Kokoro Connect

tl;dr: A very well written story with incredibly dense character and relationship development. Kokoro Connect is an eleven volume light novel series that has also received a manga adaptation that adapts the first three novels, and an anime adaptation that adapts the first four. It is primarily centered around a high school club known as the Cultural Research Club (CRC) getting screwed around with by a supernatural entity known as Heartseed who causes various supernatural phenomenon to affect them, such as body swapping or types of telepathy, simply because it finds doing so interesting. The volumes aren’t numbered, but are definitely meant to be read inrelease order, which is also chronological order outside of the side stories. There are essentially two types of volumes. The first type of volumes, of which there are eight, are those that include the word “Random” in the title, each of which contains a single continuous story about the CRC experiencing a new type of phenomenon, though the finale is a bit special in that it’s two volumes long and more complicated than the rest. The other type of volume, of which there are three, are those with “Time” in the title, the first two of which contain short stories chronologically from throughout the series, and the last of which is the last volume for the overall series and serves as an epilogue. At its core Kokoro Connect is a story centered around pure unfiltered highly concentrated character and bond development in its cast of characters. The premise is that the cast is essentially being harassed by an omnipotent supernatural entity, but the circumstances of who that supernatural entity is or how anything works do not matter at all outside of the finale. What matters is the supernatural phenomenon the cast has to deal with and how those results in rapid character and relationship growth. It is important to note that these phenomena are always the type that are best suited for such development, because rather than things like turning them into animals, giving them super strength, or other larger than life concepts like that, the phenomenon they have to deal with are those that tie very heavily into their psyches. For example, the first phenomenon they have to deal with is body swapping. This results in the CRC growing much closer as a result of literally having live in each other’s shoes for a time as one would expect. But beyond that, it also brings up more personal issues individual members of the cast are dealing with, such as a girl who’s androphobic making progress in getting over her fear of men, or a girl essentially having an existential crisis because she’s been someone very easily shaped by her immediate environment, thus only really having a sense of self arising from her physical identity, and thus with that too fluctuating she questions whether she really is someone at all. And that’s just a single phenomenon. The main cast ends up going through seven phenomenon and going through major character and relationship growth alongside each one. Plus, there’s a good variety to the phenomenon so that keeps things from ever feel like they’re getting repetitive because they’re constantly showing off the main cast from a new angle. There eventually are some inconsistencies in terms of messaging, such as the growth in one character in an earlier volume being centered around how people always have a true them that exists deep down, while in a later volume a character’s growth is centered around how someone can change who they are completely if they really try, both of which are pretty positive standard messages but feel somewhat strange when looked at directly next to each other. Still, overall while not perfect, the writing is still incredibly high quality and does a good job of using the supernatural phenomenon for everything it’s worth to build up to and execute character and relationship development in a really satisfying manner repeatedly throughout the series with overall arcs to characters and their relationships being pretty consistent and feeling like they have really solid pay offs in the long run. That it shifts focus from character to character to really get into the heads of the characters as they are going through growth works really well and it feels like the writing really manages to really cut deep into what the characters are going through and convey in earnest what they’re feeling. I think this is one area that the light novel really excels compared to the anime and manga, wherein certain characters and situations feel really different. The most prominent example of that is Inaba, who comes through as pretty amazing in the anime and manga as well, but has much more depth in the novels. Who she eventually grows into beyond where the anime and manga end would feel somewhat strange based on just what is shown in the anime and manga, but felt completely natural in the novel, and overall makes her an even more amazing and likable character. Furthermore, I just overall feel that the cast is incredibly strong and really likable. Part of that is because it’s really easy to get invested in the growth they go through and just be really happy for them as they get over their issues. But another part, which sounds somewhat similar but is very different, is that the characters that they ultimately grow to become are amazing and the type of characters I can’t help but really like. That I tracked how they became such characters is probably a core part of why I like them so much, but I feel that the end result in terms of the characters and the dynamics between them would still be amazing even without that in that they have fun personalities and the bonds between them are really heartwarming. I was attached to the cast here to a really high level and felt really sad about essentially having to leave them when the series was over to a degree that was almost at the level of the Persona games, which anyone that has played the Persona games will know is really high praise. Furthermore, the series also does a pretty great job with its side characters as well, especially as the series goes on, with a lot of them getting fleshed out pretty well and going through character and relationship arcs of their own. These aren’t anywhere near as deep as those of the main cast, but they’re very nice on the side and work well to complement the stories of the main cast and furthermore add variety that helps with pacing. Plus, some of these side characters have incredibly likable personalities, such as the amazing superwoman Fujishima, so it’s just nice to have as much content with them as the series does. My biggest problem with the series is the finale, Asu Random, which I largely feel wasn’t at the level of quality as the rest of the series and thus not as spectacular of an ending as it could have been. The biggest problem is that I think it tries too hard to crank things up beyond the rest of the series in order to give a truly epic finale, but it largely just didn’t work. The writing was a lot more messy and much less focused, which resulted in what it was trying to convey, which was generally pretty crystal clear throughout the rest of the volumes, being much more muddled. It also finally tries to explain in more depth the supernatural entities and have the cast actively fight against them instead of just trying to survive them, which inevitably requires giving them limitations that can be exploited and such, but this didn’t feel all that well written and thus it just kind of makes things fall apart because it feels like it makes things feel less magical so to speak. There were some pretty good concepts there, such as a larger focus on the bonds the main cast have outside of directly with each other, while at the same time emphasizing how special the main cast has been from the beginning by contrasting them with how others react who also experience similar things. Still, I very strongly feel that all of this could have been much better executed if it didn’t try so hard to go well beyond everything before. Fortunately, the weakness of the finale is greatly minimized by how fantastic the epilogue is. It barely mentions Heartseed and the supernatural phenomenon, instead basically being a tour de force on just showing off the characters at the end of their character arcs. That this manages to invoke such strong feelings, far beyond the finale which had a strong emphasis on the supernatural elements, I think shows very clearly that what truly mattered in this series isn’t the supernatural elements themselves or the plot surrounding them, but rather how the effect they had on the characters. Ultimately, I feel it was the perfect send off, and though I’m sad that it’s over, I’m still immensely satisfied with the series as a whole. In terms of general comments, I don’t know Japanese and thus can’t judge the translation quality in terms of how accurate it is, but in terms of the quality of the translation in and of itself I think it was pretty solid, overall sounding pretty natural and flowing well for the most part. There were some choices that I was very not much of a fan of in terms of tone and voice, especially in the earlier volumes, but they’re not major issues. Also, just as an aside, I’m incredibly curious about whether some elements were essentially completely new material added in the translation or actually found in the Japanese. The presence of English specific memes is obviously something that was added in by the English translator, but with things like the references to Superman/Batman I’m curious because it could be either. The art for this is done by a KyoAni artist and very much looks the part, and thus even though it’s just basic high school stuff in terms of design, it still ends up looking pretty great.