This review is based on the first six volumes, which is all that is available in English at the time of writing.
The first volume is quite nice – there’s enough too hook your attention and for you to care about the characters and the drama and sense of urgency is well executed. The story wraps up nicely, leaving the reader satisfied. That is where this novel could have ended. Not everything needs to be a series and sometimes a self-contained one volume story is good enough.
Unfortunately, the quality declines with the volumes. The story becomes more and more formulaic as the stakes keep getting less relevant. While I like the idea of using physics to explain the unnatural phenomena (and also, that not just the cliché Schrodinger’s cat alone was used but more were added), it does get a bit silly later - and more importantly, less relevant, as the situation gets more or less resolved by just talking it out, without the supernatural phenomena not really having much impact on the plot other than making the teenage troubles seem more interesting to the reader.
Character-wise, I commend the protagonist not being just a wuss that keeps taking verbal beating from others, as would be the typical archetype for male protagonist surrounded by female secondary cast. Sakuta holds his ground and I find his bickering with Mai entertaining. If only the entertaining style of writing extended just beyond the lover’s quarrel and more into the narration itself too. Or at least into other types of dialogue too. I would also prefer if the already established characters were more developed rather than having new ones being introduced for each volume.
Seishun Buta Yarou Series is frequently compared to Monogatari Seires, and I can definitely see why, the basic idea is really very similar. To me, Seishun Buta Yarou feels like a Monogatari Series for more mainstream audience, with most of its quirks being stripped down to create story with more universal audience, losing its originality in the procest. However, had I read Seishun Buta Yarou first, perhaps I would have felt that Monogatari Series is just unnecessarily weird Monogatari Series. Though, at very least I would like some sort of lampshading in Buta Yarou along the kind of “Stand users attract each others”, “one encounter with apparition will cause more encounters with other apparitions” or even “The right hand negates the protagonists luck, causing him to end up in all these unfortunate situations” just to make it easier to suspect the disbelief about all those situations suddenly springing out around the protagonist. Maybe we’ll get an explanation in some of the later volumes.
I also have to commend the series on being well done clickbait - presenting itself by an element that is rarely actually used. You know what I'm talking about.
Up until now I have not mentioned any specific spoilers, but next I’d like to talk a bit more about the 6th volume specifically, which won’t be possible without mentioning some. So, some degree of spoilers for volume 6 beyond this point, you’ve been warned.
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I have mentioned that the episodic stories were getting a bit too predictable with relatively easily resolved problems, so 6th volume was a nice change to this. It had some actually unexpected situations and also expanded upon some elements mentioned from the previous parts, which was a pleasant surprise. It did maybe go a bit too far with the helpfulness of the protagonist – despite being willing to help others, were few people would actually consider literally killing themselves to save someone, and Sakuta wasn’t exactly shown to be like that. More realistic would be if he prioritized his own life while being eaten away by some sort of guilt. That said, the volume did end in a cliffhanger, so we’ll see how that actually gets sorted out, but so far the 6th volume seems like the series might be on its way back to being a more interesting story.
