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Rascal Does Not Dream of Petite Devil Kohai

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

This book had several hills to climb in order to win me over, to be honest. I enjoyed the romance in the first volume, and was not fond of it being torpedoed right off the bat in the cliffhanger. The heroine of this book, Tomoe, did not make all that good an impression on me in the first one. Time loop stories make me vaguely uncomfortable, hitting a certain level of “I get embarrassed reading this” in me. And fake dating stories also rub me the wrong way in actual books, though oddly I’m fine with it in fanfiction, mostly as it almost always leads to real dating. That said, it’s a testament to the writing skill of the author that I was able to enjoy the book regardless, and most of my objections stated above were put to rest fairly easily. (The one heroine per book thing is something I fear I will have to get used to.)

The time loop is helped by it only being relevant at the start and end of the book. Sakuta is caught in a loop of the same day… for three days, and then, when it breaks, he’s basically in the worst possible situation. This is due to the heroine of this book, Tomoe, who is not a literal devil but is a stand in for “Laplace’s Demon”. We saw her in book one kicking Sakuta’s butt (and getting kicked in the butt in return, something that Sakuta, being who he is, brings up over and over again in this book), and now she has a problem, one that she tried to get Sakuta to help with once the time loop breaks. In order to fend off the attention of another guy, they have to pretend to date for the rest of the semester. Of course, Sakuta is in love with Mai, which makes things just a bit difficult. And that’s not even getting into Tomoe hitting the “fanfiction” part of the trope and wanting to turn her fake dating real.

As with the first book, the main reason to read the series is Sakuta, who is both a very nice , upstanding guy and a completely terrible lech who just has no filter at all. This book provides a different heroine to react to this, and while Mai was basically doing her best Senjogahara impersonation, Tomoe is the sort of blush, stomp her feet and say “Geez!” at his antics. Tomoe is far more likeable in this book when she gets the entire novel to sell herself, and I really enjoyed her backstory, which also tied into the reason why Sakuta, who is still trying to tell Mai he loves her, agrees to do this at all. There are hints of future plot developments – the third book seems to feature Rio, and there’s some setup for that here, namely her not-so-hidden crush on her friend Yuuma, and there’s another shocking cliffhanger ending that will no doubt play out in future books somehow. And there’s a lot of fun humor, mostly because Sakuta exists.

To sum up, I was wary of this book, but it ended up being a lot of fun. I am definitely getting the next in the series.

Bottom-Tier Character Tomozaki, Vol. 4

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By Yuki Yaku and Fly. Released in Japan as “Jaku Chara Tomozaki-kun” by Shogakukan. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Winifred Bird.

We have reached the point in this series where Tomozaki is starting to get good at playing Hinami’s “game” of life, and for the most part he sails through her directives in this book. In fact, the first two thirds of this book are a great deal of relaxing fun, especially after the confrontation between our two leads in the last volume. Most of this chunk of the book revolves around the sports festival, where the boys and girls in the class will be competing. The role of girls’ captain is somewhat thankless, and is at first foisted off on one of the quiet wallflowers in the class, then by Izumi. The true stumbling block, though, is Erika Konno, the Queen Bee of the class, who does not want to try hard or care unless she has to. So Tomozaki’s task is to get Konno interested in the sports festival. And now that he’s become something of a social animal, he can even ask others for help as well.

Izumi gets a lot to do in this book, as she’s involved in every single plot and subplot. She and Nakamura make their relationship clearer, and they’re now going out. She’s also the one who’s most invested in another issue – due to Nakamura and his mother fighting, he’s not coming to school, and it’s taking a worryingly long time for them to make up. This was probably the funniest part of the book, as Hinami is very reluctant to get involved in this – until Atafami is brought up as the reason for the fight, when she suddenly changes her tune. As with previous books, Hinami is at her best as a character when we see her mask cracking, which it does several times here. The sports festival also goes well, and provides Tomozaki a chance to bond with the other boys in the class AND have a laughable anti-sports manga moment. Everything’s great, and the game is fun. What could go wrong?

…well, life is not a game you can stop playing when it ceases to be fun is the lesson we learn in the last third of the book, when Erika Konno moves from apathetic Queen Bee to nasty bully, picking on the shy girl in the class because, well, for the same reason that bullies always pick on the quiet kid. The book then gets really good again (the author is excellent at making the last fifth of so of each book really sing) when Tama-chan gets involved. She hasn’t been a big part of the series so far, and most of what we know about her is that she’s very serious and straightforward. That ends up being both a strength and a weakness when she confronts Konno, and we get an excellent look at how this sort of bullying can affect the mood of a classroom, and why the sympathy of a group is rarely with the bullied. We also see the previous crack in Hinami’s armor get larger – just as she was willing to get involved when Atafami was being dissed, here she’s ready to go to bat for her friend. That said, Tomozaki is not the only one growing and learning in this series.

The book ends with the problem unresolved, and given Tama-chan is on the next cover, I expect we’ll get a lot more of it. It’s a good way to end a great book in the series, one willing to deal with problems both small and large, and with an excellent view of classroom dynamics and mood. Forget “read this if you find Oregairu too depressing”, just read this, period.

86 –Eighty-Six–, Vol. 5: Death, Be Not Proud

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By Asato Asato and Shirabii. Released in Japan by Dengeki Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Roman Lempert.

It’s only taken a few volumes for this to rise to near the top of my list of favorite Japanese light novels, and there are several reasons for it, but I’ll focus on one here: the author is very good at strong, memorable set pieces. I’ve talked before about how the most ordinary ideas can become magic with good writing and strong characterization, and that’s true here as well, though given the books we’ve seen lately trying to ape 86, perhaps the ideas aren’t that ordinary. But the best light novels also have one or two scenes that blow the reader away, something that when you are recommending the book to someone else you cannot help but gush over. 86 is particularly good at this, and there’s more than one in here, both dramatic and horrific. (If you’re looking for humor, this is not the series for you.) But a conversation between Shin, our hero, and Lerche, who is… well, a spoiler, upends the entire picture of what war is to an 86, and how war should be fought. Because don’t forget the main thrust of this series: war is awful.

The 86 and Lena are sent to the United Kingdom, which is a bit on the nose for books like these, but hey – which is also battling the Legion, and is now desperate enough to call in France… erm, the Federacy… because they’re running out of time to fix things. Fortunately, they have another genius to help guide the combat in Prince Vika, who will be leading an army of young women who are dead soldiers who have been resurrected, sort of, as essentially androids. They are there to fight the war, and are happy to do so, given that they’re not actually alive. The 86 find this a bit disturbing, but also do not seem to see the parallel between these girls and themselves. As for Lena, well, she’s still struggling with several issues – she still can’t understand Shin and tends to lean towards pity, that face that she’s clearly from the Republic earns her hatred, and perhaps worst of all, she’s forced to wear a skin-tight suit in order to better communicate and lead the soldiers under her command.

The last part is probably the one low point in this book – you get the sense the editors ask for one fanservice scene per book that they can hand to the illustrator. The high points in the book are numerous. The battles are vicious and nasty, with the Legion proving to be exceedingly clever even though they lack a personality. The way that the Sirins solve the problem of the siege is mesmerizing in its grotesqueness. There’s a secondary romance in this book starting between Anju and another soldier that manages to get farther than Shin and Lena have in five books. Indeed, by the end of the book they seem farther apart than ever, as Shin realizes that he knows absolutely nothing about Lena. But the highlight, as I said, is that scene between shin and Lerche, where Lerche, despite seemingly being an automaton, gradually grows more furious hearing about Shin vowing to continue the fight because if they let others fight for them they’d be “cowards”. It is, in its own way, an argument between two tools. But only one of these tools can stop being one and become human again.

This is still a brutal series, and if you dislike war-filled battlefields you may want to skip it. But it’s seriously one of the best books currently coming out, and I can’t wait for the 6th volume.