ココロコネクト7 ユメランダム

Kokoro Connect Light Novel #7

by Sadanatsu Anda

修学旅行を控えた9月末、太一たち2年生には進路調査票が配られていた。部室で将来を見据えながら語るメンバーを見て、ひとり焦りを覚える太一。そんな時、「――これで最後です」と〈ふうせんかずら〉が終わりと始まりを告げる。山星高校全員の願望が見える、その現象を危惧した稲葉は、何もしないことを部員たちに強要する。しかし、見捨てることはできないと主張する太一と唯、反対派の稲葉と青木で意見の衝突が始まって……。愛と青春の五角形コメディ第7巻！

Genres: Light Novel, Japanese Literature, Romance, Paranormal

350 pages, Kindle Edition

First published February 29, 2012

About the author

Sadanatsu Anda (庵田 定夏)

Reviews

[piranha · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was constantly aggravated while reading -- yes, Taichi has "helperitis", but he knows he has it, he had already run into problems with it, and yet it's as if he had learned nothing from that; he throws himself wholeheartedly into helping others, to the point where he neglects everything else. I could accept that for real emergencies, but he wastes his time and effort on helping people date.

In contrast, Inaba is dead-set against using the dream visions to help at all, no matter what. The issue splits the CRC in half; Yui is on Taichi's side, Aoki on Inaba's, and Nagase is conveniently neutral. And while they have more than one debate on the issue, it's all very adversarial and leads to nothing but hardened lines.

I liked the concept. I thought it would be interesting to explore various sides of the issue, more so than in any of the volumes before. This is volume 7, and I expected the CRC to have learned their lessons about Heartseed. They claim they have, but no -- instead it was a hot mess; characters developed backwards, the main romance almost disintegrated, and I was left with unfavourable opinions of most characters. I don't really expect much from Yui and Aoki because they're not the sharpest tools in the shed, but Aoki's viewpoint felt forced so we could have that even split. The case concerning Aoki was in fact the only case in which I personally would have considered getting involved, because Aoki's father was accused of a major crime (of which he was innocent). And yet Aoki seemed to care more about the negative consequences for somebody he didn't even know; that just didn't make any sense considering what we'd seen of Aoki so far.

Inaba was just way too self-righteous and disparaging of Taichi -- even though I was largely on her side of the issue, certainly as regarded all the "love guru" BS, I thought she went about it from the start like she was Taichi's enemy instead of his girlfriend. And IMO that rift couldn't be as easily fixed as it was in the end -- not because they held different viewpoints, but because of the abysmally bad communication; it basically broke down completely. And Taichi didn't really snap out of it on his own. None of that bodes well for their future, and I am not actually rooting for them at this point; this requires a lot of repair work which I am not sure we'll get.

I also didn't like that the new characters basically got completely sidelined. Especially Chihiro wasn't IMO fully redeemed. I would have liked to see the CRC work together to deal with this instead of splitting apart. Having two people unaffected could have been very useful. One can work together even if one is on opposing sides of an issue, one can tell a friend they're wrong, but if they're going to insist, at least try to do it in a way that's more sensible -- that became really clear during the trip to Hokkaido, but again there was just disdain and enmity from the Inaba side. Which isn't the way to change anybody's mind.

So overall, it was an unhappy and unsatisfying read.

[Emanuel · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm twisted about this volume.

Plot:
The new phenomenon the Cultural Research Club has to face is called "Emotion transmission". That means they have visions of other people's wishes. It is restricted to the five original members of the Club and they only receive visions of people outside the club.
The novel is written from the perspective of the main protagonist Yeagashi Taichi. Obviously, he takes the role of the bad guy in this volume, driving his relationship with Inaba Himeko to the brink of break-up. It saddened me to see his character not acting on his maximum skillset (the same problem occured in Volume 4 with Nagase Iori). He acts too timidly and doesn't think for two seconds about the consequences of his relentless pursuit of helping other people with their problems he visions. For those who'd like to see the CRC fighting together at their head of the game against a common enemy as at the end of Volume 4 or their main enemy "Baloon Vine", will be disappointed. Yeagashi Taichi mostly stumbles over himself until he messes up so bad that he realizes his failings. However, the main romance plot is ended on an albeit brief, but happy note.

Take home:
Since I like to see character's acting at their best, this volume is a little disappointing. Therefore: It was okay, 2/5.