PandoraHearts ~Caucus Race~, Vol. 1 (light novel)

by Jun Mochizuki

Jun Mochizuki (Artist)

Within these pages, four fairy tales unfold, each peering into one of the houses of the four great dukedoms: Vessalius, Rainsworth, Barma, and Nightray. Shifting among present, past, and future, these stories link to each other like a wheel, traveling to and fro in a never-ending ring between the everyday and the extraordinary. Inside this ring, the protagonists take off at a gallop. Caucus race: A race that is run within a circle, any which way one likes. A race with no goal. Who will be the winner?Look deeper into the world of PandoraHearts with this first ever novelization based on the work of the New York Times bestselling manga creator Jun Mochizuki, illuminated by special manga shorts drawn by Mochizuki herself...

• ISBN10: 0316302252
• ISBN13: 9780316302258
• Publish Date: 23 June 2015
• Publish Status: Out of Print
• Out of Print: 21 April 2021
• Publish Country: US
• Publisher: Little, Brown & Company
• Imprint: Yen Press
• Format: Paperback
• Pages: 240
• Language: English

Reviews

[sa090]

You know when you love something so much and you expect everything related to it to be just as wonderful? But then you get something related to it and it’s just so awful in comparison? That right there is the first volume of Caucus Race.

───────────────────

Pandora Hearts is a very special series for me, regardless of how many manga series I pick up, none of them managed to make me go through what Pandora Hearts did. So whenever there is something extra for the series, I strive my best to read it, get familiar with it and the like. This time was no different, I had the volumes for a while so I thought I’ll read it as a change of pace, and unfortunately I expected to be blown away every single time. Thing is, this novel is basically just small slice of life snippets from the four dukedoms. But out of the 4 of them, only one was entertaining and that was only because it followed a more mystery format to it than the others. The others might’ve been fun to read about as well, if they weren’t as freakin boring as they were.

I’m sure it’s because my expectations were through the roof, but I still can’t help think that it was because how the stories themselves weren’t as entertaining as a I hoped. Maybe, it’s because I’ve seen similar cases of everything discussed in multiple places that I was disappointed? That’s probably it because the writing was pretty easy to go through, and the author tried their best to stay true to the characters. I say it like this because Wakamiya Shinobu is not the mastermind behind Pandora Hearts, that achievement belongs to Mochizuki Jun who is currently writing another series that is just brilliant. Ahh, now that I wrote it like this, i think one of the reasons of why I couldn’t enjoy this is because I’m comparing between the creators way too much.

I do think however that this type of novels fits a certain crowd that I’m most likely not amongst, I prefer the darkness of Pandora Hearts over anything else. Caucus Race was more on the upbeat side and like I said, taking a slice of life format is more than fine if you can make it entertaining, but I guess this time I just wasn’t the intended target for them. I did enjoy the 4th story though, definitely the best of the 4.

I won’t lie, I’m severely disappointed with this first novel and I’m only continuing with them because my love for Pandora Hearts is too great for me to stop over something like this. But I do hope that the others aren’t as cutesy as these, especially since we’ll be looking into other families and more exciting entities.

Final rating: 1.5/5