There's a surprising twist in character development. Actually, it's not so much a development, but rather her real personality showing itself. Whom am I talking about? Harakawa Tamako. If you follow all those different dots, you end up with her in the center, or rather in a corner, because as much as she thinks, or hopes, she is in the center, she is not. I can't remember where I wrote this, but I said that it's practically impossible to change a person. And I still believe that.
I'm guessing that the characters in the novel aren't meant to be the same ones from the anime, so you should avoid applying most of what I write about these characters to anime characters.
One thing I thought was somewhat weak in this story was the fact that Haraken took so long to figure out how to get to the message Kan'na left for him. Come on! It should've been incredibly obvious to any competent "megane" user. But I guess it helps with the story flow. Even disregarding the above flaw, this volume is still somewhat weak in content until the last chapter where we see what Tamako has been thinking all this time. Still, there are so many unanswered questions to be answered, so I'm looking forward to the next volume.
Next volume is scheduled for October release.
