KOKORO CONNECT

DESCRIPTION

CAST

CHAPTERS

ANIME DramaKokoro Connect
OVA DramaKokoro Connect: Michi Random
MANGA ComedyKokoro Connect

REVIEWS

• 

  slabdrill

  100/100
  Standard romdrama that hits a bunch of common issues

  SPOILER WARNING: This review contains light spoilers, including for content later than the anime goes up to. (I don't think it'll ruin the experience, though.) However, it refers to a lot of stuff that doesn't necessarily make sense unless you've seen at least a bit of the story.
  Note: This is a very favourable review; if you want complaints, go read the anime reviews. (I have some minor complaints myself too, though.)
  Note: I make a fair amount of references to other works. I'm not advising you to check out those works if you like the particular element of this one, but I don't hate any of the mentioned works either.
  (This is not meant to be well-written; I wanted to get my thoughts out there, and a review seems more visible than a profile. Even if no one checks reviews for light novels that have an anime adaptation.)

  When I read this story, I was pretty much immediately in love. The characters and setting are all similar to those of a highschool romcom, but what makes this really stand out is the character drama. If you don't like extreme melodrama and flawed characters, don't read this; but I think that there's always introspection to do, and this story is a good way to see what problems people who haven't really grown up deal with.
  Also, you should be prepared for the power of friendship to come into play. A lot. It's probably more believable than in nagiasu, though.

  As with any character-driven rom-drama, the story excels most in its characters. (They're all in a club together where there is no prescribed club activity, when suddenly supernatural phenomena begin to occur to them and force them to grow up just a little more.) But what makes you like the characters is what actually happens in their arcs, since their personalities tend to start as cookie-cutter as you can get.
  The characters all grow up in a way that feels familiar. I relate with most of them at least a little bit, and seeing them get over their issues encourages me to try to as well.

  Taichi is your usual protaganist character. He gets picked on for being close to female students by the eternal class virgins (who are actually named and given a personality!). I relate to his main problems (vol7) a lot, in particular, and this made me want to change myself. He reminds me a lot of shirou (fate UBW), but instead of remaining a doormat forever he actually resolves to deal with his main character-itis.
  Inaba is a cool beauty type of character. I'm not a huge fan of her, since I've never really liked this type; though I can see why she would be liked. Her bashful in-love mode is cute and I believe the story would be much weaker without her presence, even if I don't like her. Her troubles go away so completely after the beginning that I mostly forgot about them, but they involve getting over the difficulty of trusting people.
  Iori is the chipper kind of character that lights up a room. probably the author's favorite (as said by the JLN translator(?)), and also my favorite. She reminds me of some other characters, and her character arcs are the ones I think are the best written. Similar character for her would be chika (kaguya-sama), but her identity crisis is something that I don't think I've seen quite like this before. Her arc actually reminded me somewhat of how people judge people over the internet... Her story involves learning that letting people see you when your guard's down is fine.
  Yui is a girly-girl who loves all things cute. Naturally, she's also very cute. Her story arc involves getting over her fears of men, which is something that I could relate to in my past despite being male. She has other character traits that are pretty important, but I don't care about those as much compared to how she livens up the slice of life experience. Her story involves getting over past trauma.
  Aoki is the class clown, super idiot character that everyone immediately trashes the moment he enters the room. A similar character would be akihisa (baka test). His life involves failing at school and being ignored by (the tsundere) Yui.
  Chihiro is a stoic character who tries to not let emotion show too much. Or maybe it's just him having a super bleak outlook in the first place. His arc reminds me of death note, but afterwards he acts like a fairly normal person. His story gives a sense of learning to not blame others for your own mistakes, and that the world isn't really that unfair.
  Enjouji is the incompetent little sister type, who is much too cute and has everyone fawn over her. She dreams of being as cool as her club senpai, and has a voice fetish. I think this is really relatable; I sometimes find I feel inadequate and just want to try to catch up to the people they idolize so much. And she also reminds of motivational speakers and self-help books; I found this the real spark to get me to actually try to do something about my thought processes based on what the other characters went through, instead of only deciding that I related with their issues.
  (Heartseed has some commentary I could make about them too, but I feel like going into details is much too many spoilers for a review.)

  There's also a few side characters which go through their own troubles and tribulations. Mostly to do with romance. But they're all as alive as the main cast is, even if most of them feel less developed than the main cast (I mean, they're side characters!). Of note:
  Fujishima is a "superman" type of person who tries to be flawless at everything they do. When they lose, it crushes their spirit, so their story is about learning that failure is actually okay sometimes.
  Rina is an elementary schooler who tries to act more grown-up than she can really handle. But I know I've had times where I wanted to be more grown-up for some reason at some point, too.

  Note that, while The story isn't even completely drama; there's plenty of relaxed segments, mostly within the short story volumes. Most random events that happen still show some growth about a character, though, so it never feels pointless. I'd put them akin to something like tsurezure children - just exciting snapshots of people's lives, but they still grow and learn from those snapshots (...sometimes.)

  But there are still flaws in the story. The early arcs feel a little weak, though that's probably just because it takes a while to get to know the characters well enough to really like them. In particular, the concept of Heartseed (a powerful entity that can basically do whatever it wants) was always something I hated, but they show Heartseed growing along with everyone else too and that on its own is already enough to redeem that negative trait. Also, I think the power of friendship deals with some of the problems they have a bit too well, in particular Inaba's distrust of people which really just goes away when she realizes she's in love.

  Overall, I think this is worth it for anyone who likes the genre. But maybe check out the anime first, or sample the first volume to see if you'll like it. It's certainly not for everyone, but it was for me; I thought I had most of my problems dealt with when there's always more ways to grow. So if you care at all about that, it's probably worth a shot; watching others grow up matters.

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