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.
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