The Empty Box and Zeroth Maria, Vol. 2 (light novel) (The Empty Box and Zeroth Maria, 2)

I was first exposed to this series via the popular fan translation. In fact, I was one of the many people who helped to edit that translation. In particular, I cleaned up some of the spelling and grammatical issues. It was therefore bittersweet to see it all disappear from the Internet, but for a good reason: the announcement of an official English translation, something I thought I'd never see! Now, even more people can enjoy it.

This is the second of seven books in a series of...well, sort of psychological thrillers set in a Japanese high school. The second book sees Kazuki, the protagonist, slowly losing control of his own body as it's seemingly being taken over by someone else. I don't love the second volume as much as the other six, but it's still part of one of my favorite series of stories ever. It ultimately examines human nature, the relationships between people, and the concepts of love, trust, and abuse, as well as many more. If this sounds interesting, and you missed the excellent first book, start there!

My only complaint is that this translation feels somewhat rushed. I spotted a few errors and they do rip me out of the story, hurting the immersion. I hope to see better editing in the later books (and Yen Press, I'll gladly accept review copies if you'd like for me to help!). Hopefully you're not as bothered by these errors as I was.

Page 1: "Well, thanks to this last incident, I'm beginning understand why..." (missing "to")
Page 17: "I also have the ability get inside one once..." (missing "to")
Page 23: "...so I munch on a cheese Umaibo so I have an excuse..." (run-on)
Page 144: "...something my brother said when learned about the divorce." (missing "he")
Page 167: "It's seems Kazuki has a knack..." ("It's" should be "It")

Another awesome read from Eiji, slightly better in my opinion than the first entry. I recommend! If you're interested in Light Novels.

This series is odd. It has the distinction of containing what seems to me to be a new and unique science fiction/fatasy concept. It is very hard to figure out what's going on, in that the nature and motives of the central antagonist of our two main characters, a being of indeterminate sex and purpose referred to simply as "O", are always obscure. Whatever they are, they lead him or it to do very cruel things to our hero and heroine, completely disrupting their lives—acting always from the shadows.

His disruption took the form of trapping the hero and heroine in an endlessly-recurring loop of time in Volume 1, and making it possible for a troubled youth to progressively take over the hero's body in this volume. Within the apparent logic of these two weird situations, it is never clear that there can be any avenue to escape from the trap the hero and heroine are in, but they fight on nevertheless. And they are very clever in doing so.

In fact that is the essence of these stories: two brilliant young people learn much and grow adept at figuring out motives and countering obscure and unexpected moves by their adversaries, both O, and the other kids he takes up as his pawns.

The working out of these long battles involves some extraordinary surprises and confusions. For that reason this and the earlier novel in the series require you to read very carefully and thoughtfully. If you don't there is always the possibility of becoming terminally confused. But if you do pay close attention, you are in for a bunch of surprises.

Kept me entertained

Came in time, a solid story, nothing great but it is still a nice read.
7.5/10

Interesting read

Not as good as volume 1 but still an excellent read.