Yes. Unequivocally yes. But with a warning: this volume will leave you emotionally raw. It is not a comfortable read. It exposes the loneliness of the grifter, the paranoia of the hunted, and the tragedy of a woman who has lied so much she no longer knows what the truth feels like.
It’s absurd. It’s brilliant. And it perfectly encapsulates the series’ thesis: The best way to fight a broken system is to break it better. Renji Fukunaga’s art has always been sharp, but Vol 4 elevates it. The character designs remain expressive—Hotaru’s eyes shift from saucer-wide innocence to razor-thin menace in a single panel. However, the real evolution is in the panel layouts.
A brilliant side plot involves Hotaru trying to apologize to a victim from Volume 1—a elderly bookstore owner she conned out of a rare first edition. When she tracks him down, he doesn’t remember her. Or does he? The ambiguity is agonizing. This is not a redemption arc. It’s a reckoning. If Volume 1 was the origin story (the “how she learned to lie”), and Volume 2 was the world-building (the “Tokyo underground of grift”), and Volume 3 was the empire-strikes-back tragedy—then Volume 4 is the dark night of the soul before the final act. hotaru the hyper swindler series vol 4
The sound effects (or gitaigo ) are also worth noting. Fukunaga uses silent beats masterfully. One of the most chilling moments is a full page of Hotaru and The Auditor staring at each other through a two-way mirror. No words. No action lines. Just tension. You can almost hear the needle drop. Volume 4 leans harder into philosophy than any previous entry. Hotaru has used dozens of aliases: Yuki, Rin, Mei, even a male persona named “Haru.” But now, she’s forgetting which one is real. There’s a recurring motif of masks—literally, she buys a cheap fox mask from a ¥100 shop and wears it during her most vulnerable moments.
For fans who have waited patiently (or impatiently) since the cliffhanger of Volume 3, the question isn’t whether this volume delivers—it’s whether you’ll be able to trust your own eyes by the final page. Let’s break down everything you need to know about the latest installment. Before diving into Volume 4, it’s crucial to remember the wreckage of Volume 3. Hotaru—the hyper-competent, hyper-anxious, hyper-charismatic swindler—had just executed her riskiest con yet: infiltrating the “Kaminari Zaibatsu,” a family-run electronics empire laundering money through cryptocurrency. She succeeded in siphoning ¥3 billion, but at a cost. Her partner-in-crime, the stoic hacker known only as “Nezu,” was seemingly captured. Worse, her secret identity was compromised to a mysterious new antagonist known as "The Auditor"—a forensic accountant with a vendetta against con artists. It is not a comfortable read
When Hotaru is planning a con, the panels are rigid, grid-like, and clinical. But when a scam goes wrong (and many do in this volume), the panels become chaotic—overlapping, diagonal, bleeding off the page. There’s a sequence where Hotaru is chased through a night market; each page is a single vertical strip, giving the sensation of falling. It’s disorienting. It’s intentional. You feel her desperation.
Volume 3 ended with Hotaru staring at a blank computer screen, tears streaming down her face, whispering, “They’ve taken everything… except my name.” Hotaru the Hyper Swindler Series Vol 4 (published by Kodansha, translated by Alethea Nibley and Athena Nibley) picks up exactly 72 hours later. But don’t expect a recovery montage. Instead, author and illustrator Renji Fukunaga plunges us directly into a panic attack. 1. The Emotional Toll of the Grift Previous volumes showcased Hotaru’s genius—the fake identities, the forged documents, the split-second improvisation. Volume 4, however, focuses on the hangover . For the first time, we see Hotaru suffer from genuine PTSD. She jumps at phone rings. She sees Nezu’s ghost in every reflection. There’s a haunting two-page spread with no dialogue: just Hotaru sitting in a capsule hotel, surrounded by crumpled con plans, her manic smile completely gone. It’s brilliant
The subtitle of this volume (in the Japanese edition) is “Uso no Naka no Shinjitsu” — “Truth Within the Lie.” The central question isn’t whether Hotaru can swindle her enemies. It’s whether she can stop swindling herself.