By Iori Miyazawa and shirakaba. Released in Japan as “Urasekai Picnic” by Hayakawa Bunko JA. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Sean McCann.

(More spoilers than usual in this review.)

Since the famous Book 8, I’ve felt that this series is riding on a newfound confidence and swagger, and this volume does nothing to disabuse me of that feeling. Divided into three stories, the first shows us Sorawo’s conflicted and muddled feelings about her relationship with Toriko, and how normal tokens of affection such as a lap pillow can not only be twisted by jealousy but also turned into an Otherside encounter. In the second story they discuss Kozakura’s AI ghost story teller (which may be influencing things a lot more than expected), and then go meet Runa, who’s being let out of supernatural jail and being taken in by Tsuji, who still feels a bit dodgy. The final story decides things have not been scary enough, and makes up for that, with a terrifying journey into the Otherside involving bears, crows, lots of corpses, and the worst underground subway station out there. Fear not, though, they’re still constantly flirting with each other. In their own way.

I left out one part of the story, which is easily the funniest bit in the book. Toriko has decided she wants to meet Benimori, who Sorawo describes as a yokai who eats love stories. The idea that Sorawo finds a “normal” romance with Toriko to be scarier than any ghost story, to the point where she has in a way fashioned their relationship *into* a ghost story to make it palatable to her, really appeals to me. But that’s just from her point of view – we’ve talked before about how to others Sorawo and Toriko are just shamelessly flirting in front of everyone all the time. To Benimori, who lives very much in “the real world”, theirs is not a nue, it’s just a new love between two shy, awkward girls who still dance around their own pasts and their own feelings. Just because Sorawo doesn’t like to see it as a normal relationship doesn’t mean that normal relationshi0p advice can’t be good.

As the series has delved into a lot of the backstory back in the “real world”, we’ve seen the Otherside treks a bit less, so the back half of this book was a welcome change. That said, whoa baby a lot of that was pretty unnerving for me. It doesn’t help that it ties into Satsuki Uruma and her past with Toriko, who feels a bit ashamed of it but doesn’t deny it. And then there’s just the horror imagery – this is something else where I wonder how the manga will handle it, as there’s a lot of things that work best in the mind’s eye here. And it ends with a nasty little cliffhanger as well. Over the past few months, no one has made more of an impact on the Otherside than our two heroines, so naturally there are people who regard them as the greatest threat. They’re good at defending themselves against random horror – or not so random horror – but this feels more like they’re going to need to fend off assassins soon, which is a step up. Fun times!

And now we wait another 16-18 months again. Still compelling as hell.