Rascal Does Not Dream Of A Sister Venturing Out - light novel

        Rascal Does Not Dream Of A Sister Venturing Out (青春ブタ野郎はおでかけシスターの夢を見ない) is a the eighth volume of the Rascal Does Not Dream light novels written by Kamoshida Hajime featuring artwork by Mizogushi Keeji.  The eighth volume was originally release in 2018 and in English in 2022.

      The following synopsis may spoil some aspects of the first seven novels in the Rascal Does Not Dream series, if you do not want to ruin those stories stop reading until you have.  

Book Seven: Rascal Does Not Dream Of His First Love review here!

    With the timeline generally back to its correct sequence and Shouko able to get her donor heart without either Sakuta or Mai dying, things seem to be looking up for our lovers!  Now everyone can concentrate on enjoying their youth.  Except for a few snags, Sakuta needs to seriously improve his testing abilities if he is ever going to be able to join Mai in college.  Kaede has a lot more work to do before she is able to really integrate back into society.  Now that things have calmed down and no one is in danger of anything supernatural, its time to hit the books!  Sakuta's problem has a solution that only requires attention and dedication.  Kaede, however, has some uncertainty in her path.  She has been able to attend school after the New Year, though she spends her time hidden away in the nurses office.  This is a significant improvement over the prior two plus years of being a shut in.  But her life as a middle school student is going to end as soon as it has begun.  Due to it begin compulsory, she is quarantined to graduate.  The question is, what will she do next?

    Kaede is struggling with living up to the expectations left behind from the version of her during her memory loss.  Through that Kaede's diary she understand how hard she worked to get better.  The daily struggles to learn about herself  and to fight against her fears.  The old Kaede feels tied to the other versions' wish to attend the same high school as her brother.  Everyone is willing to go along with her desires, even though the chances of her succeeding are impossible.  Mai, her sister and Sakuta do as much as they can to help her study.  Secretly, Sakuta attends a seminar for an online school with his sisters school counselor.  She feels that this type of options would be a better choice for Kaede, given that she is still greatly struggling with interacting with her peers.  In the end all they can do is support her as  much as possible, in the hope that she can gain more confidence in her self.  Kaede is ultimately the master of her destiny, facing an almost impossible challenge regardless of her choice.

    This was a much needed reprieve from the heavy emotional toll the two prior volumes exacted.  We return to a more mundane tale focusing on the Azusagawa siblings.  This is also the first volume that does not have any detectable episode of 'adolescent syndrome' outside of the lingering remnants of Kaede's problem.  Instead what we get is a critique on the Japanese education system and its rigid structure.  A number of different opinions and critiques are laid out over the course of the story, many of which present frustration in the standard system.  They question the unflinching march of standardization, that will chew up those who aren't able to keep up and spit them into a dire future.  People like Kaede, who has found her self being pushed out of the group and fleeing to the safety of isolation.  Abandoning her education in favor of health.  This has put her in a situation where it is almost impossible for her to catch up to her peers, cutting her off from success in the future.  The story presents a budding alternative education network presenting a possible solution for those students the traditional system carelessly abandons.  The question on everyone's mind though, will this be good enough for Kaede to reach her potential later in life?

    This volume feels like it was shorter than it was.  Aside from a small portion at the end, there was very little reflection on the events at the end of volume seven...as incredibly important as they were.  The characters are more than happy to move ahead and live a life or normalcy.  But the mundane has its own problems, especially with Kaede's persisting mental health issues.  A significant amount of emphasis though was really on the push for alternative education options for the youth of Japan, and I can't say this is a bad thing.   The biggest hurdle faced by the characters and people in reality is the public perception of these options.  Even if the institutions are able to have their students achieve the same requirements as their traditional counterparts, it doesn't mean they are without stigma.  The public school system is designed to educate and enforce societal hegemony in almost equal portions.  If a new school is a virtual work at your pace alternative, how does that provide the same experience the rest of the nation is expecting everyone to have?  This is a major problem that both Kaede and people in real life are going to face in this experiment in education that is beginning to unfold in the country.  On to the next volume where I suspect the supernatural will come roaring back into the narrative. 

 Book Nine: Rascal Does Not Dream Of A Knapsack Kid review here!