Light Novel Review: Shurabara! Volume 4

So Takana and Sanae have spotted Mysterious Beauty X and Kazuhiro and makes a dash for them. Kazuhiro knows there’d be no explaining, so all he can do is run for it – with Mrs. X. He gets into a taxi with her and takes off.

Sanae soon catches up to Takana who’s on the verge of tears. But Sanae manages to calm her down and suggests that there must be a reason to it. They decide to track the two escapees down and call Sanae’s maid for that sake. So Takana flips her mobile to Sanae, who catches it and puff, it’s broken. Tough luck. New plan, Takana runs after them and Sanae looks for her maid to then catch up with her. God knows how they plan doing that without any means of communication.

After Mrs. X tried to be all lovey-dovey in the taxi and the middle-aged driver’s quite enjoying it, they get off at a family restaurant quite far from where they departed. It turns out that Mysterious Beauty X is, in fact, Saotome’s little sister, Rinne. The reason why she did all this is that Saotome’s about to get famous and her actual face (or more like body (gravure shoot)) will be published in an anime magazin, hence otaku fans who don’t want “used goods” (google that). She has to be pure, or else: riot. So she plans on being Kazuhiro’s girlfriend instead and tell everyone it was so from the beginning, since they look quite alike – but not quite enough. Also, everyone in class already knows Saotome and Kazuhiro are together, so hm. Her plans being full of holes aside, the main point is that it’d be for the better if Kazuhiro and Saotome broke up. And for some reason (uuuh), this outcome doesn’t feel too okay for him. Now, Kazuhiro’s still pretty tired from all that’s been going on that day (it’s still the day of the showdown at Sanae’s from volume 3), and this whole issue doesn’t really provide him with peace of mind, so for now he decides to take a leak.

Before I go on, a few points on Saotome’s imouto: she’s basically in love with her Onee-chan, is short-sighted, wears goth loli clothes, is pretty childish, doesn’t have too much between her both ears, and wants to protect her Onee-chan’s career with all she has. Another detail regarding Saotome’s photo shoot: the pic is described to be quite stunning – more so than any other pic in the magazine, so the chances of her fame skyrocketing are quite high.

So, while Kazuhiro’s “busy,” a pretty upset girl calls out to Rinne and approaches her – Takana. Problem is, though, that Rinne is so shortsighted, that she can’t make anything out but that there’s a girl who talks on and on about why Saotome (Rinne) has dragged away Kazuhiro. And so Rinne’s thinking is that there’s only one thing more harmful to Saotome’s career than having a boyfriend: having her boyfriend being taken away by some other girl. Hence she does what she can to clarify that Takana should go to hell and Kazuhiro’s all hers. This upsets Takana greatly, and while she forms the fork in her hand into something resembling a ball, Kazuhiro’s back but tries to keep out of sight. But he comes up with a way to get out of this whole mess, he pays up, drags Rinne away and tells Takana he’ll explain everything later. Of course, Takana tries to get on their heels, but the staff holds her back since she hasn’t paid up for the stuff she’d ordered in the meantime.

After some running, Kazuhiro and Rinne sit down in some so-so, cheap-looking maid café (not “Sweet Drop”) that he hasn’t been to before. Once the cliché maid café rituals (oishikunaaare) are done, they talk a bit more about who that girl just now was. And in the end, Kazuhiro manages to explain everything in a satisfactory manner (she’s just his childhood friend, yadayada), although Rinne’s still slightly suspicious. When Rinne takes a bathroom break, a big hand grabs Kazuhiro’s shoulder: it’s one of Sanae’s Arnold Schwarzeneggers (the young Schwarzenegger). He seems to be a regular at the maid café they’re in. Friendly but resolutely he suggests that Kazuhiro should step out for a bit, someone has business with him. Waiting in front of the café are Sanae and her maid. First of all, Kazuhiro needs to save his neck and convince Sanae that he hasn’t betrayed her with the Saotome-lookalike. That being done, he can also convince her that the person he dragged away wasn’t Saotome, but her little sister, Rinne, and that he basically blocked her kiss. Now that Sanae’s finally calmed down for real, she says that he protected his first kiss for her, and since Kazuhiro has to “keep up the act,” she keeps her fantasies going which eventually leads to her wanting to kiss him. Right before it happens, he denies her, though, with the most horrible shilly-shally excuse I’ve read yet (something along the lines of they both have to think about their relationship and be totally sure before giving away their first time (kiss, of course) – that sounds like something you’d say before breaking up with someone, what the eff?).

And so, Sanae drives off to see Takana, who’s still in a bind at the family restaurant. After Sanae’s paid up for her, they sit down and have a talk (and order some more). Takana tells Sanae what Saotome dared to spout out and it’s said that she’s not really angry with Kazuhiro, since she believes in him and he’s always got his reasons. However, Sanae tells her that Kazuhiro said it wasn’t Saotome but Saotome’s little sister. Yay, all settled.

Kazuhiro himself has only one problem left now: Arnold’s still around in his moe anime t-shirt that looks way too weird on someone of his figure, and there’s another girl in goth loli clothes waiting inside the maid café for him. A servant of Sanae + another girl = not so good. In the meantime the narration switches to Sanae and Takana, who meet in the family restaurant that Takan’s hostage in (since she can’t pay up). And so Sanae helps her friend out and they sit down for a talk. After thinking that it was Saotome who snatched Kazuhiro away, they come to the conclusion that it’s indeed been Rinne, her little sister, who’s simply all grown up by now. A short moment of relief later, the topics shifts to summer vacation soon to be starting, which means… Saotome can’t see Kazuhiro as there’s no school, Sanae can hardly see Kazuhiro since they don’t have part time all week to begin with and their schedules might even fall out of sync, Takana… lives next to him. Who’s got the upper hand here should be clear. And so Sanae suggests to go overseas – with all the girls. But of course Takana just can’t and stuff, and Saotome isn’t present but there’s this anime she’s gotta voice, Sanae should just go and enjoy herself, but that she can’t without the others, ohoho. Anyway, they decide to make sure Rinne does nothing stupid and get a hold of the two of them, after all.

When Kazuhiro steps into the maid café again, Rinne’s nowhere to be found. A maid tells him that she stepped outside the emergency exit earlier, and so he pays up for the both of them and goes looking for her. And she’s at the emergency stairway indeed. She went there since the bodyguard’s silhouette looked very imposing and she thought something was wrong. From the emergency stairs she could well survey the situation. Well, more like eavesdrop since she can hardly see without her glasses on. And so yet another drama starts as Sanae tried to kiss him before and she overheard it all. Somehow talking himself out of it by utilizing Saotome’s name again, they decide to get out of there already, since the Arnolds (Fun fact: One of the Arnolds’ names reads “Komando.” Always forgot to mention that.) all of a sudden start to look for them again, which isn’t a good omen. There’s also a tiny situation here where Kazuhiro takes Rinne piggyback as her shoes are way too loud on the stairway. On that occasion he grabs her buttocks “by mistake.”

Kazuhiro decides to escort her as far as he can since she’s a middle school girl, it’s dark, she’s no glasses with her, looks like a gothloli, and doesn’t know where she is. Need any more reasons? On the way, however, she needs to go to the bathroom, again. Since she’s about to leak already, there’s only one option in that godforsaken place they are: a love hotel (winkwink, foreshadowing/drama incoming, winkwink). And so they take the cheapest room for the smallest amount of time and what’s with Rinne? She only faked having to go to the toilet and wants to pop Kazuhiro’s cherry as she’s even fonder in her believe that he’s just a playboy after having experienced his exchange with Sanae before. However, she bursts into tears before long and Kazuhiro can talk her out of it by telling her that Saotome would indeed be happy if she knew that Rinne helped, but not like this. And so his virginity’s saved. Oh joy.

After Rinne’s off to Saotome’s apartment to tell her how great a boyfriend (cough) she has, Takana literally bumps into Kazuhiro and wants to beat him to death until the keyword “imouto” falls, pacifying her to Kazuhiro’s surprise. The volume closes with the (now?) four girls having a tea party in Saotome’s apartment (the three others bump heads in front of Saotome’s apartment when she comes back home from work) foreshadowing the summer holidays issue.