PandoraHearts ~Caucus Race~, Vol. 2 (light novel)

by Jun Mochizuki

[sa090]

You know when you try so hard to like something, but you just can’t? Yep, that’s me with this second entry in the light novels yet again.

───────────────────

I’m not going to lie, after the first novel’s immense disappointment, I went into this with rock bottom expectations since I had a hunch that although it’ll tackle other characters, the mood is still not going to be the one I love from the series. Turns out, I wasn’t far off. We once again have a collection of stories showing snippets of the daily lives of familiar characters and while I enjoyed seeing said familiar characters, the snippets themselves were unbelievably boring. It’s a shame when you have the opportunity to add actual information, backgrounds or anything remotely interesting in these extra stories, but you never take the chance to do so.

I know it’s not Shinobu-sensei’s fault ultimately, but I still can’t help how much of a wasted opportunity both of the novels felt to me so far. If, for example, these were released as extras, specials or OVAs or something along these lines, then it wouldn’t be that big of an issue given that it is usually what happens in anime/manga series, but as a novel????? It’s a damn shame when things feel this way.

I didn’t want to continue the novels with such a mindset after the first novel, but once I started reading the second novel and realized that the lighthearted mood is going to be maintained with the stories feeling somewhat pointless to read, I started looking for other things to enjoy in the stories being told. Thing is, the stories were more often than not, cringeworthy for me.

I don’t like trying to build a “comedic” situation out of misunderstandings and I really hate when girls flock around someone in an obsessive way, the same way done in Japanese media that is, please give girls another purpose in life than running after affection, it’s not everything. The rest of the stories were better than the two containing the above, but it doesn’t really change much when I’d rather be doing anything other than reading at any given moment.

I have one more novel remaining and I can only hope it’ll be better, but at this point it’s safe to say that it won’t be. Why do I love this series so much that I’m willing to put myself through this???? 😪

Final rating: 1.5/5