Rokka: Braves of the Six Flowers, Vol. 4 (light novel)

by Ishio Yamagata

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After waiting for years for this novel, it’s finally here and the best parts is that the 6th novel is currently out (and ordered) AND it’s still one hell of a ride!

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This is the first novel series I picked up, I enjoyed the hell out of its anime and since it was just a promotion with nothing wrapped up, I wanted to see how the story begins (novel wise) and of course, continues. Each volume has its fair share of twists and turns, and I’m so glad to see that although I have read 5 volumes of this series so far, I still can’t predict the way Ishio-sensei plans to end this phase in all of its points. This volume clears up a few secrets we’ve been running in circles with the characters trying to solve since volume 1, adds extra layers to some characters and gives us another perspective of the fiends that makes things somewhat clearer in some places.

The way Ishio-sensei tells this story is probably the thing I enjoy the most about his writing, it’s not just following the perspective of a select few and you’re supposed to guess how this happened or how did that happen, no, he gives the chance for everyone; be it human or not. For example, once the various discussions start, we get characters who mention something off-hand, like the existence of something but the thing is, it would be the first time I’ve ever heard about it, later on there will be a section where Ishio-sensei will give the perspective to someone who will reveal how that thing came to be without making the story feel disjointed and I really appreciated that.

Because of how much gets revealed or approached every volume, Ishio-sensei also makes some characters repeat that event to give the reader a sort of refresher, or at least that’s what it felt like to me. I mean, before the license of this novel it was being fan translated and I read volumes 1-4 through that translation which stopped back in 2016 after the license, so this gap getting filled for me to make the transition back into this series easier was another thing I really appreciated. Like every other volume, it will focus on a single character in a much bigger scale than the rest and this time we get to see Fremy’s past, her upbringing and how she became a brave which also giving the spotlight to the other characters in smaller and not as history heavy instances.

I did notice that Goldov for some reason didn’t get that much of a focus this time around, but then again, volume 3 covers almost everything about this guy so I’m content. I didn’t talk about the plot so far because there are so many things to cover and because of spoilers, there are quite a few secrets in this series and although all the braves are working towards defeating the Demon God in some way, they also have to solve said mysteries and this novel answers almost all of them. After it has left us guessing for years on who is who, and personally I’m glad to see that I wasn’t wrong in my deduction, there is one big indicator I believe I missed back then, but reading it here again solidified my chosen culprit.

There was a certain thing I didn’t enjoy reading about all that much, and it sorry of put a dampener on my reading mood because it was there, but I guess I should have left to Ishio-sensei to somehow convince me that it’s bound to happen because of the character roles. Finally.
I recently learned that this Light Novel series is broken down into phases, the first phase supposedly ends with the 6th volume which, if true, works perfectly with the slow speed he writes in andI can’t wait to see how it will be wrapped up in volume 6.

Final rating: 4/5