The Empty Box and Zeroth Maria, Vol. 4 (light novel)

Though there are a few grammatical errors here and there, I can't really complain since Yen Press is responsible for allowing me to read my now favorite LN series.

Nice conclusion to this story arc.

Interesting progression. Fun read.

A fun and exciting read.

I think I'm done with Yen Press' awful handling of what was my favorite light novel series.Just as with the previous volumes, this appears to be the work of a single translator and zero editors. Nobody can expect a single pair of eyes to spot every mistake, so I don't fault the translator. But for the fourth volume in a row, this cerebral, immersive, dialogue-heavy series is repeatedly interrupted by little grammatical errors like "warn me off" instead of "warn me of," (pg. 32) or "notice" instead of "noticed." (pg. 55) It gets worse..."All she can do is cling to the faint hope in front her..." (pg. 69)"...you've shown that you don't actually have hold over your group, haven't you?" (pg. 75)"What're you going on about all of the sudden?" (pg. 133)But the worst is near the story's climax, where an entire sentence is wrong and confusing because "wasn't" is used instead of "was," in the second sentence as follows: (pg. 147)"...I wasn't focusing much on the fourth Kingdom Royale. I only watched the scenes where there wasn't something interesting happening..."I know that Yen Press is capable of delivering good translations. I know this because I'm collecting several of their manga series, and I don't see any mistakes in any of them. But the four released volumes have been consistent in their number of grammatical mistakes sprinkled throughout, with no signs of improvement. I even e-mailed my concerns to Yen Press, but got no response.I grew up reading books, not Internet posts. I learned proper grammar because the books I read contained proper grammar. I want my daughter to eagerly read, as well, as she grows up; and, I want her to learn what I learned, while also experiencing great stories. I would have loved for her to read Hakomari in English someday. I love the series, I loved the fan translation, and I was so excited to see the announcement of an official, professionally-done translation. But over the course of these four volumes, I've gone from excitedly pre-ordering them to deciding that I'm done. It breaks my heart. This series deserved better.5 stars for the story, 1 star for the translation.If you read the previous volumes and you have a tolerance for immersion-breaking grammatical errors, then I guess you ought to go ahead and buy it. But that's it for me; I'm out.

Probably the best volume so far, it's a tie with vol1. Not much to say it's the continuation of vol3 but it's center on Kazuki development, we finally see him really acting and it's seem like that will carry on for the next vol.