By Harunadon and raemz. Released in Japan as “Replica Datte, Koi o Suru” by Dengeki Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Andrew Cunningham.

While I’ve very much enjoyed this series, each of the previous four volumes has explored topics related to replicas in some way. What are replicas, why do people have replicas, can replicas fall in love (title drop), and what happens when a human with a replica dies. This led us to the climax of the fourth book, which was about what happens if a replica dies… except no, it did not work out that way, because in the interim Sunao decided to get her life together, move beyond the need for having a replica, and finally grant Nao autonomy so that she could be with the one she loved. The problem, of course, is that the books were mostly written from Nao’s perspective, and so there was a gap of “what actually happened here?” left to be filled. It was fine for the climax of the “main” series, because really all that was waiting for was a dramatic run and love confession, but I’m glad we get to see what happened before: Sunao’s path to loving herself.

The subtitle of this volume is “Side: Original”, and that’s exactly what we get here. We start with Nao’s declaration to Sunao that she’s going back inside her, and just like the reader, Sunao knew that’s exactly what would happen. Fortunately, Sunao decides to simply make Nao vanish rather than fully integrate her into herself. Unfortunately, that means Sunao has to negotiate the rest of her time in high school without a safety valve or a way out, and it’s hard, given that Sunao regards herself as a bad person and thinks no one else could like her. Despite this, over the course of the book, she learns to stand up for herself over her former friends turned bullies, learns to stand up for others, and learns to give support when it’s needed but only the support that’s needed. And she even gets her own love story, with a somewhat unexpected person.

This volume was a lot simpler to read in many ways – replicas barely come up – but that doesn’t mean it was less affecting. Sunao’s POV is suffocating a great deal of the time, especially in the middle of the book when everything seems to be going wrong, and watching her deflect and avoid those problems was not only painful to read but honestly felt a bit TOO familiar. I wondered if she would avoid Ricchan entirely the whole book, regarding it as “she’s Nao’s friend now”, but honestly it ended up being that most of the entire incident in childhood that led to their falling out turned out to be something that Sunao just wasn’t emotionally mature enough to connect the dots on. She gains that emotional maturity here, in a number of really good scenes, and it all leads to a confession that she’s very reluctant to hear, and instinctively wants to reject, simply as she cannot come to terms with why anyone would feel like that about HER. (It’s very important, by the way, that her love interest has, without knowing about replicas, definitely fallen for Sunao and not Nao.)

There’s one last volume, apparently short stories. This feels like the big finale, though. A must read for fans of the series, especially those who watched the anime try to speedrun events as anime often does.

By Harunadon and raemz. Released in Japan as “Replica Datte, Koi o Suru” by Dengeki Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Andrew Cunningham.

There are spoilers for this book, at long last, as it becomes impossible to try not to give everything away like I’ve tried in my previous obfuscating reviews.)

Last time I mentioned that we could all guess what Nao’s decision is, and I was absolutely correct, but that’s not what makes this book so interesting. What first surprised me is how long it takes Nao to avoid having to answer the question, first telling Sunao that she’ll answer her before the end of the year, and then essentially trying to cram in as much life as possible into those days, even as she continues to worry about how Sunao is doing. There’s a great scene in the book where Sunao gets a bloody nose during a sports event, and everyone completely panics, even as she grumpily insists that she’s fine. It helps to underline the idea that Sunao is fragile, especially when Nao is out and about, and that Nao’s decision is entirely about her, rather than about Aki or her own love. And then she takes Aki and Ricchan on one last big blowout date, on Christmas day, to an amusement park. SHE may not make her decision till 3/4 through the book, but WE know it from page 1.

Now that it’s apparent that when the original and the replica are both “out and about”, the replica generally can’t be seen, Nao is trailing along with Sunao more often. This allows her to see the aforementioned game where Sunao is injured, as well as look at all the photos from the class trip, which she is burning into her brain. She’s also talking with Satou about things, because one thing that might make Nao hesitate in her decision is she has no idea what will happen to Sunao, or how she’ll be affected, after it occurs. There’s just no way to know, especially if you’re Nao. And of course there is Aki, who knows what her decision is, and respects her own autonomy, but spends most of this book brutally sad and depressed, and you can see why. In the end, Nao chooses to… well, what DOES happen?

The other big surprise for me was the last quarter or so of the book. Where Nao winds up in Replica Heaven, basically, and meets up with Ryou, who explains that after they have “finished their work”, replicas come here to essentially live an afterlife. They’re in a school, and though they can’t leave it (there are dorms), and time doesn’t really pass, they can learn, and read books, and even date other replicas. And they all seem pretty content with this… except Nao. It was very hard for me while reading this section not to think about the Talking Heads song “Heaven”, which its chorus “Heaven is a place where nothing ever happens”. Nao can’t get over how the entire thing is essentially in muted greyscale, but as it turns out that’s not the Replica afterlife, it’s HER. She gets remonstrated for not only making the wrong decision but making it badly, trying to do the most dramatic thing ever in order to burn herself into everyone’s brain. And more importantly, she needs to go back.

This is, for all intents and purposes, the end. But we’re not done, as we’re finally going to get what I’ve wanted from the start: Sunao’s side. She was just as big a part of the finale of this book as much as Nao, and her “I no longer hate myself” made me well up a bit. This is really good, folks.

By Harunadon and raemz. Released in Japan as “Replica Datte, Koi o Suru” by Dengeki Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Andrew Cunningham.

When I’d finished the first volume of this series, I felt it was very much a done-in-one, and felt a little wary that there was more of it. Then came the second volume, which had a couple of nasty cliffhangers at the end that made the reader desperately want to pick up the third, so I figured the author got a hold of where it was going. Having now researched it a bit, it appears that there are four main volumes and an “after story” volume. Which is good, because egads, that ending of the third book. But it’s also a bit of a shame, because if the third book had indeed been the last, the ending we get would have been an absolute banger, making desperate readers write into Dengeki Bunko saying that there’s a missing page and to find out how it actually ended. But, that’s not what’s happening. And honestly, that’s probably good, as there is still stuff to deal with.

As the book opens, Sunao has been doing the “going to school” thing, and is interacting with her classmates almost despite herself, as they prepare for the class trip… which is still going forward, despite the Student Council president vanishing in thin air in front of everyone and then ending up dead a week earlier. As for Nao, she is back at the house, unable to do anything except sit there every day and mourn Ryou. Fortunately, Aki and Ricchan stage an intervention and remind her that she is more than just a replica… or is she? As the book goes on and Sunao goes off on the class trip, Nao and Aki go on their own trip to the town where Ryou lived with her grandparents… and end up staying with said grandparents, where they get told something very shocking but also very obvious if you know what replicas REALLY are.

As with the first two books, it’s very difficult to talk about what’s really great about it without spoiling the whole thing, but let me once again take a whack. This volume gives us the biggest dose yet of Sunao, and we really get to see what’s making her tick and what she’s trying to do here. Her relationship with Nao is slowly killing her, and while I don’t mean that literally there are a few literary references in this book that allude to a story where it is taken literally. Sunao is not in a good place now, nor is Sanada, who is also back living everyday life while his replica stays home. Do we get to meet another replica in this book? No, bjut we meet someone who once had one, and that proves to be the key, as it shows not that Sunao and Sanada having replicas isn’t as unique as they think, but that the way they have replicas is uniquely wrong.

All this leads to one belter of a cliffhanger… sort of? Anyone who has read the series at all knows what Nao will say, but it’s the after that’s the important thing, so let’s see what happens next with Book 4. The writing remains excellent, and his is genuinely Harunadon’s best series in English right now.