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.

After starting the series off showing us a terrifying, lethal, transforming Otherside, it is somewhat amusing to see that the parts of this book that actually do take place in the Otherside are the most relaxed. Essentially, Sorawo and Toriko decide to settle in and do some dry-walling, and they have a great deal of fun. They don’t have any terrifying experiences there because the real world, and the space between the real world and the Otherside, is scary enough as it is. Starting the book off with a Sorawo who seems to be a normal, non-urban legend loving college student, the book takes off running as our heroes battle T-san, a man dressed like a monk whose features seem to invite unreliable narration. Akari gets involved as well, and before we know it we’re dealing with someone who is perfectly happy to walk into their psychiatric hospital/prison and wreak havoc. This is Otherside Picnic: the Movie, kids, so buckle up for a roller coaster ride of thrills.

As you may have guessed, this book is one long story, involving a young (?) man (?) who is tall (?) and wears monk’s robes (?) and is currently in Sorawo’s college seminar. As I noted above, at the start of the book Sorawo has amnesia, her “Otherside” eye is not working, and she’s rather startled by these other two girls who seem to know her. That thankfully gets resolved quickly, and we’re back to our normal Sorawo who insists that she doesn’t really care about other people even if her actions belie this quite a bit. T-san the Templeborn is another urban legend, though the author, who I already suspect is making up all of their ‘cited sources’, admits this one is probably more fictional than the others. Instead of the Otherside, T-san is threatening the real world, erasing the connections between people and that universe with a shouted “HAH!”. Can they stop him in time? And are they going to need the help of an old enemy to do so?

Gotta admit, my favorite parts of this book are the parts with Runa Urumi, who is (possibly?) trying her best to be the Hannibal Lecter to Sorawo’s Clarice. She’s awake once more, bored out of her gourd locked up in DS Research, and promises to be a good girl if they just let her surf the internet a bit. Needless to say they are very distrustful of her, especially as remorse does not seem to be happening anytime soon, but a later scene where she ends up, somewhat reluctantly, helping the other inmates when T-san visits the facility makes me suspect this plotline is not going to be dropped anytime soon. As for Sorawo and Toriko’s relationship, it’s notable here mostly for Toriko’s jealousy when it comes to Akari, which is so obvious this time around that even Sorawo, never the brightest bulb when it comes to social cues, has to reassure her that she does not like Akari in that way. I also don’t see this plot going away anytime soon, though.

Oddly, for something that was supposed to be a grand movie version of the series, this was rather sedate, with only a bit of action in the final parts, and very little shooting of guns. This is, of course, because most of it took place in reality, and I suspect that the link between the two worlds will continue to fluctuate in future. But yeah, good book, go get it.

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.

This may be the least horror-themed volume to date, with the stories in this book, with the exception of the final one, more focused on either a) the relationship between Sorawo and Toriko, or b) the nature of the Otherside as a world in which it is possible to stay, be it animal or person, and manage to avoid too much weird creepiness. The Otherside does not necessarily have to turn anything and everything into an urban legend or creeping horror… it’s just that is what it seems to do when Sorawo is around. A lot of the Otherside that we’ve seen to date seems to be very focused on her in particular, so it’s interesting to see it when it’s either literally reflecting on the relationship between her and Toriko or just showing a happy old woman and her dog staying at a swank Otherside estate. That said, there are still some scary moments in this book, particularly the final story, where, as the subtitle suggests, our heroines run into an old foe.

We get four stories this time around. In the first, Sorawo is desperately trying to recall what happened the night of a love hotel girls’ party that she and Toriko (and Kozakura, Akari and Natsumi, because Sorawo is a big chicken) were at. Was it really just “I got too drunk and did something stupid?” Or did she put the whammy on her friends with her Eye of Power? The second story, and my favorite, has Sorawo hunt down Toriko, who has been avoiding her after the party, at Toriko’s college. She finds her, but shortly afterwards becomes trapped in interstitial space, and gets a good look at how Toriko sees Sorawo. Then it’s back to the Otherside, where they spot the most terrifying Otherside denizen yet… Sorawo’s self-confidence. Oh yes, and a borzoi. Finally, the two are hired by the wife of the first man they met in the Otherside to find him… never mind the fact that he was there to find her, or that they saw him killed. Who’s the child they’re seeing hiding in a pile of garbage? And why is Hasshaku-sama behind this?

Not to spoil too much, but in the fourth volume we finally had Toriko make it as explicit as possible that she loves Sorawo, and in this 5th volume Sorawo is finally able to say it back, after literally seeing herself through Toriko’s eyes, and also realizing that Toriko is actually a normal, fallible human being and not a flawless goddess of beauty. There’s little of Sorawo’s descriptive Toriko prose here, and she seems to be (well, leaving aside the first story) more accepting of their relationship. She still has a tendency to hate herself as much as humanly possible, and I suspect the relationship is not going to get much further unless she can clear that hurdle, but hey, baby steps. We also get a good look at what the Otherside is like when it’s simply… accepted. Not leaving one spot too much, avoiding dangerous areas, etc. Turns out… it’s pretty nice. The third story was my second favorite, and I wonder if we’ll see the woman and her dog again.

That said, my big question, and the book ends with it being very much up in the air, is what’s up with that kid? (For a while I thought she was literally Sorawo as a child in some sort of time breaking shenanigans, but apparently not?) In any case, there hopefully will be less wait for the 6th volume. If the anime didn’t impress you, try the novels, they’re much better.

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.

Last time I talked about the fact that the narrative voice in this series is Sorawo’s, and how that makes the character of Toriko more intriguing. After this book, I’ll go even further and say that the narrative of Sorawo is vital to what makes Otherside Picnic so good, and that it’s even better because it can’t be trusted. In the first story in this book, Sorawo worries that she and Toriko are becoming desensitized to horror, but quickly shoves that off to the side, which is a shame, as yes, she absolutely is. More to the point, the horrific urban legends that she and Toriko are seeing are starting to be personally aimed at her, to the point where 3/4 of this book takes place in the “real world”. Sorawo’s past is not a pleasant one, and this book wants to remind her of it and, if ,possible, drag her back into it again. And then there’s Toriko, who is finally able to get Sorawo to stop denying what’s really, really obvious.

There are four short stories here. Two are good (1 and 3), two are great (2 and 4). The first sees our girls joining Migiwa and the rest of his organization in cleaning up the remains of the “farm” where Sorawo was kidnapped, and finding several Otherside creatures and booby traps along the way. The second sees Sorawo being threatened by something in the apartment next door to hers, to the point where she’s forced to stay first with Akari (to the displeasure of a jealous Natsumi) and then Kozakura, before finally confronting the source with Toriko. The third story sees the two (plus Kozakura) at a hot spring, which is mostly Toriko trying to make her feelings clear but also involves a brief brush with mannequins. Finally, after getting their APV upgraded, Sorawo and Toriko spend a night in the Otherside… at a crumbling and abandoned love hotel, where Sorawo’s past finally catches up with her and tries to get her to make a tragic choice.

I joked on Twitter about how Sorawo made a deal to have all that urban legend knowledge (her bookshelves are RIDICULOUS) at the expense of being unable to recognize lesbians, which is not really true, but it feels like it at times. She doesn’t seem to quite get why Natsumi is jealous of her staying with Akari, and the first half of the book has the usual uncomfortable denial of Toriko’s feelings. After a while, though, it becomes more clear that Sorawo really does know what Toriko means, but is too busy being scared and self-loathing to confront it. She can say ‘I love you and want to spend the rest of my life with you” here, but that’s not quite the same thing as what Toriko wants – Toriko wants physical affection. It’s not clear where things go from here, but after confronting her past again in the Otherside (that kerosene bit – brrrr), I do think they’re in a better place to actually be in a relationship.

The anime is airing as I type this, and seems to be leaning more into “cute girls doing cute horror things” than I’d like, but for those who would like a bit more terror and a bit more yuri, this volume fits the bill perfectly.