adachi and Shimamura, for fans of that series who I know are curious. The first half of A&S 11 can pretty easily be understood after reading this volume. The “kimono lady” 15-year-old Shimamura meets, who acts creepy but states straight up that Shimamura is one year too young for her, is the lady who is involved with 17-year-old Umi in this series. The last half of the book might be more confusing, as I’m pretty sure the senpai that Shimamura meets on her vacation with Adachi in Takasora from this book, only their personality is literally NOTHING like this Takasora, so I may be wrong. Most ominously, Chiki (the kimono lady) at one point apologizes to Umi for being a) late and b) in an out-of-place yukata, as she was “visiting Hino”. Hino as in Hino and Nagafuji Hino?!?! It’s even implies she stays at their estate. Given everything about Chiki makes me recoil in horror, I kind of hate this.

I will probably read the other two books in this series, as I want to see what happens and how it ties in to a yuri series I do enjoy. But man, I cannot recommend this at all unless you revel in the most toxic yuri and do not mind feeling like your skin is crawling while reading most of this.

Filed Under: my first love's kiss, reviews
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