The Sekai Series of light novels by Nisio Isin is a series Ive wanted to review for quite a long time and have tried to review twice but was ultimately unsatisfied with both attempts at it. The main reason I want to talk about it is because it doesnt get anywhere near the appreciation it deserves and its honestly surprising considering how popular works like Monogatari Katanagatari and Zaregoto are. This is a very difficult series to really talk about you cant really explain what the fuck this series even is without overloading someone with information and even then youd still barely be scratching the surface especially if youre trying to avoid spoiling anything like I am. Each novel is so different and loosely connected that it hardly even feels like the same series. The main thing that connects the Sekai series together is the fact that theyre all mystery novels from the same universe that feature someone with the surname Byouinzaka as a main character and thats about it. Volume 1 stars Hitsuuichi Samatoki and Kuroneko Byouinzaka solving a murder mystery in their school and it also features a major subplot about Samatoki and his younger sister Yorutsuki having a lets say... close relationship. Yeah incest is a major part of V1s story and it is played completely straight so if that bothers you theres your warning lol. The first chapter of V1 is 120+ pages long and mainly consists of introducing you to the characters and the setting chapter 2 is when the mystery part begins. Samatoki is a highly logical person who cares little for the emotions of others with the major exception being his sister. Speaking of I really like his sister as a character shes a shy intelligent bookworm girl who always speaks in first person. However the real star of the show has to be Kuroneko Byouinzaka she is one of the coolest characters Nisio has ever written shes smug flirty eccentric highly unpopular extremely talkative to the point where her ramblings dont even have paragraphs and shes obsessed with solving mysteries to the point where shed rather die than leave something unsolved. I believe Kuroneko is even Nisios favorite character that hes written which should say a lot about how awesome she is. Samatokis friends Hakohiko and Kotohara are also pretty neat but there isnt really a whole lot to talk about with them. The realistic school setting allows for a decidedly different feel from Zaregoto and Monogatari as well considering there are no fantastical or supernatural elements to this series whatsoever. What really makes V1 great is the fact that its basically a giant slab of early unhinged preMonogatari Nisio in all of his relentlessly monologuing genre convention bending glory. Its one of my favorite books ever written but... I dont love it quite as much as I love Volume 2. V2 also takes place in a school but it stars a completely different cast of characters. Choushi Kushinaka is the main male lead and hes an extremely polarizing figure within the 2 people that have read this series. Hes basically a psychopath prone to boredom to the point that he will do small things like confess his feelings for someone forget his bento box or make friends with the least popular student in school just to add a little bit of variety to his mundane life. His older sister Kogushi looks almost exactly like him and is an extremely ditsy brocon whos feelings are not seriously reciprocated by Choushi. Instead of starring Kuroneko V2 stars Meiro Byouinzaka her cousin whom despite bringing Kuroneko up a lot actually hates her despite the fact that they hardly know each other. Meiro is essentially every negative trait about Kuroneko times 100 Kuroneko was unpopular with students at school but Meiro is in an entirely different league of unpopularity so hated was Meiro that the entire wind music club left because she was in it and now she is the only member. She also doesnt speak at all but her face is so expressive that it effectively communicates everything she is thinking without words. She is also big into mystery novels and wants to solve mysteries herself but is unfortunately just not as proficient at it as Kuroneko as shown by the fact that her and Choushi are solving one in this novel. The supporting cast is also a lot more interesting this time around in my opinion with Kurori Douno who is dedicated to constantly lying and is infatuated with Choushis older sister Fuyako Togishima who is the niece of a police chief and the human lie detector and Kuroris childhood friend Rouya Gakemura who is a delinquent rumored to be dating many different women at once. Kurori Yorutsuki and Rouya are known as the Three Great Weirdos of Kazusaen Private Academy and Meiro is known as the One Great Weirdo because of how much of a league of its own her weirdness is. Volume 2 feels noticeably more polished than V1 but is arguably even more shocking and fucked up which is the main reason I like it more. Volume 3 is one of the most bizarre unique things I have ever read to the point where I think its better if I dont say anything about it its not that I dont want to talk about it as much as its moreso that I just want people to experience this ride for themselves. What I will say is that it stars Kuroneko and Samatoki again and theyre doing slice of life stuff in London. You should absolutely read volumes 13 because they are among some of my favorite pieces of media of all time Volume 4 on the other hand... is not very good. It feels noticeably rushed like it couldve benefited from at least 100 more pages. It stars the V2 cast again but now in the distant future. Choushi is now the ethics teacher at a religious academy I shouldnt have to explain why thats so ironic. I cant say much about Meiro without spoiling V2 but she is completely different and not in a good way shes just really boring now and has no discernable personality traits. Kurori gets a really brief appearance here and we finally see Fuyakos uncle but theyre both ultimately inconsequential. The setting this time around had the potential to be interesting but the book doesnt take advantage of it what is the culture of this religious academy like? What are their religious practices? I dont know because the book doesnt tell me. The book actually makes a point that the teachers are the main characters of a school not the students but they dont spend any time talking to the teachers so I ultimately dont care when they get killed. The ending of this one is also the dumbest shit ever its not the holy shit how did they pull this off kind of brilliant nonsesne ending like in the other Sekai novels and other Nisio mysteries this is just fucking stupid and contradicts everything we know about Choushi and Meiro. In conclusion fuck Volume 4 its not the most horribly offensive thing Ive ever read its mainly just a lot of wasted potential. You still with me? Okay besides that there was also supposed to be a Volume 5 but it was never finished. It was going to be about Kuronekos origin story in middle school and it was supposed to wrap up the entire series. As much as I wouldve loved to read this novel I dont know if I have faith in the Nisio of today with his current mindset to be able to successfully pull off a Sekai 5 and I have a feeling its probably never going to be finished no matter how much Nisio says he needs to finish it. I think another thing that contributes to Sekais unpopularity is the fact that the only way to experience it is in novel form there is no manga no anime no any kind of TV adaptation and thats really unfortunate because a lot of people who might be fans of Sekai dont want to read novels thats why only dorks like me who do like reading know and care about this series. I hope that with this review I can hopefully convince more people to check out the Sekai series this is a very brief very general look at the series that avoids spoilers as much as possible. If you want something more in depth I highly recommend Jared E. Jellson JellyJar of the Orient Express LOOOOOOOOOOOOONG write up on Sekai 1 though I would not recommend reading this for people who havent read Sekai 1 first as this is absolutely not spoiler free and is a very passionate deep dive but its great so I wanted to shout it out before I end the review. The review in question https://blog.psychopopular.com/literature/oursekaibreakdown