O Maidens in your Savage Season Volume 5

In the last volume of O Maidens in your Savage Season, the Literary Club was tasked with coming up with a romantic legend for the school cultural festival. Now Volume 5 is here and we find out if the story the girls came up with is a success!

The tale our cast came up with is that if you step on the shadow of the one you love at the school bonfire and confess your feelings, they’re sure to accept.The Literary Club does dramatic readings of a short story to spreads this rumour but as they get more and more invested in their idea, they each begin to wonder what to do about their own love lives.

This volume puts the spotlight on Kazusa, Nina and Sonezaki once more. Kazusa is determined to finally tell Izumi how she feels, but Nina has also figured out that she has feelings for Izumi. Kazusa begins to feel the pressure as she realises Nina is falling more in love with Izumi, but will that be enough to stop her?

Meanwhile, Amagi is still feeling rejected by Sonezaki and our sensitive club president knows she needs to do something to make amends. In the previous volume Sonezaki’s grand plan was to make more couples pop up at school due to the romantic legend, but perhaps what she needs to do is rethink what love means to her. Are love and lust the same? Is it that embarrassing to be in a relationship? Does it have to be such a secret? These are all the questions she tries to deal with as Amagi drifts further and further away.

In my review of O Maidens in your Savage Season Volume 4, I talked about how things were beginning to come to an end for Kazusa and Sonezaki’s stories and Volume 5 reaffirms those feelings. Although Kazusa still has a bit to go, by the end of this volume Sonezaki’s tale feels like its complete and I’m grateful for that because with only three volumes left, there is still a lot to cover with the other members of the group.

Because of all the focus on these three particular characters we’ve not seen all that much of Hongo and Momoko. Momoko has an interesting story going on in the sidelines as she rejects the advances of Satoshi (a boy who she made friends with at her cram school) in this volume, and seems to hold feelings for Nina. I feel like there is a lot of depth there but thus far we’ve only seen snippets as the other girls hold the spotlight.

At least where Hongo is concerned we can excuse her absence as being busy writing the legend for the cultural festival. She’s certainly been growing from volume to volume, but there is still an unfinished story to tell there. Author Mari Okada is experienced at juggling a large cast of characters though, so, for now, I’m certainly not worried about any of the Literary Club making it out of this series underdeveloped.

This volume of O Maidens in your Savage Season comes to the West thanks to Kodansha Comics and the series continues to be translated by Sawa Matueda Savage. The translation reads well and is problem-free. This release includes a short bonus chapter set just after Kazusa discovers Izumi watching porn. In the bonus, this leads her to wonder… do girls do that too? It’s an entertaining read and something that never got adapted into the anime, so well worth checking out.

Overall O Maidens in your Savage Season continues to offer a compelling read. This volume begins to bring an end to some of the cast’s stories, which is by no means a bad thing. Will these girls ever find true happiness? We’ll have to keep reading to find out, but this entry suggests a strong possibility at least.