Rascal Does Not Dream Series (Light Novel) - Recommendations

• Vol: 1
• 2021

• Vol: 6; Ch: 18
• 2011 - 2014

Izumiko Suzuhara is a 15-year old girl who has been raised at Tamakura Shrine, part of the Kumano Shrines World Heritage Site. She has a strange affliction where she destroys any electrical device that she comes into contact with. Despite being shy, she wants to try living in the city. Her guardian Yukimasa Sagara recommends that she enroll at Hojo High School in Tokyo, accompanied by his son and Izumiko’s childhood friend Miyuki Sagara. While in Tokyo, an entity named “Himegami” appears. Izumiko learns that she is a yorishiro, a vessel for a shinto spirit known as a kami, while Miyuki learns that he is a yamabushi, a warrior tasked with protecting her.

• Vol: 1
• 2013

Calendar Tale, narrated by our titular hero, sends us to various earlier points in the story where certain events had yet to occur—when, for instance, the shady “expert” Oshino was still in town, and the ex-legendary vampire Shinobu hadn’t tired of sulking in a corner. Weaving in a motif of ways, paths, roads, and streets—walks of life—the nostalgic vignettes hark back to the “case files” feel of the series-launching Monster Tale, but with a twist. Not all oddities are supernatural: stones and flowers; sand and water; the wind and the tree can just be plain weird without being aberrations. Say hello from the future to class president among class presidents Hanekawa, acid-tongued girlfriend Senjogahara, cheeky lost child Hachikuji, smutty athlete Kanbaru, pathologically shy Sengoku, and justice-loving martial artist Karen, young ladies who love to make our young man sweat.

• Vol: 12; Ch: 56
• 2008 - 2013

Kyosuke Kosaka, a normal seventeen-year-old high-school student, hasn't gotten along with his younger sister, Kirino, in years. For longer than he can remember, Kirino has ignored his comings and goings and looked at him with spurning eyes. It seemed as if the relationship between Kyosuke and his sister, now fourteen, would continue this way forever. One day, however, Kyosuke finds a DVD case of a magical girl anime entitled Hoshikuzu Witch Meruru (Stardust Witch Meruru), which had fallen into the entranceway of his house. To Kyosuke's surprise, inside the case is a hidden adult video game titled Imoto to Koishiyo! (Love with Little Sister!)

• Vol: 4
• 2011 - 2017

Rikka Takanashi is a teenage girl who possesses the strongest ocular power known to man: the Tyrant’s Eye. She's currently locked in a fierce war with a shadowy organization, and the fate of the world may hang in the balance with each passing battle... or at least this is what she believes. In actuality, Rikka is merely a normal high school girl afflicted with chuunibyou syndrome, a "disease" that makes one prone to delusional flights of fancy. Meanwhile former chuunibyou sufferer Yuuta Togashi is enrolled at the same school, looking to put his embarrassing junior high exploits behind him. However, when Rikka discovers his past life as the "Dark Flame Master", she uses this to her advantage to include him in all of her wacky schemes! With Rikka’s zany behavior dragging him further and further from normalcy, Yuuta must try to pull her back into the real world – or risk getting sucked into hers!

• Vol: 4; Ch: 23
• 2005 - 2008

To make money, high school student Shinkurou Kurenai works for the secretive Benika as a "dispute mediator," acting to intervene in the disputes of clients – often violently. One day, Benika gives him a much different assignment: to protect Murasaki Kuhoin, a seven-year-old girl from the wealthy Kuhoin family. This turns out to be a more troublesome task than he expects, as Murasaki is spoiled, naive, and completely unaware of what life is like outside of the luxurious one she had previously. He also has no idea why Murasaki needs his protection, though he is slowly obtaining details from a well-informed classmate. Adding to his problems, Shinkurou still must continue to do his previous work for Benika and take care of his social relationships in school while protecting Murasaki, complicating his entire life. Nonetheless, as time passes, he and Murasaki grow close; however, trouble brews in the shadows as everyone - including Shinkurou - seems to be harboring secrets...

• Vol: 1
• 2014

Just when we thought the darkness menacing the town had been identified, named, and tamed, clear and unclear mysteries of seasons past looming or surfacing, then resolving, not without tears, not without bittersweetness, of course, but satisfyingly, in a tripartite finale, all loose ends tied up into, or at least with, a bow… The End Tale continues—if only for one last time, in a bonus stage for the ages, as our softie of a protagonist who wished for all parties involved, including himself, maturely enough, to end up happy, sees his reflected image freeze in a mirror and regretfully, regrettably, reaches for it to find himself through the looking glass.

• Vol: 1
• 2011

After time travelling to the past with Shinobu Oshino, Koyomi Araragi meets Mayoi Hachikuji and returns her backpack, which she left in Koyomi's room. That is when they witness something unidentifiable - something that can only be expressed as the 'darkness.' Koyomi, instinctively feeling danger, sits Mayoi on his bicycle and attempts to escape, but the ever-elusive 'darkness' tries to swallow the two of them. They barely manage to escape with the help of the young shikigami girl, Yotsugi Ononoki, and they evacuate into the ruins of the cram school. There, Shinobu tells him that she encountered the 'darkness' about 400 years ago. Then a woman named Izuko Gaen, who says she knows Meme Oshino, explains to them the nature of the 'darkness'... and Koyomi has to face Mayoi's tragic fate.

• Vol: 1
• 2011

Our sorry hero, his reformed girlfriend, and the amnesiac class president have all graduated from their high school out in the boondocks, and self-described Sapphist and ex-basketball ace Kanbaru, retired by reason of an “injury,” is starting her senior year. Bereft of the company of her beloved mentors, the only other person around her with any working knowledge of aberrations the junior Ougi Oshino, apparently a relative of the Hawaiian-shirted folklorist, she feels a bit alone and blue, and sick with dread that the devil residing in her left arm courtesy of the Monkey’s Paw might act up again while she sleeps. Investigating a rumor that she fears might lead back to her, the former star ends up peering into an abyss of negativity called Roka—a “wax flower” to take the characters’ meaning. Trapped in a pit the like of which could only be escaped by the one girl who was able to pull off slam-dunks in her basketball nationals, can the penitent Kanbaru, however, still be aggressive?

• Vol: 3
• 1994 - 1997

Kasuga is a high school student with ESP powers. His indecisive nature has him stuck in a love triangle with two girls, Hikaru and Ayukawa. Kasuga still can’t escape his meddling cousins and the problems that they cause for him. Plus he struggles to keep his powers a secret from his friends thanks to his grandparents. Worst of all, with misunderstandings developing between Kasuga and Hikaru, Kasuga fears losing not only Hikaru, but Ayukawa as well.