By Kana Akatsuki and Suoh. Released in Japan as “Shunka Shūtō Daikōsha” by Dengeki Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Sergio Avila.

My friend Erica Friedman has talked before about an annoying characteristic of many light novels, manga and anime, which is the “emotional torment of children for plot purposes”. It’s relatively easy to win over the reader by doing this, and lets the main characters being abused be sympathetic – you really want them to have a nice blanket and a hot cup of cocoa. But as the author said in the afterword to Book 6, that is just not happening in Agents of the Four Seasons. These kids (and we’re introduced to more kids in this new book, all of whom are in some way, shape, or form broken by the adults they trust and by their peers) are broken down, beaten, and occasionally killed and resurrected – and this includes their guardians, who are either also children or in their late teens at most. The narrative says that while sometimes the abusers will be brought to justice, there will always be new ones ready to manipulate you, and the only thing you can do is get mentally stronger to withstand it all and grasp what happiness you can. Kinda depressing.

We pick up where we left off last time, with Jude seemingly betraying his agent and forcing Nadeshiko to make an impossible decision on who gets to live and who gets to die. The way Nadeshiko handles this will surprise no one, but it does lead to her and Liam ending up kidnapped – this makes how many times Nadeshiko has been kidnapped? – and everyone else having to try to track them down. After she wakes up, Jude explains what’s going on – turns out that not-America is using the Agents as a cash cow in order to line the pockets of the rich and powerful, which is technically a spoiler but is so thuddingly obvious that I am happy just mentioning it here. Jude wants to expose the man in charge of it all, and this kidnapping attempt was the best way to do it. Unfortunately for Jude, he doesn’t bother to explain this to Liam.

On the bright side, this is very well written. The thriller and action aspects are impeccably done, and you want to keep turning the pages as fast as you can. Nadeshiko’s powers, when they are inevitably explained as being different from what everyone thought, make a lot of the book lighter than expected… but look, that’s only a matter of degree. It is astonishing how literally EVERYONE in this series hates themselves with a passion. Even the arrogant, obnoxious Agent of Winter that not-America has proves to be an insecure child who is deeply upset that her mentor turns out to be a bad guy, and whose attempts at “making friends” with their agent of Spring have traumatized the other girl. Rindo and Nadeshiko are the highlight of this, and past, present and future collide to let us see a confession that we don’t really want but is inevitable anyway. I’ve joked before about how this book is Codependency: The Light Novel, but it’s no joke here – everyone knows the relationships between Agents and their Guards are totally fucked up, and yet they can’t do anything about it except say “that’s the way it is, I guess”.

The next book in the series is not scheduled in North America yet, and that’s probably for the best, because I’m exhausted. If you love the emotional torment of children for plot purposes, this will be like catnip for you. For everyone else, just endure, like the cast has to.

By Kana Akatsuki and Suoh. Released in Japan as “Shunka Shūtō Daikōsha” by Dengeki Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Sergio Avila.

So the first two-part arc of this series involved the past and present trauma of Hinagiku, the Agent of Spring. The second two-parter gave us even more trauma, mostly present, for the twin Agents of Summer. Now, after a one-volume “break”, we’re ready to dip into Autumn. Nadeshiko has been involved quite a bit in the last few books, both as a victim of kidnapping and as an Agent in her own right. That said, she’s still an eight-year-old girl who has been through far more than most eight-year-olds should. And, as is pointed out several times in this book, she’s much more mature than someone of her age should be when confronted with all this. She should be more like… well, like Ruri, to use an example Ruri herself would probably get mad at. In this book, though, we hear more about Nadeshiko’s life before she became an Agent… and it’s a very depressingly familiar tale. There’s no supernatural forces or twisted destiny here, just a young girl whose parents quickly realize they don’t want a child after all.

Nadeshiko is not having a great time at the moment, though it’s certainly better than it’s ever been for her. Rindo is running himself ragged trying to avoid having to answer a summons from Kyokoku, which is this world’s equivalent of the United States. There used to be a mutual aid policy between countries to help out when an Agent needed it. This is no longer the case, for many reasons, some of which might be that Kyokoku is a very dangerous country filled with religious fundamentalists whose Agents live fast and die young. (If you are looking for light, subtle political commentary, this is not the series for you.) Eventually Rindo realizes that he can’t avoid this, so Nadeshiko is going to not-America… along with a passel of guards and aides, as well as the Agent of Winter and his Guard, the Agent of Summer (Ruri version) and her guard, and Tsukihi, the National Security Agent we last saw with the Agent of Twilight. They expect treachery. They get it.

The author of this series has been talking with the author of My Happy Marriage, I expect, as they included in the Afterword a bit about how readers who would like all the trauma to stop soon are reading the wrong title. “It is a story for the scars you bore back then.” It certainly is, as Nadeshiko’s past of neglectful parents goes down like you’re choking, and her present is worse. The two on the cover are the Kyokoku Agent of Autumn, who is a year younger than her, and his Guard. They’re both unable to fight back against the Church. (Anyone reading this series who loves American unconditionally or is deeply religious may want to drop it here.) I also warn that there is the most dreaded of literary devices here, which is the overheard and misunderstood conversation. That said, when you have so little regard for yourself as Nadeshiko does, it’s hard not to misunderstand that people might care about you.

On the bright side, Ruri is fantastic in this, and I love the banter between her and Rosei. They’ve both grown so much. I hope Nadeshiko is allowed to do the same. In any case, we need to wait for Book 7, which… yeah, is not yet scheduled by Yen. Essential reading for fans of the series or those who love to read about good people overcoming suffering.

By Kana Akatsuki and Suoh. Released in Japan as “Shunka Shūtō Daikōsha” by Dengeki Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Sergio Avila.

After all the trauma of the first four, I noticed this one was a stand-alone volume, and I hoped that it might be a breather, a chance to relax and perhaps have a more lighthearted plot. And indeed the first half of this book fulfilled my wish. For the most part we have not had to deal with the supernatural person being in love with their minder in this series. Agents tend to love other agents, or other unrelated people. This also applies to the Archer of Twilight. Oh, sure, they are so ridiculously close to their minders that you can see the relationship as homoerotic (see my prior reviews regarding Hinagiku and Sakura), but we haven’t really had a romantic relationship until this book. Kaya is a teenager who is unable to deal with a crush, and her minder, Yuzuru, who clearly loves her deeply but is repressing it. The two of them push against each other, and get grumpy and sad, and it’s adorable. Well, until it isn’t.

Last time we met the Archer of Twilight, Kaguya, whose arrows brought about the night. The Archer of Dawn had a brief, minor appearance, but we get to know her here. After being chosen to be Archer, she was assigned a custodian, but he quickly found that walking up and down a mountain every day for years was too taxing for him. His son, however, Yuzuru, proved only too happy to step in and take care of Kaya. And now she’s in high school. She’s even able to go to an actual school, thanks to concessions from the organization behind all this. She’s a bit worried about Yuzuru, though, who’s so awesome and deserves so much better than staying with her his entire life. Even if she really wants him to, but is too shy to say so. And then there’s a landslide, and everything goes to hell.

While you can rest assured that the bad guys who want to control everyone and everything involved with the seasons and the day/night cycle are still here and still bad, I was rather surprised to find that they weren’t behind the natural disaster that leads off the second half of the book. Sometimes tragic stuff happens and it’s just because of natural causes. That said, the theme of this series is still present and correct. When Kaya makes the decision she does later in the book, she knows that she’s going to be punished for it. Everyone does, in fact, and other people are trying to take the punishment so she doesn’t have to. The best part of the book is when, in the epilogue, Kaya is told her punishment will end soon, she briefly feels it’s not nearly bad enough. Whereupon she’s told “You’re still in high school.” As these books go on, other people are bringing up over and over again what they are doing to children, and pushing back is becoming less a travesty and more a necessity.

We’re back to an arc next time, with more focus on Autumn, who played a major role in this book. Till then, this remains very well-written but also a bit worrying. These poor kids.