By Kaeru Ryouseirui and Natsuki Amashiro. Released in Japan as “Umidori Tougetsu no “Detarame” na Jijou” by MF Bunko J. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Andrew Cunningham.

I like to theorize about what happens behind the scenes of an author, editor, and publisher, even though I am usually right about 1% of the time, if that. And when I got to the end of this third volume, I did wonder if the author was quietly told before it was written to plan for this to end with the fourth book (which it seems to have done, though I know better than to declare things definitively over now). The first two volumes of this book were very much concerned with the lies and the people behind them, and I was expecting this one to be as well. And to be fair, there is a situation with a lie and a person behind it. But the lie is incredibly pathetic, and it’s resolved in a way that’s deliberately comical. Because this is about Tougetsu Umidori, of course – and her story and its lack of lies are the whole point of the series, and not as easily solved.

Tougetsu has a problem. After avoiding it for nearly a year, her grandmother demands that she come home to visit or else she’ll be forced to move back home permanently. This upsets her, but she’s going to have to suck it up and do it – but it’s OK, Nara will come with her, as they’re friends, and Nara is tremendously curious about her family. That said, once they arrive, Nara finds that her grandmother is pretty nice and kind of normal… except around Tougetsu, where she turns into this stern scary woman. What’s more, she was really looking forward to meeting Tougetsu’s mother… who has fled the house. As it turns out, Nara ends up deeply regretting coming at all. Meanwhile, famous Kobe dishes are now thought to be famous Kakogawa dishes. Someone is altering reality so that Kakogawa gets all the cool Kobe dishes! It can only be a lie! Fortunately, Bullshit-chan has a solution – Youtubing.

There’s a lot of setup for the next volume involving the bad guys, as well as the true nature of Bullshit-chan, but let’s face it, the real meat of the book, and the best part, is the budding relationship between Tougetsu and Nara, and its near-fracturing here because of the way Tougetsu sees herself. Tougetsu’s inability to lie has led to her friendships being sundered, but she also has a lot of family trauma as well (which, be warned, involves an attempted suicide). What this means is that she seemingly feels no deep connections – if Nara broke things off and said she didn’t want to be friends anymore, Tougetsu would just accept it and distance herself. Which, of course, infuriates Nara. This is not a yuri series per se, but the only important male character in it is the villain, so it might as well be. Tougetsu and Nara make up at the end, and seem to come to a compromise, but I suspect it will take working out Bullshit-chan to work out Tougetsu.

Will this end in happiness or in tears? “Yes”, I suspect is that answer to that. Till then, please enjoy Bullshit-chan streaming cooking shows to save Kobe cuisine. And two kinda-gay teens trying to work things out despite one (one?) being really fucked up.

By Kaeru Ryouseirui and Natsuki Amashiro. Released in Japan as “Umidori Tougetsu no “Detarame” na Jijou” by MF Bunko J. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Andrew Cunningham.

Generally speaking, my reviews these days tend to follow the pattern of “first paragraph discussing book, cover image, second paragraph summarizing plot, third paragraph giving good/bad/etc, epilogue”. And that’s what this will be too. That said, after reading this book I feel I have to put up a warning: I Swear I Am Not Making This Up. Because frankly, after reading the summary of this volume, I think one or two people might suspect I hated the book so much I just started making up absolute nonsense. Which isn’t true, I quite liked this book. But wow, the plot is indeed absolute nonsense… and yet, in the context of this world, it makes perfect sense. It’s true to the characters. It’s especially true to Umidori, and I have to admit, when she got that phone call asking her to guess who this was? I guessed it fairly quickly. Because this is a series that glories in being utterly unhinged. (And gay.)

Tougetsu Umidori is relatively happy, two weeks after the first book. She’s coming home from her job, telling Bullshit-chan she’ll be home soon, when she gets a mysterious call from someone who says they know her very well. Intimately, in fact. Despite the fact that they’ve never been to school or hung out together. As it turns out, we know the caller very well too. Because in the prologue for this book, we saw Umidori digging a grave in the back of her apartment complex and burying someone… and now they’re crying out to her, demanding that she dig them up. Unfortunately, at the same time, a mysterious cooking accident knocks Bullshit-chan unconscious, so she’s unable to help with the fact that the pencils that Umidori deep-fried and ate have gained sentience and can communicate with her. And love her. In fact, the love is pretty much mutual.

As I said, not making this up, and it’s not even the weirdest thing in the book. Honestly, the character of the pencils, who ends up taking the name Togari Tsukishigaoka, may be the best part of the book, wanting to help Umidori but also knowing what that help will cost her. The nature of the lies and what they can do to people’s psyches is explored further, and there is perhaps a worrying amount of co-dependency going on here, but in a series that has a girl in a love triangle with her best friend and a bunch of sentient pencils given human form, that’s probably the least of my problems. If there’s a weak part of this book it’s probably the villains, who simply are not as good as Hurt (who’s also back in this book, taking on the role of the tsukkomi/sidekick when needed). They mostly exist because we need a villain to drive the plot.

This is apparently halfway through the series, though the third volume doesn’t have a date here yet. If you’re looking for weird ass stuff with not-quite-monsters, this is right up your alley.

By Kaeru Ryouseirui and Natsuki Amashiro. Released in Japan as “Umidori Tougetsu no “Detarame” na Jijou” by MF Bunko J. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Andrew Cunningham.

This is one of those titles that I ended up taking a flyer on after seeing Twitter comments by Andrew Cunningham (who ended up translating it after it was licensed), and I thought it sounded pleasantly odd. The start of the book certainly makes you think that’s going to be the case. We meet Umidori, the tall, voluptuous but seemingly normal straight man, and her classmate Nara, who has a normal vocal emotional range but whose face shows no expression. This is good, that’s a quirky character for a quirky series. She then starts to talk about how someone is stealing her pencils, showing a somewhat monomaniacal obsession with them, and Umidori seemingly responding with “uh huh” and “is that so” responses. This then leads up to the payoff, when we find out the true culprit behind the theft. Even when we see WHY the pencils are being stolen, I went “OK, wow, that’s very, very weird” but it was still to be expected. Then Bullshit-chan showed up.

So yeah, as you may have figured out, Umidori is not just the straight man of this series. She’s unable to lie, to anyone, and as you can imagine this has left her upsetting everyone around her, to the point where she makes sure never to get too close to anyone – even Nara, who she is seemingly good friends with. Then Bullshit-chan shows up at her apartment, furious, and wielding a knife, and starts to explain the plot, and you realize that this is not a “eccentric high school kids” series but a “supernatural action drama with utterly messed up protagonists” series. This is compounded by Nara showing up, who talks about her own issues (which are somewhat hamstrung by the art for the series – it’s fine, but anytime you have someone who is “the most beautiful person in the world” and you have to draw them, it’s never going to work). And then the ACTUAL bad guys appear.

The main plot for the series in general seems to be to get Umidori to be able to lie, as her truth-telling is presented as a condition or “curse” rather than her own choice. I also get the feeling that it’s going to be getting Umidori friends as well – thanks to a conveniently plotted glass of alcohol, she doesn’t even remember how her words a year ago saved Nara from a fate where she too may have cast off everyone around her. (Umidori of course lives in an apartment by herself, and her parents are divorced). As for Bullshit-chan, she’s an interesting concept, but at the moment that’s all she is – I’m not as invested in her as I am in Umidori and Nara. I did like the villain – no, not the concept, but the human behind it, and her own twisted desires and how they ended up horrifying everyone (which seems to be the theme with those afflicted by the series’ concept.)

If it sounds like I’m trying to write around giving any spoilers, you’re right. This is best experienced cold. It’s good, though. Try it.