@Rollind Wow... Amazing theories, and I wonder if they'll be right. I've really loved this series (just want Zagan and Nephy to get married already oof) but I never read into it as deep as you. This is really cool info 😃

Volume 3 (Premium Edition): 2 Bonus Short Stories The Mens' Dance - Glen's Lament The Mens' Dance - Glen's Requiem

@Paul-Nebeling I get what you mean now. Maybe, the hunter unit might have saved her from the crash and then put her body among the wreckage as a trap or something.

I'm pretty sure they don't say the hunter unit's name. Just that she had light purple hair and red eyes. They technically don't even call her a hunter unit, that is my guess since red eyes indicate using the old humans as a blueprint for the hunter units like with Lilly and Sven. She could technically just be enhanced like blitzdonner, though.

@Lease I think it's not considered one. However, since it's being translated by J-Novel Club (and before by Tokyopop, and then there was the anime), and I don't think there's a huge more general translated Japanese novel market (or penetration of translated Japanese novels into their corresponding English markets), I would imagine most people who come across Seikai on their own will be LN readers or part of the larger LN-manga-anime-etc sphere. The fact that it doesn't fit in well with "standard" LN stuff is why I think J-Novel Club (or we if we want to see those bonus stories and more similar stories in the future) needs to find a way to get it exposure outside of J-Novel Club's typical target audience (or grow the target audience like they're trying to do for shojo-esque books with the Heart line). This is just my speculation of what could be an issue based on the fact that's its been said the sales haven't been great and my own impressions of the series, though. I could be wrong, or the situation could have already changed by now.

Personally, out of the LNs / non-LN JNC series I've tried, I feel like a lot of my top favorites are the ones that are less clearly in the LN category in some ill-defined way. I was a huge reader before I ever got into anime/manga/LNs, so maybe it has something to do with that. I picked out mostly fantasy and some sci-fi and science-related nonfiction when left to my own devices, but I was one of those weird kids who also enjoyed most of what was assigned for school.

One translation of Raphael's name is 'God Heals' and is described as the patron of travelers, young people, and the blind. In the series, Raphael has high self-healing ability, looks after the young Foll, and guided Kuroka when she lost sight(pun intended) of her path in life.

His sacred sword, Metatron, spewing flames could be a reference to:

"This Enoch, whose flesh was turned to flame, his veins to fire, his eye-lashes to flashes of lightning, his eye-balls to flaming torches, and whom God placed on a throne next to the throne of glory, received after this heavenly transformation the name Metatron."

Raphael supposedly resides over the sun so that could also be it...

@Hikikostory

As of right now V3 has not been released in Japan.

@Rollind Holy shit. I'm 10 volumes into this series and that makes so much sense lmao

@BookManiaReader No sign that the author is ever going to write a fourth (final) volume. Give up all hope~

Title drop!

She was a bit more affectionate then she'd planned on being. Slowly the ship is leaving the port...

Thanks everyone for the recommendations! :D I'll check them all out. :P

Is it just me or does the ebook have Nefeh and Neleth mixed up in places? I was getting confused in places with how things one said were attributed to the other (or so I thought) and then came across this which seems to confirm my suspicion.

This is quite the solid deployment plan, for you," said Neleth in astonishment. It might even reach the level of average."
Thank you, smiled Neleth. "Now I will explain the strategy's sequence of events."

Volume 1 (Premium Edition): Textless Color Illustrations

@myskaros The front matter looks slightly different, if you pay attention to the characters expressions, but okay.

Not that I've ever figured out. It's a frequently requested feature on the site.
I have a doc in Evernote (essentially a text file, Evernote just lets me share it between my phone, tablet, and laptop) to keep track, with a list of the novels I'm reading and which part I last read.

Marielle is so pretty in this volume's color illustration.

No visible errors in this chapter. But holy crap, Orphen really does have Atomic Breath as a spell?! I thought that one time he used it on Childman/Azalie and Heartia waaaay back in Volume 1 was a possible misreading on my part, but nope, it's a thing. Really wish he would use it more often. Also, nice save by Claiomh.

@cosm1cfall Yes, there is

https://forums.j-novel.club/topic/3271/kokoro-connect-asu-random-pt-2-vol-10-discussion

Volume 2 (Premium Edition): A Bonus Short Story The Walls Have Ears: Live Coverage from the Next Room Over! (Brought to you by Corydalis and Co.)

Well Research part was kind a boring "kind a", but first and third stories were fun to read.