HakoMari's story is... *unique* to say the least. It can be classified as fantasy, mystery and psychological above all else, but it really touches upon just about every genre imaginable during the course of its progression. It starts out seemingly ordinary with a typical high-school boy named Hoshino Kazuki who is extremely fond of the idea of having a so-called "normal, everyday life". But when a mysterious girl called Otonashi Aya one day joins his class, announces that it's her 13,118th school transfer and that she's here to "break him", Kazuki's life immediately becomes as far from normal as humanly possible.
The plot progression of HakoMari is very difficult to explain to anyone who hasn't read it, because it's unbelievably complex and also very niche. It primarily revolves around a wish-granting device called a "box". The "boxes" are given to various people and function in different ways depending on the characters' personalities, what they wish for and also how much they truly believe in the concept of granting wishes to begin with. But either way a box can be considered a space like a fictional world which people can be trapped inside, and it operates under its own rules. In this way, effectively anything is possibly in HakoMari because all laws of normality are completely thrown out the window.
I think HakoMari can be classified as "Chaos Theory". It's completely erratic, yet very systematic. It's completely irrational, yet makes absolutely perfect sense. It's abstract, yet completely logical. It messes with your head like nothing else from essentially the first sentence of the first volume and it never ever stops, but neither does it stop fascinating you with what it's capable of. The plot twists are so incredibly difficult to predict, but they always make you feel like the answer was so obvious all along once the truth is revealed. It's just that well-written, and as a result it never fails to make you smile and impress you.
Almost every single volume is very different from the rest since every box operates under its own set of rules, but they still always maintain the same dark, cryptic yet incredibly captivating atmosphere. This is all possible because the writing and narration is simply superb. The author makes the readers dance to his tune like puppets with his almost cult-like writing style, and when all is said and done it's probably the main reason why HakoMari is so interesting to read. It's like trying to lay a three-dimensional puzzle in the dark, except the author is helping you by guiding your hands for you. In that way it feels like you're being presented an overall storyline that reasonably shouldn't be possible to write, except somehow it actually works out. But it's something that cannot really be explained in words alone, you have to read it for yourself.
Another interesting aspect is that HakoMari has multiple protagonists. It constantly changes perspective. Each and every character is thus provided incredible depth, much more so than you would ever expect from a novel only seven volumes long in total. Furthermore, given the abnormal nature of the story itself, the different perspectives give you vastly different impressions of the flow of events.
Overall, what you have is a light novel which is unlike anything else on the market, has some of the best writing I've ever seen and never ceases to amaze you with its unbelievable twists and turns. It makes you care about the characters something tremendously due to how captivating it is from the very beginning, and presents you with a storyline which is as about as close to flawless as you can possibly get. I don't think I've ever talked to anyone who's read HakoMari and didn't like it, which is something I don't think I've experienced with any other series, regardless of medium.
As it is though, HakoMari is only hyped in the west, but it's basically unknown in Japan. Thus the chances of HakoMari ever getting an anime adaptation are probably rather slim, even now after the novels have finished publishing. However, I do not believe it is humanly possible to make an adaptation of HakoMari that would do the novels justice anyway, so maybe that's for the best. Either way, I'm more than happy with what we got, because it is my all-time favorite light novel and quite simply one of the overall best reads I've ever had in my life. Highly recommended to essentially everyone.
