Your Forma Volume 3 Review

For the first two instalments of Your Forma, we saw Electronic Investigator Echika and her Amicus (an artificial human) partner Harold solve two cases that hit close to home. Now into its third volume, the series moves on to a new case that’s less connected to the personal history of our two leads, but does it prove an interesting read? Let’s take a look!

At the end of Volume 2, Echika learns that Harold isn’t bound by the Laws of Respect like his fellow Amicus, allowing him to act exactly like a human essentially. This includes injuring or killing them and with Harold hoping to seek revenge on the murderer of a loved one, Echika is hoping he never becomes aware of his ability to harm.

Volume 3 begins two months after the events of #2 and Echika is struggling with keeping such a big secret from Harold. She’s turned to bio-hacker Bigga to supply her with medical cartridges that can help maintain her mood but Harold is sharp and well aware something isn’t right with her. Before he can get to the bottom of things, the two are sent to investigate a new case involving a hacker known as E. They have been leaking classified police information on a popular message board and have built up quite a following of people who are against Your Forma devices and the divide between those with them and those who choose to live without the technology.

With a lot of information being covered up in the previous case involving Harold and the other Amicus models related to him, Interpol is increasingly worried about E leaking more incriminating facts as well as the civil unrest that’s being brought about by the hackers’ followers. So it’s off to Paris for Echika and Harold as they chase down a lead that should hopefully bring them closer to E’s identity.

Unfortunately, the case is made more difficult when Echika fails a Brain Dive and learns her abilities are starting to lower drastically, meaning for the foreseeable she can’t continue working as an Electric Investigator and is instead moved into a standard police investigator role. Harold meanwhile is given a new “genius” assistant, but will either of them be able to solve the case while working apart?

In many ways, author Mareho Kikuishi’s decision to split up our two main characters is a good one as we get to watch them investigate from two very different directions. Given the sci-fi setting of this world, it was nice to see there is still more traditional police work to be done and seeing this helped flesh out the setting more. Plus Echika learns a lot from doing the work without being able to rely on Brain Diving into victims to gain information. Harold’s side was less interesting, but we end up seeing less of that compared to Echika so it balances out.

This story in general is more of a traditional cat-and-mouse game, similar to what we saw in Volume 1 but this is certainly the weakest of the three books so far for me. It wasn’t the kind of mystery you could readily figure out yourself (although there are hints) and since it’s setting up for a bigger case in the future the climax isn’t as satisfying as these previous stories have been. I don’t think that’s a huge issue, considering we’re three books in and it doesn’t need to rely on hooking a reader, but I do hope Volume 4 is more of a return to form.

Maybe it was simply the lack of the usual buddy-cop relationship between Echika and Harold that left this one feeling a bit more hollow. With their strained relationship and having to work apart, we miss out on a large part of what made the first two books so entertaining. Even if this is for the greater good of the story in the long run, it’s a shame all the same.

Your Forma Volume 3 comes to the West thanks to Yen Press and continues to be translated by Roman Lempert. As with the previous releases, this book reads well with no issues of note and includes colour pages by illustrator Tsubata Nozaki at the beginning. At the time of writing, Yen Press has caught up with the Japanese releases with Volumes 4, 5 and 6 available in English. There’s still the forthcoming anime adaptation in the works, although no information on that has been revealed since it was first announced last year.

Overall, Your Forma Volume 3 might be the weakest book in the series so far but that doesn’t mean it isn’t an interesting read. As with previous cases, the crime our duo are investigating this time is inspired by real events and the futuristic setting adds plenty of interesting twists and turns to it. Flawed, but still worthwhile if you’ve enjoyed the previous instalments.

Our review copy from Yen Press was supplied by Diamond Book Distributors UK.