Infinity Zero - インフィニティ・ゼロ

Debut series by Mamizu, he is a highly regarded Light Novel writer from the golden Dengeki era with a few series published, today he’s mostly known for beign the creator(?)/writer of the anime K. This is not the first book I read from him, a while ago I read through Giniro Fuwari which was good but kinda unfinished, in the atogaki Mamizu mentioned he tried a similar approach than he did with Infinity Zero so grabbing this seemed like an easy choice.

The series is about a 19 years old Ria who is half American half Japanese, after some tragic incidents in his family he decided to follow the steps of his father who is a famous magician travelling around the world doing shows. One day in Japan Ria is wandering around the park where he sees a girl with a dead cat in her arms, amist the confusion the girl comes to him and ask him to pet the cat, he gets progresivelly more confused the more he talks with this girl who calls herself Zero until she shows some supernatural phenomenom that even he himself who is a magician apprentice can’t comprehend. The next day he meets Zero again in an hotel where it seems she starts getting a liking for Ria, fascinated by the mysterious girl he tries to get closer and closer to her to satisfy his curiosity but he ends up discovering that she belongs to a secret organization called the Yama that has been going for hundreds of year and she’s a 憑巫 (よりまし – Yorimashi), somewhat of a Miko with the power to summon a Kami (炎川主, or サトーさん for friends) into our world at the cost of breaking her soul little by little. There is a lot more to it which is explained throughout the four books, as someone which usually isn’t much into all the magic/supernatural lore or whatever I have to say it is pretty interesting and well thought out from the start, everytime there is some explanation or reveal it has that feeling you are discovering some big mystery and get nervous “oh shit” sensation.

Infinity Zero is an interesting series since it is probably the most tragic and hopeless light novel I’ve read, the atmosphere itself isn’t really heavy per se, but every plot point seems to be done to make Zero and Ria suffer, even when some happy moments come you still know it’s not going to last and it is only there to make you cheer for them to make the despair even better when it all goes down later. There are some other LNs that go or peak harder at some point, but this is the first one I find that it’s constantly sadness all the way through.

Why is it like this though? Mamizu himself questions it in the atogaki of the third volume, he says that when he writes this series all it comes is helpless, there is no salvation. He thinks the reason is because Zero’s appeal as a character shines the most when she’s is sad or suffering, so following the natural flow of the history that’s all it comes. I found this explanation interesting since a lot of works from back then, even outside of LNs, when you consider Sekai-kei stuff or even Key visual novels like AIR have this pattern when it comes to the bishoujo attractiveness (also I wouldn’t be suprised if it took inspiration from AIR since they share some coincidences…). It’s hard to say how true it is but one of the main reasons I keep coming back to and I am attached to works from this age is this, seeing a boy meets girl kind of story where the couple get screwed by some crazy plot while both of them also get closer to each other thanks to it, behind the darkness they get some cute moments together.

Infinity Zero is pretty much a product of its time but the author went hard here, all the supernatural elements are top notch, great characters and the ending, LNs series usually doesn’t have “bad” endings, since they are more prone to characters interaction and get released through several years so fans get too attached to the characters to see them end in a bad way. But this is a series where a second ending had to be included after the atogaki of the last volume because the first one was too much (I kind of wonder if this was Mamizu’s or the editor’s idea). The structure of the books are also unusually interesting too.

The series “main” plot starts and finish with the first volume, but the series has three more volumes. The second volume is a past story taking place in the mountains where Zero came to become the new Yorimashi, it follows both her and Beni Yuki sacrificing their lives in order to inherit the Yorimashi power with some backstory explanations of the Yama, the rituals and all the supernatural stuff. This volume is written in 3rd person with the text overflowing emotion seeing both Zero and Yuki watching the current Yorimashi being really close to completly lose her soul while they know and accept their fate to succeed her with all it carries in their shoulders. Despite knowing the outcome of this from the first volume it stills all comes together leaving a really strong impression with a remarkable high 完成度, Yuki specially is one of the best characters I’ve seen recently, the depiction of her mental struggle trying to understand the Yorimashi herency and her role in it mixed with her resolution to save her family and the Yama is admirable, really well done, her relationship with Zero is also cute. The only thing to really critiquize of this book is the antagonist group is only given like 15-20 pags which are kinda boring and they come out as very memey evil anyway.

This book is the catalyst or backbone of everything that happens later in the series since everything is pretty much foreshadowed here in some way, it ended up being my favorite one of the four and one of the most memorable things I’ve read recently despite being a backstory. The third volume comes back to Ria and continues where the first volume ended. This volume covers a lot of ground and is the one where you see the characters interact in a more normal scenario, it also fills the gaps left over in the second one. The four and last one goes back to 3rd person for the most part and changes pov constantly to go through their worldview of the events. The reason I say the plot is more or less finished with the first volume is that this last two volumes don’t really have much of a confrontation and they mostly have both Rai and Zero being separated and reunited back again strengthening their relationship for different reasons multiple times, despite that the writing there is really good, one can tell the writer improved a lot from the first volume, all the main characters end up being great.

Anyway can’t tell much more without spoiling stuff, I’d strongly recommend it for anyone that wants some utsu with some cool supernatural elements and good characters. The main drawback is that like all of the Mamizu’s stuff at Dengeki none of them seem to have a Kindle version so you’d have to import it, at least the books are in stock in pretty much every second hand store very cheap.