By Takibi Amamori and Imigimuru. Released in Japan as “Make Heroine ga Ōsugiru!” by Gagaga Bunko. Released in North America by Airship. Translated by Matthew Jackson. Adapted by Hayame.

I think these volumes have started to hit their stride, in that I’m no longer incredibly annoyed with the main characters quite as much anymore. It helps that, for the most part, when I want to roll my eyes at Nukumizu, someone is there to do it for me. The conceit of this series is that its male lead is very familiar with the concept of light novel harem romcoms, but he’s also a normal teenage boy, and so, like all normal teenage boys, too dim to understand flirting and attraction towards him (a healthy dose of self-loathing helps too). The girls, meanwhile, are all very aware that they’re in a harem romcom, and are trying their best, but… (waves vaguely at Nukumizu). There’s a running gag which comes up a few times here where the girls try to have a romantic, sweet moment, and Nukumizu just watches as it goes right over his head, and they say “that right there…” to him. He never gets it. That right there is why this series is ongoing.

Yes, that’s Tsukinoki on the cover art, which means that for the first time we’re not seeing a Losing Heroine. That said, it’s the last time we’ll be able to see her, as graduation is here, and she and Tamaki are worrying about getting into university more than the current romcom plot. The current romcom plot is that Lemon has asked Nuzumiku out on a date, and after taking him to the aquarium and watching him be completely confused about why she would be doing this, she confesses she wants to quit her clubs. Plural. Both track and the lit club, which would be bad news for him and Komari. They end up making a bet – if he can beat her in a race, she’ll stay with both clubs. Of course, she’s an outstanding athlete who could compete in Nationals, and he’s a skinny, out-of-shape nerd. So she gives him a handicap… which likely still won’t be enough.

As noted above, this is not Tsukinoki’s book but Lemon’s, though the other girls all get a good scene or two. My favorite was Shikiya, who realizes that, like Araragi, Nukumizu is a guy who would “save anyone”, and she likes that a lot less than Senjougahara did. Lemon, meanwhile, is dealing with an issue she’s had before – she’s simply too good at track, and the coaches are understandably concentrating on her to get the school some notice and to get her into Nationals. She, however, is worried about all the other track girls, who are not as good as her and therefore not getting the attention. Of course, as it turns out none of the girls feel resentment towards her at all, mostly as Lemon is a sweetie pie who has not a single selfish bone in her body. Once he wins (sorry to spoil, but come on, this IS still a light novel), he solves the problem by telling her to be more selfish. The girls not being as good as she is is not her problem. Go for the gold. Too bad love isn’t like a track meet, no matter how much she tried to make it so.

So now our leads head into second year, and I bet that means a new character being introduced who’s a giant flaming loser of a girl. We wouldn’t have it any other way.

By Takibi Amamori and Imigimuru. Released in Japan as “Make Heroine ga Ōsugiru!” by Gagaga Bunko. Released in North America by Airship. Translated by Matthew Jackson. Adapted by Hayame.

Given that this is a series that, about half the time, frames itself as a parody of the standard light novel high school harem genre, I should not have been surprised with the outcome of this volume. And yet. I was surprised. I had certainly seen the previous four volumes, showing Nukumizu’s sister Kaju as, shall we say, dangerously obsessed with her brother, but other series have also done that (looking at you, Goodbye Overtime), and have known that it’s OK to show them as being far too close for a brother and a sister without saying straight out “there is sexual desire here, this is meant to be incestuous for real”. Losing Heroines goes there, and so this comes as a content warning for those who might be put off. That said, I think most who would be put off wouldn’t have gotten this far into the series anyway, and it’s not as if Nukumizu has the ability to understand anyone’s attraction to him, much less his sister.

It’s time for the middle school students to visit prospective high schools, and that means our protagonists have to show off what makes their school great. For some this is easy due to talent (Lemon, who may be held back a grade but boy can she run). For some it’s easy due to personality (Anna, despite her foibles, can be outgoing and personable). The literature club is in trouble, though, with its two introverts who hate dealing with others. Nukumizu, however, has other problems. It’s Valentine’s Day soon. He heard his sister recently on the phone talking about… a guy! And she’s got plans in the calendar the siblings share that imply dates! She’s 14, that’s far too young to date, surely! Everyone else tells him he’s overthinking this, but they’re not getting through to him, as he’s in full big-brother mode. Hijincks, of course, ensue.

As always this is a well-written book, with a lot of laugh out loud gags. Anna is funny whenever she opens her mouth, and her chocolate cannonball was deserving of the interstitial art it got. Nukumizu, as always, is so good at reading the hidden subtext of most of the relationships of others around him that he fails to see the actual TEXT of girls throwing themselves at him. He is told by his friend Ayano that he needs to realize how he looks to everyone around him who doesn’t have the full story, and Nukumizu… brushes him off. And let’s talk about the elephant in the room. Not only does Kaju provide a story for the literature club about a brother who has knocked up his little sister, but she’s also really desperate to help her friend Gondou with her own doomed relationship, despite the fact that Gondou knows that Kaju is really thinking about herself. She knows she can’t have sex with her brother. She knows he just sees her as family. And, as this volume makes explicit, she HATES that.

Now that we’ve unlocked the barn door and let the horses out, I assume that she’s going to get more blatant in future volumes, which does not thrill me. But she also won’t be the focus, so I’ll bear with it for now. For romcom diehards and people who don’t understand why I don’t like that sweet, sweet incest.

By Takibi Amamori and Imigimuru. Released in Japan as “Make Heroine ga Ōsugiru!” by Gagaga Bunko. Released in North America by Airship. Translated by Matthew Jackson. Adapted by Acro.

I feel that as this series has gone on it has very much decided to be a normal romcom with an oblivious protagonist rather than a satire/deconstruction of same, and I like it better this way. Sure, I still want to strangle Nukumizu, but that’s the point, and everyone else in the story agrees with me. Unfortunately, because this is a romcom, all the women in the series who are not otherwise seeing someone seem to be falling in love with him. Including new candidates this volume, because unlike previous ones, the plot forces him to stay involved the entire time and not try to blow everyone off. What it shows is that when he tries, he can be observant, caring, and genuinely nice… provided he’s not thinking about it. Once he does, and he gets into that “no, I’m overthinking this, there’s no way she could be interested in me that way” mode, that’s when he makes girls want to punch him.

This is one of those series where each volume has the heroine of that particular book, so as you may have guessed, this volume focuses on Shikiya, student council secretary and vaguely emotionless weirdo. That said, the book starts with Tiara Basori, the uptight vice-president of the student council, confiscating Tsukinoki’s later BL novel, which features… erm… a genderswapped student council president and Nukumizu in RPF. Naturally, she threatens to submit it to the faculty, which will definitely lead to Tsukinoki getting suspended at least, the dissolution of the literature club, and possibly Nukumizu, who’s in the book, also getting suspended. As such, there’s a new goal for Nukumizu to achieve… find a way to blackmail Tiara and get that book back! Of course, this is not an issue, because, as Shikiya says, “Tiara is easy.”

Note that easy means a romantic pushover, and not easy in the western way. She falls for Nukumizu almost immediately, it’s honestly one of the better jokes in the book at how comically fast it is. That said, she’s also the duller, more standard part of the book. The more interesting bit is with Shikiya and Tsukinoki’s fractured relationship, and how no one really wants to talk about it. Shikiya has been amusing but an enigma in the first three books, and in this one we see that her emotional difficulties are actually a major issue for her, and that she regards other people smiling – even if it turns out to be just a faked smile – as something that she can’t really do. As with every other girl in this series, if she and Nukumizu became a couple, they’d be a good one. Also like every other girl in this series, that would require Nukumizu to be self-aware, which he painfully isn’t. Right now he has a better chance of scoring with his “still walking the incest line but not going over it” younger sister.

Still, if you like romcoms with a greater emphasis on “com”, and don’t mind the fact that everyone in the cast is a failure pile in a sadness bowl, this is perfect for you.