By Saekisan and Hanekoto. Released in Japan as “Otonari no Tenshi-sama ni Itsu no Ma ni ka Dame Ningen ni Sareteita Ken” by GA Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Nicole Wilder.
As with prior reviews of this title, you’ll have to pardon me, there’s very little to actually write about. The brief bubble of ‘what if a sweet girl and a sweet boy dated?’ light novels burst a while back, and we’ve only got a few ongoing in North America, including this series. It’s doing quite well, and there’s a second season of the anime coming soon. That said, there’s really only two things I can really sink my teeth into here: “Boy, these kids are adorable”, and “Boy, their past has caused both of them to think they are completely unworthy of being loved”. That comes up here quite a bit, as not only is it Mahiru’s birthday, meaning we have to give her the BEST DAY EVER, but they’re also starting to think of college, which means moving to a new place… one where they actually would be living together. Even the very concept makes them both go red. We’re a looooooong way from sex still.
Having successfully celebrated Amane’s birthday, Mahiru’s is up next. Unfortunately, thanks to her parents, she regards the day as “oh, it’s just another year marker showing I’ve gotten older”, it holds no joy for her at all. Amane is determined to change that, and wants to do everything he can to make this the best birthday. Admittedly, after they take exams, and after parent-teacher conferences (which Mahiru attends by herself, of course). We’re going to need the help of friends with actual good taste and an eye for beauty to get just the right bouquet of flowers. We’re going to ask the part-time job to help him learn how to bake the perfect cake. We’re going to try to buy a gift for the girl who has no needs because anything she sees that she wants she just buys it. And in the end, we may have to bring in a ringer to put the cherry on top.
One little niggle that I noticed throughout the book: I appreciate how it can be hard to use real-life places and the names of actual universities in fiction. That said, this series goes above and beyond to obfuscate every detail. We know they’re trying for “the same college” and that it’s about an hour commute from their current apartment. That’s it. We don’t know anything about the college, we don’t know what major they’re doing, except Amane wants to use college to get a better job in the future. It’s very… generic, which is something this series, already a bit too sweet, should avoid. The finale of this book, though, was excellent, finally introducing a character we’ve heard about since the start but have never met, and here the plot is just right, with a good balance of “I’m so happy” and “but is that OK, don’t you deserve better than me?”, because these two are both still a bit screwed up.
Yen’s slowdown means I’ve no idea when the next book will be. Till then, enjoy the next season of the anime.
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