By Hajime Kamoshida and Keji Mizoguchi. Released in Japan as “Seishun Buta Yarou wa Dear Friend no Yume wo Minai” by Dengeki Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Andrew Cunningham.

And so the Rascal books come to an end (leaving aside any short story or side story collections) with a volume just as short as the previous one. The main conflict from the last few books gets solved fairly quickly and easily, so much so that we realize that it was a fakeout, and we’re right, as the real conflict is with Sakuta himself. Well, that and maybe the publishers. I’ve talked before about how the series has always felt a little artificially extended after the 9th book, and that Sakuta in college but still dealing with all the Adolescent Syndrome stuff felt tacked on. Turns out Sakuta agrees with me – no, not the Sakuta we’re familiar with, but his alternate-world “perfect” Sakuta, who has come by to let him know that there are many and infinite alternate realities around them, and they all think Sakuta sucks, because he’s managing to break all of them.

When we last saw Sakuta, everything was terrible as Mai announced to the world that she was Touko. Now he has to make things right, which involves getting deep into the heart of Miori’s relationship with Touko and why her repressed feelings are actually making things worse. This is resolved, and thanks to Mai doing a quick “this was all an April Fool” bit, no one believes that she’s Touko anymore (including Mai herself). Unfortunately for Sakuta, all the OTHER reality-altered dreams are still present and correct – there are two Kaedes, Yuuma is dating Rio, etc. As it turns out, Miori is more than just the last in a string of women Sakuta has to help, she’s a dimensional nexus point of sorts. While everyone else has alternate versions of themselves (which we’ve seen with the alt-Sakuta), there is only one Miori. That said, most of this has little to do with Sakuta’s actual problem – how does he fix everything?

Despite the fact that this seems like the 15th book in a row where Sakuta takes a lot of public transportation lovingly described until a solution occurs,. there are things I really enjoyed here. Touko’s final song being a palindrome made it very life affirming, and I wish Miori luck in finding a Touko who isn’t dead. I also liked Sakuta’s discussion with the alt-Kaede, and her own simple solution to his “problem”. His problem is phrased as “grow up”, and the solution is pretty neat, and ties into something we’ve known about Sakuta from the very start – I appreciate how this fixes everything. The biggest issue with the book, and possibly why the last two were so short (well, that and artist illness) is that it’s padded out. Sakuta goes round in circles a lot here, and at one point takes us on a tour of iconic Rascal Does Not Dream locations. Like his alternate self, I wanted Sakuta to get with it and solve everything, not mope around.

The book ends with an epilogue set two years later, with stuff I really liked as well as a few things I’m eeeeh on (why do people love student/teacher relationships? Who are not students?). Sakuta and Mai are still exactly the same as before only with all their issues resolved – sorry, no engagement, marriage, or honeymoon scenes. Basically, everyone has grown up. Rascal went on too long, just like its hero, but I liked it a lot.

By Hajime Kamoshida and Keji Mizoguchi. Released in Japan as “Seishun Buta Yarou wa Girlfriend no Yume wo Minai” by Dengeki Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Andrew Cunningham.

If you remember my reviews of titles like Babel and Unnamed Memory, you may recall that I yelled at the author and the publisher (Dengeki Bunko) for taking what could easily be two books, divided in half neatly, and making them one huge 400-page monster. This book has the exact opposite problem. The digital version is a mere 139 pages long, and that’s counting the table of contents and the (one) color illustration. I wondered if it was a case where the final volume was too long to combine them, but no, the final volume seems to be the same size as this one. This should have been one book, but it is two, with this the first half. I get the sense, judging by the very minimal illustrations, that there were production issues, but it’s still a mostly frustrating volume where Sakuta has his latest crisis happen, wanders around talking for a while, and then has the series’ Deus Ex Machina help him figure out the issue… but not solve it. Yet.

We start this book with Sakuta having done everything possible to ensure that the dream everyone had of Mai announcing that she’s Touko will not come true. Guess what happens. What’s worse, this new reality sees EVERYONE’S dreams come true. Rio is dating Yuuma, Kaede is somehow now two people, both of whom are living a happy fulfilled life, Tomoe is now going to his college next term, etc. And none of them know reality is different, and none of them want to help him fix it. Fortunately, there is one other person who is unaffected by the Touko dream virus, and it’s very thematically appropriate. They manage to take a Sakuta who is at the end of his rope (in a mild-mannered way) and lead him to the main issue, as well as help him see who’s really behind everything we’ve seen in the last five books.

Despite my carping above, this is not a bad volume, just a mostly frustrating one. The revelations, as well as the one who is giving them, are thematically appropriate, and it’s nice to see Sakuta try his usual “walk around and mope at people until he figures things out” and have it not work at all. Turns out when people have their dream come true, they actually are happy and satisfied with it. Hell, some of the dreams might be the readers’ as well. I cannot think that Saki has any fans who are desperately unhappy that she’s broken up with Yuuma, and even Sakuta admits he’s happier with that outcome as well. (We do briefly see Saki, who is NOT happy with that outcome.) Even Kaede, who would be the one most torn by her incompatible dreams, literally becomes two people to fix everything. Mai is still in love with Sakuta and his girlfriend, she’s just also Touko. Everyone is happy and content. Except Sakuta. And the other two people I deliberately waffled around in the second paragraph.

So the next volume is the last, though there’s already an After Story volume out as well, apparently. I assume, this having mostly been all setup, it will be all payoff. This was good. Should have been combined with the next book.

By Hajime Kamoshida and Keji Mizoguchi. Released in Japan as “Seishun Buta Yarou wa Santa Claus no Yume wo Minai” by Dengeki Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Andrew Cunningham.

You know, Rascal Does Not Dream turned into a horror series so gradually, I didn’t even notice. Oh sure, each volume has had its share of horror and suspense – far more than you’d normally expect from a high school romcom. Starting with Mai potentially disappearing and Sakuta’s horrible scars, each volume has sometimes looked deep into the abyss. But I don’t think we’ve had a volume lean quite so hard into actual horror than this one. Even Vol. 6 and 7 was meant to be a tragedy, not horror. Here we get the ongoing Touko plot blending into loss of identity, and over the course of the book we realize that it’s not just Nene who’s dealing with the loss of identity, but A LOT of other people. And now they’re all invisible Santas. And they’re trying to kill Mai. As I said. Creepy as hell. Sakuta manages to resolve the immediate issue this time around, but only by getting physically injured to protect his love. Also, the ending is not reassuring.

Sakuta has a Christmas dream that Mai is singing at a concert, then announced publicly that she is Touko Kirishima. What’s worse, a whole lot of other people had similar dreams. Other, more disturbing dreams are also happening. Kaede dreamed she had reverted to her alternate self again. Futaba dreamed that she and Kunumi were on a happy date together, which is ominous given that he’s still together with Kamisato. And Mai… didn’t have a dream at all. It all has to relate to the Santa-wearing Touko, and Sakuta spends most of the book looking into Touko, as well as the girl he thinks she is, Nene. The answer to how to solve her problem is a lot closer to Sakuta than he thinks, but… is that really the actual problem? Is he just treating a symptom? And what’s with the dream of Mai getting injured and falling into a coma?

As I said, there’s a lot of scary stuff here. Particularly the ending, showing Mai surrounded by about 100 Santa-clad Toukos that no one else seems to be able to see. I did enjoy the wrapup on Nene’s plot specifically, but it also made me wonder how she and all the other Toukos are meant to reintegrate into society after having “vanished” for about 10 months. The book, unsurprisingly, decides to elide over that. I also enjoyed seeing the friendship/codependent helper relationship that he and Ikumi have, is only because it’s just nice to see him have someone reliable to talk to who can help deal with everything even when no one else can. And, honestly, that may end up tying into the next book. Because anyone who thinks the next book is not going to start with Mai saying that she’s Touko is fooling themselves. The whole volume is a setup for that.

There are two books to go, and they come out only two months apart (the final one is in October in Japan), so Yen may wait and try to release them the same way here. The identity of the antagonist is not hard to guess (hint: what major girl hasn’t got a cover yet?) but I have no idea how it’s going to resolve. In the meantime, there is fun banter here, I promise, but it’s getting thin on the ground.