[Review] Volume 6: Nise Random

!!!The following review contains spoilers for Volume 6: Nise Random and previous books!!!

With this book, we officially enter the second narrative arc of the series. The series is now established, as are the relationships between the main characters, and Sadanatsu has not only already told us a lot about our five protagonists, but has also been able to experiment with new writing and storytelling styles. So, let's see what he has to offer.

This series focuses on the two new members of the CRC: Enjouji and Chihiro. It also begins to expand the world of Kokoro Connect by introducing and discussing new secondary characters, primarily friends of Taichi, Nagase, and Kiriyama.

The plot is quite simple: Heartseed returns and decides to talk to Chihiro and Enjouji offering them a power with which they must put the other members of the CRC in difficulty (always for Heartseed's amusement, his interest)

Enjouji refuses, but Chihiro doesn't. He's a boy who lives his daily life in desperation, without any ambition, frightened in some ways, but above all resigned to the ordinary life he sees before him. He sees others as "puppets," their interactions as fiction; all he has is pessimism. He sees many things in Heartseed's offer: a power that sets him apart from the crowd, that distracts him from the monotony of life, but also a tool to dismantle others, to expose their relationships, to demonstrate how fake they and this world are.

This is undoubtedly the best premise of the entire series. But has it really been exploited to its full potential?

Hid power is to project himself onto others as the image of another person. For example: "I want person X to see me as person Y," and so person X will see person Y in front of them, but everyone else will see Chihiro. However, if by chance Chihiro transformed into person Y and the real person Y were in front of person X at the same time, the latter would have the memory of a good part of their life erased.

Chihiro launches into his own plan, which is indeed very curious, but doesn't create any major misunderstandings (typical of Sadanatsu). For example, in one scene, he impersonates Taichi in front of Inaba and rudely tells her he's planning to leave her, yet a few seconds later, Chihiro (Taichi) says he was just joking. Or he impersonates Taichi asking Nagase to try again, or Nagase asking Taichi the same thing, but everything is nipped in the bud. These things are resolved in a few words and don't create any major issues.

Most other authors would have created a trio of misunderstandings that could have caused some disruption in the CRC, but not Anda. He doesn't do these things, he stated it from the first chapter (go read my review if you haven't already :), if you want, of course). And in fact, halfway through the book, there's a very friendly exchange between Taichi, Nagase, and Inaba in which they immediately clarify what happened and realize that it must be some kind of "prank" from Heartseed again.

This is a choice I really appreciate. The book doesn't want these intricate and unnecessary narratives, but rather focuses on Chihiro and his internal conflict. When he begins to feel like he's going too far, when he sees that others are true friends and the world isn't as fake as he thought, when Heartseed begins to "threaten" him because he can't fulfill his role properly, etc., he's reevaluating the world, he's reevaluating himself, his actions, etc.

When he accidentally causes a "shock," he then sees Taichi and Kiriyama lose their memories. He realizes he's created problems. That he's gotten himself into trouble. That he was wrong to see the world and other people that way, and that he was stupid to ally himself with someone like Heartseed. He's devastated.

Enjouji will then be the character who changes the balance. She will understand that Chihiro is behind all this, she will overcome her fear of intervening, of not feeling up to certain responsibilities, etc. They will reveal what happened to the other members of the CRC and together they will then manage to track down Heartseed, have Chihiro's power removed, and restore Taichi and Kiriyama's memories.

Finally, once his mistakes are revealed and understood, the CRC will forgive Chihiro, and he himself will begin to look at the world and experience it differently, more truthful and pleasant, not filled with mental conjectures and convoluted reasoning. This is demonstrated in a beautiful scene of Chihiro's family life, which echoes a scene already seen at the beginning of the book. However, in this scene, Chihiro intervenes, changes things, and doesn't live passively through everyday life. The family, sitting at the breakfast table, shares a group smile, a warm feeling.

That said, it might seem like the perfect book, however I want to point out a couple of things that I didn't like:

Enjouji's evolution is very simplistic and marginal. It seems like she was just missing a little step and she took it. Nothing special.

Taichi loses his memory completely; he doesn't remember his friends from the CRC, he doesn't remember his girlfriend. A few more scenes would have been interesting and even necessary, like a scene with Inaba where she's having a mental breakdown alone at home, or maybe a scene of her going to talk to Taichi after he's lost his memory, perhaps getting emotional or something. In short, showing the depth of the situation, the problems Chihiro has truly caused. Instead, these issues are never addressed, and Inaba, Nagase, and Aoki are shown as sad in a couple of scenes and nothing more. I understand wanting to give more attention to Chihiro's internal conflict, but I feel like there's a bit of "heart" missing in parts of this volume and that it's mostly "brain".

Chihiro is truly hateable. And rightly so. He "harasses" Inaba by making her undress in front of him while pretending to be Taichi, he's desperate to cause problems and discomfort for others, he wants to end friendships and love affairs, he causes two protagonists to lose their memories, etc. Then of course, rationally speaking, we should all forgive him because he was the one who was truly suffering, he realized he was truly wrong, etc. And the members of the CRC forgive him immediately (making him understand even more the beauty of the world he ignored and hated). Unfortunately, I have a hard time pretending nothing is wrong with this character; I still have a bit of pent-up hatred...

The other big problem is that, in my opinion, the book is truly repetitive in its concepts. Chihiro has the same doubts repeated 100 times. And repeating them 10 times is fine, but 100? It's a bit much. I understand the internal conflict, but the series becomes boring at times if it's just an analysis of a boy's thoughts. And since Anda rightly didn't want to create narrative misunderstandings or anything else to stimulate narrative curiosity, I return to the previous points: cutting some of Chihiro's thoughts to either better explore Enjouji or truly show the problems of Taichi, Kiriyama, Inaba, etc., at certain moments, like during the memory loss.

Well, all things considered, I have to say that I wasn't initially thrilled with this chapter, but I've since re-evaluated it somewhat. I find it original and interesting, but it has some serious pacing and repetition issues, more so than the other Kokoro Connect volumes. It's also very analytical on a critical level and lacks emotion compared to other volumes and the Kokoro Connect (literally "connecting hearts") series. That said...

Final rating: 7.5/10