"Do you have a wish? This is a box that grants any wish."
"Kazuki Hoshino, I'm here to break you."
"We are surrounded by soft, sweet, and pure white despair."

The Empty Box and The Zeroth Maria is a dark story about a flawed wish-granting device that causes trouble for our protagonist Hoshino and Otonashi.

Settings:
The story took place around Ikebukuro, in which a district of Japan. The settings are mostly involving just one tileset at each volume, mostly around the school. But the story are somewhat unique that you will not be bored despite being so.

Plot:
The story begins when a transfer student called Aya Otonashi, that have just transferred to a a school and intends to 'break' Kazuki Hoshino, a normal boy in which likes umaibo snacks and heavily attached to his daily life, right after her introduction. She claimed that it's her 13,118th transfer. She then told Kazuki about the existence of box in which could grant any wish, and that they're trapped inside a box and must find and stop the culprit, because some tragic incident happened involving the box, in which every box design was the symbolizations of the 'owners' characteristics, as it's their wish. Because of this, Kazuki's 'daily life' ruined. As the story goes, stress, depression, identity crisis, moral dilemmas, how a seemingly perfect system flawed heavily, and even death occurs. HakoMari managed to give a heavy thrilling, sinister, and surreal athmosphere as you read it. There's also so many other unexpected plot twists too, but I avoid of telling them so that you can enjoy HakoMari at it's fullest.

Art:
Nothing Much to say here, same as other Light Novels, there are only few illustrations about it, it somewhat surreal, and it's good IMO.

Characters:
This is one of the most interesting part of HakoMari IMO. There are many characters here and most of them are well developed, in which a character that takes a main role on a volume may recurring at some next few volume, either be a protagonist or an antagonist. I can also say that all of the characters are well developed, as how their backstories such as tragic pasts, how they deal with the 'box', their involvement on mind games, ulterior motives, how their personality changes as more box involved around their life, and their aftermath. I think almost every characters tend to have spoilery stories so I also avoid to told it more. Such tragedy happened in almost every characters and you may even shocked or shed some tears.

Enjoyment:
Couldn't expect more from this story, it's a brilliance IMO. I glued at this story, even when I was a bit sleepy, HakoMari managed to make me stay awake when I read it. Even the tiniest bit of comedy managed to make me laugh as I read this story. Also, I enjoy this story because of it's not focused just on one characters (I don't really like stories that only develops 1 character) To be honest, I can say that this is the current Magnum Opus story I've read so far. Completely mindblown.

I highly recommend for you guys who are fans of time traveling stories like Madoka Magica or Steins;Gate, and Survival or Mind Games like Death Note or Danganronpa to read this LN. And if these LNs was sold in your local bookstores, I recommend you to just buy it, because it's a bit sad that such a Masterpiece not sells pretty well in Japan, as this story is 'different' than most LNs.

Okay I think that's all for my reviews, thanks a lot for reading and I hope you enjoyed my review!