“I won't have a conversation with you. You will just listen to my words like an idiot." [p. 45]

Well, that pretty much sums up how reading this book feels like.

Utsuro no Hako to Zero no Maria is a light novel series by Mikage Eiji told in seven books, which I don't know if I'll ever read till the end because just the first one, The Rejecting Classroom here reviewed, was such an experience Game of Thrones suddenly seems worth the Nobel prize for literature in comparison. And I'm talking about a book written so badly there are empty, generic passages like:

“The hall rang to Yunkish laughter, Yunkish songs, Yunkish prayers. Dancers danced; musicians played queer tunes with bells and squeaks and bladders; singers sang ancient love songs in the incomprehensible tongue of Old Ghis.” [from 'A Dance with Dragons']

Ugh, how it does not express any kind of mood or content.

One premise: I, as well as likely many western readers of the series, do not speak japanese, so this entire review (or analysis, or rant, you choose) is going to refer to Baka-Tsuki's English translation of the first novel; whether it is faithful or not to the original text, for the sake of the review I'll generally refer to whoever is behind it, be it Mikage Eiji or a translator, as “the author”. It's my way of being fair and unbiased, please bear with it.

Back on topic, I opened with an actual big claim: the author's writing is worse than G. R. R. Martin's. It's not unusual to find dry and unispired prose in light novels, but for it to be so terrible I actually gave up four times prior in the first pages is an amazing result. Let's take for example page 13 of the first volume; Daiya, our protagonist's best friend, informs him about the incoming transfer student, to which Hoshino, our protagonist, absent-mindedly replies that he already “heard something about it”. Now this was a really bad move on his part because immediately Daiya begins questioning him on how he knew about the transfer student, presenting a lenghty reasoning to prove the impossibility for Hoshino to know anything of it, just to completely shrug it off next page with a “Well, whatever”. And the topic will never be discussed again.

So why even bother in the first place? The answer is actually pretty simple; it was so we could be informed, in a very straight-forward manner, about the story being a time loop. Which, incidentally, was clearly so since the first line in the novel, “1st time”. It became more obvious at the fourth line “23th time” and almost insultingly forced upon us at the seventh line “1050th time” [p. 10]. So I get it, there's a time loop, I know you have to explain it to the readers but, since it's already an established plot point since the very first page, is it necessary to be so redundant about it? It seems nitpicking, I know, but it's important to understand how the author is poorly using repetitions to get across a very simple point, as if he's not confident enough about his plot so he has to retrace it again and again.

And that's overlooking the stiff small talks in which the characters engage in the first few pages. Still, if we need further evidences of the author awkward prose, here's some other passages from the following pages:

“It's not good to be making these guesses about the transfer student, it's prejudice. I mean she's already in a suspicious position even without that.” [p. 14]

Why would she be? Never explained. Also this statement sounds quite prejudicial itself.

“She sits down naturally at the empty seat beside mine, almost as if this seat has been prepared for her from the start.” [p. 15]

Isn't that how it usually works, the transfer student gets the empty sit? Maybe there were several empty seats she could choose from but it is never stated otherwise so how could we know? The way it is presented it's not something so weird it deserves this enigmatic phrasing.

“The white legs that look out from Mogi-san's skirt are so thin, […] And I am, for some reason, sleeping with my head on her lap. Ah, yeah. I don't have a clue anymore of what´s going on, either. […] I can, by the way, remember how it came to this.“ [p. 16]

Either you don't have a clue of what's going on or you do, there's really no in-between. One cannot know and not know about something, Socrates would go insane at the mere thought. You probably meant to say that the protagonist is confused about the situations he's in, but that's way too roundabout and misspelled to express such a simple point.

“Daiyan is so intelligent it's not even funny, right? […] And he said he would simply write «Aya Otonashi». So he couldn't think of anything else to write. Of course it's the same for me. What I want to say is, well, we can't think of anything, so we can't write anything else, either." [p. 23]

“'Sent back' is the correct expression from my own perspective, but generally it's not. So I'm using the expression 'School Transfer' here, since it's closer to what actually happens––” [p. 25]

My mind just did several back flips in the attempt to understand what is even written here.

"Forgetting how to take it out is a common case. But you have just forgotten it; somewhere, you still know how. Like you know how to ride a bicycle: you can't teach it to others, but you know it as a feeling. You're just bewildered because you can't convert it into words." [p. 29]

Since no one is seen laughing after this sentence, I have to believe it was intended as a serious statement, which raises the question: are the author's thoughts so hazy and messy he can't even imagine how to explain the basic concept of riding a bycicle? Does he think it's a natural innate ability we inherit from our DNA, or is it so difficult in his or her native language to say “sit on the saddle, balance yourself with one leg, start spinning the pedal with the other leg and keep going so you don't fall”, which I believe is how most parents teach their children how to ride a bicycle.

Furthermore, who already read the novel surely noticed the extensive use of underlined text, which is a rather unusual stylistic choice. I checked the original text to see if it was just the english translation and apparently even in japanese it was used a similiar fashion to stress relevant plot points. Which is simply a way to say “Look, this part here is very, very important, be sure to remember just this and nothing else on this paragraph. Don't worry about remembering the actual text or story, we are doing it for you”. Being treated as a Chalmers' zombie is not exactly the most flattering way to relate to a book, especially when we have at hand supposedly a mystery novel and a great deal in mystery is for the reader to actually think about the plot, to even try and solve it before the heroes get to the solution. I actually searched to understand the reason behind the underlined text and, seemingly, it's to add emphasis on important parts. Very well, then let's check one of these important parts:

“My friend Haruaki Usui, [who is sitting next to me]” [p. 19]

The bit in brackets was originally underlined and no, there's no real reason why it should be. Nothing gained from emphasis and no tension whatsoever. Some may argue that there is in fact a reason for wherever Haruaki is sitting to be of utmost importance for us; some pages later Haruaki is run over by a truck and immediately after we are brought back to the classroom where “Haruaki, who is sitting beside me, worries about me.” [p.30]. So, it was intended to accentuate, yet again, that our plot revolves around a time loop, which we've seen has been far well established by this point and, moreover, this paragraph even started with the line “2602nd time”. So, again, why is Haruaki's sit so important it needs an underscore and how long will we need to be reminded about the time loop before the plot even begins?

I'll hold back further remarks about the writing itself (it'll never get much better anyway) so I can express my point up to now: we barely hit the 30-page mark, of which 8 pages were pictures, and the author has so far revealed him or herself to be redundant, contradictory, shallow, confused and, apparently, so uncomfortable with the vocabulary he can't explain how to ride a bicycle. And he's supposed to tell a compelling thriller/horror/sci-fi story in the remaining 120 or so pages. Forgive me for being quite skeptical.

In fact, what we know by page 30 of the story is that a transfer student named Otonashi Aya is repeating the same day over and over again until she obtains a box from the protagonist Hoshino Kazuki. If he does not comply, people dies. Sounds like a very bad fanfic of Groundhog Day, and there's not even Bill Murray to raise the quality of the cast but we'll live with that. The problem raises when the story tries to set the tone for the central conflict between the two main characters but the actual contents consist of faux wit duels: “Are you stupid? Here's a lenghty explanation as to why”, “Ah! I'm actually a rather smart fellow. Here's a lenghty retort as to why.”, copy and paste for some chapters. My God, this pacing. Also basically everyone express him or herself the same way so after a while you don't even bother with who's accusing who anymore. Now it's starting to sound as a bad Death Note fanfic.

The whole reasoning behind the time loop is quite romantic. It's literally the same as the Endless Eight plus murders but I sincerely appreciated the spin the story gave to the concept. Too bad it took almost a hundred pages of redundancy to get to it; and that the culprit motivations were explaind in a mere page; and that they even tried to hide it for almost twenty more pages; and the solution is brought upon us by circumstantial and meaningless evidences (yes, the pouch). And really, can the murderer blame someone for not remembering what happens in a time loop controlled by the same murderer? I mean it's obvious that the memories will mostly reset if you restart everything from the beginning. I seriously did not understand why they were accused of forgetting what happened in the previous loops [p. 100]. By the end there's also so much of the story based on the concept of “the box” it's just inexcusable no one ever bothered to explain what it was. It grant wishes, sure, but then the wish separate itself from the person, but the “attachment” stays [p. 113], there's the conflict with other box users [p. 66], the fact that one can be closed inside a box [p. 115] because boxes are alternate dimensions? [p. 65] and boxes can be people, or people can be boxes?, it's all too vague and alien to me. The more I read of a book the more I expect to understand, not the the exact opposite.

Let's now discuss our hero, Hoshino Kazuki, a high-school boy gifted with a remarkable intellect. For being such a thoughtful protagonist, Hoshino seems to repeatedly fail to ask the most obvious and important questions, such as “How could I fall in love during the time loop when there had been little to no interactions between me and the girl?”, “What exactly is the box?”, “Who is the asterisk guy?”, “Who is Otonashi Aya?”, “Why only a person related to the classroom can be the culprit?” and “If I did my summer homework would Haruhi stop this madness already?”. He also has some very confused ideas about time and geology: “Everyday life is called everyday life because it flows continuously. If you stopped the flow of a river, then mud would gather and paint it black. It's just like that. Sediment has gathered here as well.” [p. 50]. So, that's not the actual meaning of “everyday”, that's not what happens to a river when you dam it and while the comparison between the flow of time and the flow of a river is common since ancient philosophy, it really does not apply here that well. Had Hoshino been described as a complete berk I would have said he was one of the most believable hero I've encountered in light novels yet.

Then there's the main heroine, Otonashi L Lelouch Light whatever, a girl so smart the moment she's asked to kindly and simply explain the whole story to us- I mean, to Hoshino, her answer is “There will be hindrances if I explain the details to you. Thus I can't tell you.” [p. 65]. Straight out from the international guide on how to avoid any explanation so the readers have to keep hoping that the plot will eventually make sense. Many mistakes this approach for “mystery” when, by its own definition, mystery is “something that is difficult or impossible to understand or explain […] whose [...] nature is puzzling or unknown” [Oxford dictionaries], which really does not translate to “completely avoiding explanations or answers”.

Then what is that HakoMari confuses shallowly as mystery? From the very beginning, we are lead to believe that the protagonist is behind a time loop (which, again, is not that much of a mystery since it was established on page 10) because he accepted the box [p. 8], except he didn't actually accept the box [p. 53] in a turn of events which resembles more the act of throwing a stone and hiding the hand than an actual plot twist. The first moment the mystery is properly addressed and we are given an insight of the culprit [p. 80] it's so painfully obvious who the novel is referring to that I'm left to wonder, was any of this really a mystery to begin with? I guess so, because they even went as far as giving us a red herring to hide the true culprit after that point, and I could only feel sad about it because it meant we reached the point where the author ran out of ideas so he tried to delay as much as possible the solution. Which also reminds me of another flaw which usually occurs in mysteries: when you are mixing fantasy with mystery, either you are called Murakami Haruki or you really should stop, because it will always result in a battle of sci-fi jargon that has little to nothing to do with actual wits or plot twists. And it's also very anticlimactic. Ryukishi07 knows what I'm talking about.

This approach to the story also reflects how HakoMari's author loves to spout unpopular sentences to make his or her characters appear unconventional and witty, when said sentences are not even remotely put into any context: "[Love and hatred a]re the same. ...No, they are certainly different. Love's a worse feeling than hatred because people themselves aren't aware of its dirtiness. It's just repulsive."[p. 87] I can accept this kind of line when I find it in the lyrics of some emo noise metal hardcore band's songs, mostly because I don't listen to any of those genres so they can write whatever they wish; but when a character in a novel stands with such a strong argument, the least I expect is for some in depth study of the character to justify said statement. What do we get then after this? “That doesn't matter now.” [p. 87] which, since characters motivations are so dimly addressed, is a sentence the author must have applied to the whole idea of character development.

At this point some may retort “The first book is just an introduction to the setting and characters; the story actually gets good by the nth volume, there are also the answers you are seeking”, to whom I reply “I'm not sure I want to keep on eating at this restaurant when the appetiser were nettle-coated living locusts, even their pomegranate-chocolate pizza sound suspicious”. I had some exchanges with people who actually went on with the series, and the auspices look far from brighter to me:

“It gets hyped by its niche fans because it loves to shove HUMANS ARE EVIL all the time. We all know people love that. I also hate the author's inability to get to the point instead of going on overblown tangents filled with unnecessary thoughts on how a character feels. […] Well, it is distrust involving romantic abuse which makes it even better. One of the characters convinces a girl to get gang raped in order to prove to him that she loves her. That girls also likes to be burned with cigarettes. The [main character] likes to drink the tears off his girlfriend, which I think is kind of cool. So stuff like that.”

When I'm told I'm about to read mature, controversial content I would expect Pasolini, Kafka or Hardy, not any random issue of the Punisher comic books, because that's really far from the definition of “mature”.

And if the argument “You can't judge it just for the first book” still stands, then I must ask, why are there series which manage to narrate a good overall story while being made of good stand-alone books? The Zaregoto, Spice and Wolf and Haruhi series are major examples, some may say Narita Ryogho's works, and even outside the light novel medium there are the Hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy, Dune, Gormenghast, Earthsea, Narnia, even Harry Potter manages that! It's clever to base future books' events on what was already established previously, that's foreshadowing done good; not so much when key plot points of the first book are not seen nor discussed til much later because up to that point the single book will still count as flawed, as it doesn't explain the fundamental of its own foundations.

The Rejecting Classroom was indeed one of the worst books I've ever read: it was pretty predictable, often times self-contradictory and incredibly redundant; but at least things happened, thanks to the fact these books are so short you can read them in a single afternoon. I'm going to continue this series, none of what I discussed up to know is ever going to be changed by further knowledge of the universe of course, but some very small aspects such certain funny dialogues, passages and actual events and the overall theme of human desire might be worth giving the series the benefit of the doubt. And simply put, from times to times I'm in need of quick, childish, light-hearted reads like this.

Although, The Seven Night in the Mud certainly does not open in any brighter manner:

“In the first place; the «everyday life», which you don't get tired to mention all the time, is different from the «everyday life» as it is perceived by others. You include the loss of things in your perception of «everyday life», am I right? This is, in fact, different from the common definition of «everyday life». Other humans are unable to take it as it comes, […] Every human is distorted, and their «everyday life» gets twisted by their individual values. You could say that a 'box' forces this distortion upon others. You are sensitive to these intentional distortions of the «everyday life» by the 'boxes' of others — and you find them repulsive. Am I wrong?”

But at least this time the book itself replies the same way I would:

“I really have not the slightest idea what he's talking about. Let me be already.”