Ranked #592

Chuunibyou Demo Koi ga Shitai! (Novel)

Chuunibyou demo Koi ga Shitai! is an... Interesting case of the source materiel of an anime being weaker then the adaptation, that's not to say it's a bad light novel, I just found the Anime to be one of last years best, and the novel was... alright.
As a note, I have only read one of the two volumes and it was a fan translation, so some of my issues may have been fixed in the second volume or caused by the translation.

Onto the review then.

Story: 6/10

Now I just can't talk about the story without comparing it to the Anime so I'm sorry if you wanted a standalone review with no bias, it's just impossible.
The story is amazingly different to the anime, which is both good and bad. A reader who's seen the anime first will at least get some scenes that didn't happen in the show but at the same time it lacks a lot of the good parts of the show.
The main issues I have here are pacing related as I feel the rest falls under the Character section, so I'll explain them there.

The story has a bad sense of pacing about it, things that should be long multi-chapter arcs In my opinion felt rushed, and by the end of it there's no real payoff or resolution unlike the anime; it just sort of stops.

Another thing is that it doesn't dig into Rika's background at all nor show any of her delusions (some of the best scenes in the anime)
The story served to be more of a way to get to the next scene of character interaction, which isn't so much an issue on it's own but when I talk about that it will become an issue.

So in the end, the story was painfully average, it had good ideas but it never really took them as far as they could go.

Art: 7/10

There's really not a whole lot to say about the artwork, it was about as good as the art in other Light Novels I've read, nothing special.
One disappointing thing for me was the lack of Rika's Chuunibyou warped viewpoint, which would have added something to the artwork that most LN's don't have.

Character: 3/10

As I said earlier, A story that serves only to move between characters interacting isn't in itself bad if it's a character driven piece which Chuunibyou most certainly is.
Unfortunately, this is where Chuunibyou falls apart at the seams for me.

Right off the bat we have an issue, Yuuta's personality is so ill defined it's impossible to say if he's acting out of character or not. He is most certainly not the same Yuuta form the show though.
He goes though almost no character development during the novel, not like anyone else did either but I digress.

Where in the Anime he started out with a crush on Nibutani and later develops feelings for Rika(Not a spoiler it was so clear that would happen) he now starts out with the crush on Rika taking all depth out of their relationship.

As for Rika, well this LN is a perfect example why supporting cast is very important.
The lack of Rika's friend in the anime, Dekomori, and the lack of her older sister Touka complety ruins her character's depth and makes her just a sort of quirky girl.
The interplay between Rika and her sister or Dekomori is so vital to getting to know her in the anime the fact they aren't in the novel at all is frankly shocking to me.

As for Isshiki and Nibutani, essentially the only supporting characters in the novel, well they're just pale imitations of their anime counterparts.

I've seen reviews of the anime call Kumin a useless character thrown in for more "Moe" and I tended to agree until I read the novel, sure she didn't really add anything on her own but she added to Isshiki's personality and made him less boring.

So in short, the characters are the weakest part and they really drag it down a whole lot, lack of the great side character sin the anime make the novel feel empty and shallow.


Enjoyment: 6/10

Did I enjoy reading it? Yes, but was it very good? eh.
if you haven't seen the anime I'd say it would be better to watch that, but viewers of the anime might get a little enjoyment out of it if you don't compare it to what could have been.

Overall: 5/10

I want to stress that I rate with the full scale of 1 to 10, this isn't IGN's 5 equals worthless trash scale. 5 is an average score for me, it isn't bad, it's just not very good.

I have to quote myself about the story here, as a whole Chuunibyou demo Koi ga Shitai! was nothing but painfully average, it had good ideas and as I've said a ton already, the anime really delivers on them, watch that instead.

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