Agents of the Four Seasons: Dance of Summer Part I-II, LN 3-4

Dance of Summer is another two-part story, this time focusing on the Agents of Summer, Ruri and Ayame Hazakura. In the last installment, we were dealing the kidnapping of Autumn and the subsequent rescue. This book contains the fallout from some of the events in the previous book, including Ruri’s resurrection by Autumn.

Now that there are two Agents of Summer, everyone is happy, right? Unfortunately not. There are scumbags in each Season’s Town that are blaming the agents and guardians for taking the drastic actions to rescue Autumn, and most of the conservatives (who call themselves Doyen Turtle) would rather kill off the Agents and “start fresh” with a new set of impressionable children.

The book dives heavily into some of the politics of how the Towns function, including how the seclusion of each seasons’ society leads to rampant abuses of power. As always, each character is struggling just to get by and keep their sanity. None of the Agents are safe in the outside world, with terrorists targeting them at every chance they get, but this installment shows that the Agents aren’t safe inside their supposed safe-haven either.

While we follow Ruri and Ayame, we also meet their grooms-to-be in these volumes as well, including Renri Rouo (pictured on Dance of Summer I with Ayame) and Raicho Kimikage (on Dance of Summer II with Ruri). The stories of romance in this series are just as heart-rending as expected, and every scene with Renri just about made me cry for both Ayame and Renri, who are both going through some truly difficult emotions. Raicho and Ruri’s meeting was more humorous, and matched their personalities well.

These volumes also contained more development for Sakura and Itecho as well, as Itecho is finally realizing why he doesn’t want to let go of his place in Sakura’s life.

We also met a new “divine” being in these books, Kaguya Fugeki, who is the Archer of Twilight. Just like the seasons, it seems the day/night cycle in this world isn’t a natural occurrence either. It’s built on the sacrifices of the Archers who must climb a sacred mountain and fire their arrows at the appointed time, meaning that they can never stray more than a half-day away from their job, and never take time off. Kaguya is a grown adult, and it was nice to see a reasonable person want to protect the child Agents he comes into contact with.

I have to warn people that some of the abuses suffered by the characters are a little too real. (One scumbag even says that Ruri would have been better off dead) Multiple characters are suicidal, but I’m glad that it’s treated with sincerity and gravity. These young kids never chose to have their job, they’re just trying to fulfill it to the best of their abilities while trying to live a “somewhat” happy life. It’s infuriating to see the people who are supposed to be protecting them, abuse their positions and take advantage of their kindness. Honestly, I feel like if the outside world knew what was happening to their beloved Seasons, they would charge the towns with child abuse and revoke their authority for management of these divine beings.

I’m glad we achieved a happy ending here, the characters definitely deserve it, as it was hard fought. I won’t spoil it, but I’m sure it’s pretty obvious based on the covers of these books haha. I’m really invested in this series and characters, and the next volume will be about the Archer of Dawn, Kaya Fugeki. I already have the book, but who knows when I’ll be in the mood to read it. This series is definite a heavy read, not “light” at all despite being a light novel. I always have to have tissues ready.