Title: ハーフボイルド・ワンダーガール
Author: 早狩武志
label: Ichijinsha Bunko
A few months ago I finally read through Gunjou and so finishing the four main Hayakari VNs, now I was in the mood for more and remembered I bought this infamous(?) LN from him ages ago. It was released back in 2008 under Ichijinsha bunko, a label releasing lots of interesting titles back then, including some from eroge writers like this one here. Sadly most of them are not in Kindle since the label doesn’t seem it was very popular and didn’t last long before they gradually stopped releasing new stuff, right before ebooks started to pick up.
The story starts with the protagonist’s osananajimi Mika confessing her love to him, while also dropping that she’s pregnant and pointing him as the father out of nowhere. Toshiki can’t accept that someone else left his beloved osananajimi pregnant so he teams up with the girl from the school mystery association to try to figure out who the father is. The premise alone sounds hilarious and the book is written as a mystery so it’s funny and keeps the comical atmosphere without getting into self-mockering or anything meta. It’s similar to the usual Hayakari writing but with a more cheerful tone, it still has some heavy parts, obviously dealing with adolescence pregnancy, death and so on, but it’s far from the level of his VNs at least. Hayakari’s style is still all over the place with double protagonist POV between Toshiki and the detective girl Sakurai, and his particular way of writing characters/conversations with them fucking everyone else over because silly teenagers. The weakest part is the mystery since it’s really easy to guess who the father is.
As a mystery novel is kinda bad, but as a seishun romance is pretty decent, as usual in this kind of book the last chapter and ending is the best part getting into more thematic topics. The ending here is pretty good too and more happy than usual.
It’s also a bit open-ended since Toshiki and Sakurai’s relationship isn’t really as closed as it should, leaving it open for some kind of continuation with both of them resolving more mysteries together in the school club. However I don’t think Hayakari was planning to write more, with the premise alone he already knew it wasn’t gonna be a big success for the masses anyway.
I probably wouldn’t recommend it unless you are already familiar with Hayakari, but fans should have a good time. I mean when you check comments from people you can already see half of them triggered so that’s how you know Hayakari did a good job.