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Haruki Murakami Manga Stories #3
Haruki Murakami Manga Stories 3: Scheherezade, Sleep
Haruki Murakami's best-loved stories finally available in graphic novel form!
With their trademark mix of realism and fantasy, centering around Murakami's signature themes of loss, remorse and confusion, the two stories in this volume are:
Scheherezade: a man named Habara is confined to his house and is visited by a nurse, Scheherezade, who brings him provisions and has sex with him. She tells Habara the story of a boy she had a crush on when she was young, whose house she repeatedly broke into. She tells him the story over several visits, and the story ends before Scheherezade finishes. Habara worries he may never see Scheherezade again.
Sleep: recounts the life of a housewife with a regimented existence. But at night, she has her own life, as though she enters an extra-dimensional space. In this world she examines her own life and family and ponders the meaning of death.
These new graphic versions of classic Murakami short stories will be devoured by his fans and will provide a new window onto his work for a new generation of readers not yet familiar with it!
With their trademark mix of realism and fantasy, centering around Murakami's signature themes of loss, remorse and confusion, the two stories in this volume are:
Scheherezade: a man named Habara is confined to his house and is visited by a nurse, Scheherezade, who brings him provisions and has sex with him. She tells Habara the story of a boy she had a crush on when she was young, whose house she repeatedly broke into. She tells him the story over several visits, and the story ends before Scheherezade finishes. Habara worries he may never see Scheherezade again.
Sleep: recounts the life of a housewife with a regimented existence. But at night, she has her own life, as though she enters an extra-dimensional space. In this world she examines her own life and family and ponders the meaning of death.
These new graphic versions of classic Murakami short stories will be devoured by his fans and will provide a new window onto his work for a new generation of readers not yet familiar with it!
160 pages, Hardcover
First published April 1, 2025
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275 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 28 of 28 reviews
November 14, 2025
When I first read the story "Sleep" by Haruki Murakami as a young adult, I thought it was one of the most powerful stories I had read. I couldn't put my finger on why it interested me. It did not seem to provide any concrete answers at the time, but only to posit riddles.
Revisiting it now, I was reminded why I liked it so much.
I will deconstruct the story to get at some hidden meaning, or personal interpretations.
This will necessitate listing the main events in the story to discuss how they connect to the subtext. The manga adaptation usefully strips away some of the rhetorical devices and artfully focuses on the core images.
This is 1 of only 2 stories written by Murakami from the first-person female perspective. The other one is called "Creta Kanno," which is only available in Monkey magazine.
Why did he choose this perspective? The main character's role as a housewife is ideally suited to the plot of the story. As a woman, she also might feel more fear from the male antagonists in the story. Every other character in the story is male. I would argue that the shadowy beings at the end are also perceived as male, even if their gender is not explicitly labeled. The policeman who questions her when she is loitering in the parking lot reminds her that there was a rape and murder in the area recently. This sets up the ending. It plays into the protagonist's fear of death and her fear of uncontrollable forces. She feels helpless, as a woman, as a wife and mother, and as a human being. A victim of mortal constraints, burdened with responsibilities. It is a relatable position, this pervasive feeling like one's life is arranged so that there is no room to find one's purpose.
The plot begins when she has a night terror, a waking nightmare where a ghost or old man, or spirit, pours water over her naked feet. She experiences sleep paralysis. This being is the first encounter and precipitates her sleepless condition. She does not understand the significance of the night terror but somehow knows it is to blame. One might interpret the dream as a signifier of powerlessness. It mirrors the ending, which can be called a night terror of another sort, where the body does not respond, and one helplessly succumbs to the manifestation of one's fear.
She is trapped in an aging body. She has a fear of aging as well, so she combats the flab with vigorous swimming each day. Sleep, which is supposed to rejuvenate her, has excluded her from its domain. She, like the main character from Groundhog Day, is the only one in the universe who suffers from a strange exemption from reality. In that way, it can be called a form of madness.
One of the symptoms of sleep deprivation, she later reads, is madness. Another is death.
She does not consult a doctor, nor tell her husband, who is a dentist. I think the fact that he is a dentist bores her. She also seems bored by her well-behaved son. Her relationship with her son and husband are depicted with professional distance. If she loves them, it is only out of duty.
After the initiation ceremony, as I call the first night terror, she relishes her sleeplessness, falling into a new set of nighttime habits. She clearly wants to take advantage of the situation while at the same time subtly knowing that it will spell her doom.
She's a daily swimmer. She swims with a vengeance to punish her body for aging, to slow the aging process, to purge something from her, as she says. She likes her own body, though Murakami casts her in an asexual light. She only engages in intercourse with her husband without passion, the way she cooks dinner.
She finds her own face dissatisfying. When she watches her husband and son sleep, she dislikes their faces. They seem like the same face on two different people to her. This inability to love and recognize the humanity in peoples' faces seems like a symptom of her sleeplessness. They seem like automatons, snoring away while her ceaseless consciousness continues. Sleep transforms them, or rather, displays who they really are. She lacks their innocence. She knows that the world goes on while others sleep.
Her sleeplessness is an escape from this condition of mankind, while it is at the same time a lack of escape. She is unable to return to the real world of routinely sleeping. She is a woman apart. Her family is wholly ignorant of her condition, which lasts at least 17 days. She reads about how this should be impossible. So long without sleep should be fatal. It should at least result in irreversible insanity. Her terror at the incongruity infiltrates her.
She worries about the meaninglessness of her situation. Her life was even more meaningless before her chronic sleeplessness. After the twilight zone period begins, it assumes shades of meaning she cannot understand. Her chores and reading keep her busy. Murakami often puts his characters in situations where they are able to read and leave their lives behind. As a fellow bibliophile, I sympathize with the desire to do nothing but read - to pause time, to put one's life on hold. I have often wished my body did not need sleep so I could just read all night. The main character chooses Anna Karenina to get her into the groove of reading again. She is able to read with absolute concentration. There are no distractions in this version of the world she inhabits while the rest of humanity sleeps. The Romance and layers within the novel speak to her. She describes Tolstoy's method as creating Russian dolls of meaning, meaning hidden beneath meaning, nestling subtexts within one another. I believe Murakami aspires to similar levels of compression, but his writings always suffer from an indulgent weirdness. Tolstoy's stories were grounded, and when they contained flights of fancy, the interpretations were fairly clear. You get a lot of closure with Tolstoy, though he also left some threads dangling. So too, with Murakami, you can bring your personal opinion into the story, take from it something unique, but ultimately, it resists a total closure.
Some readers may be dissatisfied with the ending of this story. We do not learn what happens to our main character after her car is ravaged by two shadowy beings.
The car, like the book, is another escape for her. She leaves her house and wanders the town. She is disappointed that the streets are not empty. other drivers seem to live nocturnal lives.
Her awareness of the arbitrariness of death increases. She feels arbitrarily chosen for this period of sleeplessness. She lacks the reset button other people gain from sleep. It is like she is living one day that does not end.
In the final scene, there is anotehr car in the parking lot with her. That is specifically stated. This shows that she is either imagining the shadowy beings or that the other car did not respond to her dire situation. Perhaps there was no one in the car. The main character suggests that there were two lovers in the clandestine car, so one can only assume there was some indication that it was not uninhabited. Perhaps the inhabitants become the shadowy people who come after her. She cannot drive away or do anything to escape indicates that she must be having anotehr night terror to mirror the first.
We could interpret this second attack of powerlessness as either her foreshadowed death, or the end of her sleepless illness. It is open to several interpretations.
The second story in the collection is also interesting. "Scheherezade" is about a woman storyteller, who regales her lover with a story every time they meet. The story within a story she tells is not too complex and partakes of Murakami's signature weirdness. The art was rather grotesque in this manga adaptation, though the progression of the story is satisfying. It also lacks closure in some respects. I get the sense that the author likes to leave his stories open-ended, so that we can imagine our own continuations. Reading a Murakami story is like a brief glimpse into a skewed world. The characters often act irrationally, and their emotions cannot be explained unless you look deeper. They feel deeply, but they do not know why they feel what they feel.
The female character talks about her past obsession with a boy in her class. This was an infatuation which simply evaporated after her graduation. It is easy to recall similar circumstances from my own life, where I stopped talking to friends and stopped liking or loving people in my school for inexplicable reasons. In reality, our interests simply diverge. One person who seems to have a soul-deep connection to us turns out to not be desirable at all.
There is a confessional quality. The frankness of the lovers toward one another is touching. Is it needlessly explicit? Some may think so.
As models of craft, I believe Murakami provides many good examples. His stories often have framing devices, though they return to the same images again and again. The characters all inexplicably love jazz and know factoids about obscure classical composers. Obviously, we are simply viewing different components of the authors psyche given life in fictional characters. Are his stories ultimately convincing? They work dramatically, in my opinion, even if they require a lot of suspension of disbelief.
Revisiting it now, I was reminded why I liked it so much.
I will deconstruct the story to get at some hidden meaning, or personal interpretations.
This will necessitate listing the main events in the story to discuss how they connect to the subtext. The manga adaptation usefully strips away some of the rhetorical devices and artfully focuses on the core images.
This is 1 of only 2 stories written by Murakami from the first-person female perspective. The other one is called "Creta Kanno," which is only available in Monkey magazine.
Why did he choose this perspective? The main character's role as a housewife is ideally suited to the plot of the story. As a woman, she also might feel more fear from the male antagonists in the story. Every other character in the story is male. I would argue that the shadowy beings at the end are also perceived as male, even if their gender is not explicitly labeled. The policeman who questions her when she is loitering in the parking lot reminds her that there was a rape and murder in the area recently. This sets up the ending. It plays into the protagonist's fear of death and her fear of uncontrollable forces. She feels helpless, as a woman, as a wife and mother, and as a human being. A victim of mortal constraints, burdened with responsibilities. It is a relatable position, this pervasive feeling like one's life is arranged so that there is no room to find one's purpose.
The plot begins when she has a night terror, a waking nightmare where a ghost or old man, or spirit, pours water over her naked feet. She experiences sleep paralysis. This being is the first encounter and precipitates her sleepless condition. She does not understand the significance of the night terror but somehow knows it is to blame. One might interpret the dream as a signifier of powerlessness. It mirrors the ending, which can be called a night terror of another sort, where the body does not respond, and one helplessly succumbs to the manifestation of one's fear.
She is trapped in an aging body. She has a fear of aging as well, so she combats the flab with vigorous swimming each day. Sleep, which is supposed to rejuvenate her, has excluded her from its domain. She, like the main character from Groundhog Day, is the only one in the universe who suffers from a strange exemption from reality. In that way, it can be called a form of madness.
One of the symptoms of sleep deprivation, she later reads, is madness. Another is death.
She does not consult a doctor, nor tell her husband, who is a dentist. I think the fact that he is a dentist bores her. She also seems bored by her well-behaved son. Her relationship with her son and husband are depicted with professional distance. If she loves them, it is only out of duty.
After the initiation ceremony, as I call the first night terror, she relishes her sleeplessness, falling into a new set of nighttime habits. She clearly wants to take advantage of the situation while at the same time subtly knowing that it will spell her doom.
She's a daily swimmer. She swims with a vengeance to punish her body for aging, to slow the aging process, to purge something from her, as she says. She likes her own body, though Murakami casts her in an asexual light. She only engages in intercourse with her husband without passion, the way she cooks dinner.
She finds her own face dissatisfying. When she watches her husband and son sleep, she dislikes their faces. They seem like the same face on two different people to her. This inability to love and recognize the humanity in peoples' faces seems like a symptom of her sleeplessness. They seem like automatons, snoring away while her ceaseless consciousness continues. Sleep transforms them, or rather, displays who they really are. She lacks their innocence. She knows that the world goes on while others sleep.
Her sleeplessness is an escape from this condition of mankind, while it is at the same time a lack of escape. She is unable to return to the real world of routinely sleeping. She is a woman apart. Her family is wholly ignorant of her condition, which lasts at least 17 days. She reads about how this should be impossible. So long without sleep should be fatal. It should at least result in irreversible insanity. Her terror at the incongruity infiltrates her.
She worries about the meaninglessness of her situation. Her life was even more meaningless before her chronic sleeplessness. After the twilight zone period begins, it assumes shades of meaning she cannot understand. Her chores and reading keep her busy. Murakami often puts his characters in situations where they are able to read and leave their lives behind. As a fellow bibliophile, I sympathize with the desire to do nothing but read - to pause time, to put one's life on hold. I have often wished my body did not need sleep so I could just read all night. The main character chooses Anna Karenina to get her into the groove of reading again. She is able to read with absolute concentration. There are no distractions in this version of the world she inhabits while the rest of humanity sleeps. The Romance and layers within the novel speak to her. She describes Tolstoy's method as creating Russian dolls of meaning, meaning hidden beneath meaning, nestling subtexts within one another. I believe Murakami aspires to similar levels of compression, but his writings always suffer from an indulgent weirdness. Tolstoy's stories were grounded, and when they contained flights of fancy, the interpretations were fairly clear. You get a lot of closure with Tolstoy, though he also left some threads dangling. So too, with Murakami, you can bring your personal opinion into the story, take from it something unique, but ultimately, it resists a total closure.
Some readers may be dissatisfied with the ending of this story. We do not learn what happens to our main character after her car is ravaged by two shadowy beings.
The car, like the book, is another escape for her. She leaves her house and wanders the town. She is disappointed that the streets are not empty. other drivers seem to live nocturnal lives.
Her awareness of the arbitrariness of death increases. She feels arbitrarily chosen for this period of sleeplessness. She lacks the reset button other people gain from sleep. It is like she is living one day that does not end.
In the final scene, there is anotehr car in the parking lot with her. That is specifically stated. This shows that she is either imagining the shadowy beings or that the other car did not respond to her dire situation. Perhaps there was no one in the car. The main character suggests that there were two lovers in the clandestine car, so one can only assume there was some indication that it was not uninhabited. Perhaps the inhabitants become the shadowy people who come after her. She cannot drive away or do anything to escape indicates that she must be having anotehr night terror to mirror the first.
We could interpret this second attack of powerlessness as either her foreshadowed death, or the end of her sleepless illness. It is open to several interpretations.
The second story in the collection is also interesting. "Scheherezade" is about a woman storyteller, who regales her lover with a story every time they meet. The story within a story she tells is not too complex and partakes of Murakami's signature weirdness. The art was rather grotesque in this manga adaptation, though the progression of the story is satisfying. It also lacks closure in some respects. I get the sense that the author likes to leave his stories open-ended, so that we can imagine our own continuations. Reading a Murakami story is like a brief glimpse into a skewed world. The characters often act irrationally, and their emotions cannot be explained unless you look deeper. They feel deeply, but they do not know why they feel what they feel.
The female character talks about her past obsession with a boy in her class. This was an infatuation which simply evaporated after her graduation. It is easy to recall similar circumstances from my own life, where I stopped talking to friends and stopped liking or loving people in my school for inexplicable reasons. In reality, our interests simply diverge. One person who seems to have a soul-deep connection to us turns out to not be desirable at all.
There is a confessional quality. The frankness of the lovers toward one another is touching. Is it needlessly explicit? Some may think so.
As models of craft, I believe Murakami provides many good examples. His stories often have framing devices, though they return to the same images again and again. The characters all inexplicably love jazz and know factoids about obscure classical composers. Obviously, we are simply viewing different components of the authors psyche given life in fictional characters. Are his stories ultimately convincing? They work dramatically, in my opinion, even if they require a lot of suspension of disbelief.
June 26, 2025
when i finished this, i seriously said “what the fuck.” not sure if it was in a good or a bad way. this is entirely up to par with the other two manga story books that were made from haruki murakami works. these were kind of random stories within stories with sex, open endings, and deep thinking situations
the first story is strange - a guy can’t go outside so this lady is coming in to take care of his house and necessities. we don’t know why he can’t go outside we don’t know who assigned this lady to him. but they’re hooking up having sex and then at the end of their sessions she tells him a story. and then we got the story within a story aspect where now she’s telling this story of being a teen obsessed with a boy so much that she’s breaking into his house and basically creaming on all his stuff. and that one was pretty insane i mean the sexual parts were not random but it was jarring? like boom she breaks into this guys house (that doesn’t even ever notice her or speak to her) and all the sudden she’s about to bust type of deal stealing his pencil and leaving a tampon and some hairs. and the leaving the hairs part was actually crazy because in the lil depiction she’s the ONLY one with pink hair and then she’s like “he’ll never know it was me” meanwhile next panel is her in her class and she’s the only one with a different hair color. idk whatever that was humorous to me. but then nothing ever comes of this story. she goes to the guys house three times before they change the lock and then she says that’s pretty much the end of it. except she claims she had an interaction with the guy later and promises to tell shut in guy the next time. boom back to the frame story now they’re fuckin real passionate or whatever and she leaves and when she does the shut in guy is just left to ponder what will happen if she doesn’t come back because he has no access to the outside world except her. and then it ends?? like???
murakami does not want to wrap his shit up i tell you what!! he loves ending on an open random idek what ending where maybe a new problem new question is introduced. that’s exactly what happened in the next one as well
the second story ends on LITERALLY the very height of tension. nothing is going on in this story except main character doesn’t need to sleep and she’s going about everything as regular. but now she’s reading all the time and eating chocolate and being herself more and she feels she’s unlocked a new part of her mind. and it’s a very contemplative story, she’s doing a lot of thinking on what she’s gained with losing sleep and how her identity was her housework and being a mother and housewife. at the end she seems to start to decline almost seeming to go crazy with the thoughts of death and the existential fears and what not. but then when she goes out for a night drive to sit at the harbor or whatever on the last page or so THATS when a real threat shows up?? holy fuck. and it just ends. boom. done. we listen to this mf be nothing but contemplative for so many pages and just when the actions hits and she’s in danger the story is done. that’s why i said wtf. i think ending was mad impactful because im truly not gonna forget that holy shit ass ending. really it defies what you would expect from an ending. who tf ends on a seemingly climactic situation unless you’re doing a cliff hanger? but no this is a complete story. and for that i say wtf
the first story is strange - a guy can’t go outside so this lady is coming in to take care of his house and necessities. we don’t know why he can’t go outside we don’t know who assigned this lady to him. but they’re hooking up having sex and then at the end of their sessions she tells him a story. and then we got the story within a story aspect where now she’s telling this story of being a teen obsessed with a boy so much that she’s breaking into his house and basically creaming on all his stuff. and that one was pretty insane i mean the sexual parts were not random but it was jarring? like boom she breaks into this guys house (that doesn’t even ever notice her or speak to her) and all the sudden she’s about to bust type of deal stealing his pencil and leaving a tampon and some hairs. and the leaving the hairs part was actually crazy because in the lil depiction she’s the ONLY one with pink hair and then she’s like “he’ll never know it was me” meanwhile next panel is her in her class and she’s the only one with a different hair color. idk whatever that was humorous to me. but then nothing ever comes of this story. she goes to the guys house three times before they change the lock and then she says that’s pretty much the end of it. except she claims she had an interaction with the guy later and promises to tell shut in guy the next time. boom back to the frame story now they’re fuckin real passionate or whatever and she leaves and when she does the shut in guy is just left to ponder what will happen if she doesn’t come back because he has no access to the outside world except her. and then it ends?? like???
murakami does not want to wrap his shit up i tell you what!! he loves ending on an open random idek what ending where maybe a new problem new question is introduced. that’s exactly what happened in the next one as well
the second story ends on LITERALLY the very height of tension. nothing is going on in this story except main character doesn’t need to sleep and she’s going about everything as regular. but now she’s reading all the time and eating chocolate and being herself more and she feels she’s unlocked a new part of her mind. and it’s a very contemplative story, she’s doing a lot of thinking on what she’s gained with losing sleep and how her identity was her housework and being a mother and housewife. at the end she seems to start to decline almost seeming to go crazy with the thoughts of death and the existential fears and what not. but then when she goes out for a night drive to sit at the harbor or whatever on the last page or so THATS when a real threat shows up?? holy fuck. and it just ends. boom. done. we listen to this mf be nothing but contemplative for so many pages and just when the actions hits and she’s in danger the story is done. that’s why i said wtf. i think ending was mad impactful because im truly not gonna forget that holy shit ass ending. really it defies what you would expect from an ending. who tf ends on a seemingly climactic situation unless you’re doing a cliff hanger? but no this is a complete story. and for that i say wtf
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 25, 2025
The third installment of the Murakami Manga Stories was different from the other two - it featured only two stories which were told in detail (I much prefer this to the typical abridged versions of graphic novels). Both stories were weird and uneasy with magical realism sprinkled on top - a truly Murakamiesque reading experience. I enjoyed the second one a lot more though, felt very reminiscent of older Murakami.
April 14, 2025
Meh.
I read it all, and quickly. However, I just feel I didn't get the gist of it, especially not the second story. But maybe that's just me.
I read it all, and quickly. However, I just feel I didn't get the gist of it, especially not the second story. But maybe that's just me.
March 31, 2025
Two stories by Murakami, the first one I did not remember, while the second one I did. Drawings that render well the angst that characterizes them but also somehow convey the endemic strangeness.
Due storie di Murakami, la prima non me la ricordavo, mentre la seconda sí. Disegni che rendono bene l'angoscia che le caratterizza ma che in qualche modo veicolano anche la stranezza endemica.
I received from the Publisher a complimentary digital advanced review copy of the book in exchange for a honest review.
Due storie di Murakami, la prima non me la ricordavo, mentre la seconda sí. Disegni che rendono bene l'angoscia che le caratterizza ma che in qualche modo veicolano anche la stranezza endemica.
I received from the Publisher a complimentary digital advanced review copy of the book in exchange for a honest review.
May 18, 2025
The Deveney manga adaptations the popular Murakami short stories are real gems. Their art totally captures the surreal and the mundane alike. I was particularly impressed by how the human body and architecture are captured; the characters and sets all seem diorama-esque in a disturbingly adorable way.
I was initially slightly dissapointed to realize this third and final volume only contains two stories where the first two contain four and three respectively, but my dismay was offset by the inclusion of my favorite of his short stories, "Sleep", which makes up roughly 100/160 pages of the volume. Rather like his "Drive my Car" does with Chekhov, the main plot of "Sleep" runs alongside Tolstoy's Anna Karenina; the protagonist's wont to drown herself in other centuries' literary and musical landscapes is something I'm sure many readers will relate to. Both "Sleep" and the other work covered in this volume, "Scheherezade", share similar themes of sleep/bedtime and being trapped in adulthood, which do seem to be less of a focus in his early novels.
The best way to experience these stories is in the late afternoon or evening over a nice cup of black coffee. A great entry point for newbies, although fans of Murakami will appreciate these editions too all the more for the opportunity to reenter these tales.
I was initially slightly dissapointed to realize this third and final volume only contains two stories where the first two contain four and three respectively, but my dismay was offset by the inclusion of my favorite of his short stories, "Sleep", which makes up roughly 100/160 pages of the volume. Rather like his "Drive my Car" does with Chekhov, the main plot of "Sleep" runs alongside Tolstoy's Anna Karenina; the protagonist's wont to drown herself in other centuries' literary and musical landscapes is something I'm sure many readers will relate to. Both "Sleep" and the other work covered in this volume, "Scheherezade", share similar themes of sleep/bedtime and being trapped in adulthood, which do seem to be less of a focus in his early novels.
The best way to experience these stories is in the late afternoon or evening over a nice cup of black coffee. A great entry point for newbies, although fans of Murakami will appreciate these editions too all the more for the opportunity to reenter these tales.
December 30, 2025
I got this book as part of a reading challenge for the new year. One of the components of the challenge was to read a graphic novel. I don't usually read graphic novels but this book is two short stories from an author I like that have been reworded in a visual format. What stood out to me what while I think I have a pretty good sense of the authors tone through reading several of his books including one which is autobiographical. However if i hadn't started the first story knowing that it was written by Murakami I would have never guessed it was one of his stories and I didn't recognize that I had already read sleep in another book until I was a third of the way through. I think the illustrations were really nice but the hazy parts of the insomniac world in "Sleep" and the strange underwater lamprey eel life didn't add much to my experience of the story as well the onomatopoeia all over the place. I am not sure if it is an imitation of Japanese onomatopoeia and the English is bereft of any way of describing the sounds one makes when kissing and sniffing the stationary on an unrequited lover's desk. Anyway I glad I gave it a try and think it was a pretty cool project.
January 15, 2026
This collection is stronger than the first volume of Manga Stories. I felt that volume 1 had an overall weak selection stories, with only the last one being particularly memorable. Volume 3 goes for a different approach and adapts two stories with somewhat similar feel rather than four seemingly random stories.
I can’t comment on the accuracy to the original stories, but I felt like this adaptation benefited a lot more from the medium of comics compared to the first volume. While I’m not a big fan of the art styles for either story, I think they suit the tone and do a good job conveying the emotions of the characters, especially the more surreal moments such as the the Lamoreys appearing in the room in Scheherazade, or the ending of both stories.
Murakami is such a strong writer in general, that hearing the stories Scheherazade tells or seeing the main character of Sleep coming to terms with her mundane life was enough to get me to turn the page and see what happens next. He has a way of making regular everyday people really intriguing, like you can get a picture of what their life is like outside of the confines of the book.
I can’t comment on the accuracy to the original stories, but I felt like this adaptation benefited a lot more from the medium of comics compared to the first volume. While I’m not a big fan of the art styles for either story, I think they suit the tone and do a good job conveying the emotions of the characters, especially the more surreal moments such as the the Lamoreys appearing in the room in Scheherazade, or the ending of both stories.
Murakami is such a strong writer in general, that hearing the stories Scheherazade tells or seeing the main character of Sleep coming to terms with her mundane life was enough to get me to turn the page and see what happens next. He has a way of making regular everyday people really intriguing, like you can get a picture of what their life is like outside of the confines of the book.
June 17, 2025
[ 3.5/5 stars ]
I am always curious about Murakami's works and I've been meaning to read more of him. These titles present Murakami's short stories in manga form - there is plenty of sarcasm and drama in the pages while Murakami makes use of the grotesque and body forms to cultivate unhinged reactions. The author is masterful at incorporating the surrealism to deliver the message in the most impactful way. It's about learning one's own identity; what it means to be human; the unique analysis of the meaning of life; the savior complex; the way past traumas play with one's conscience,... the expressive art, often graphic, is intended for a more mature audience (personally, it was too much for me). Mostly meditative, these stories will impress the reader in one or another way.
[ gifted by the publisher. All opinions are my own ]
I am always curious about Murakami's works and I've been meaning to read more of him. These titles present Murakami's short stories in manga form - there is plenty of sarcasm and drama in the pages while Murakami makes use of the grotesque and body forms to cultivate unhinged reactions. The author is masterful at incorporating the surrealism to deliver the message in the most impactful way. It's about learning one's own identity; what it means to be human; the unique analysis of the meaning of life; the savior complex; the way past traumas play with one's conscience,... the expressive art, often graphic, is intended for a more mature audience (personally, it was too much for me). Mostly meditative, these stories will impress the reader in one or another way.
[ gifted by the publisher. All opinions are my own ]
April 16, 2025
I just finished the third book in the Haruki Murakami manga series, and I truly enjoyed it. The French-style illustrations by PMGL are beautiful and unique—they match Murakami’s dreamy, mysterious storytelling perfectly.
Of the two stories, Sleep stood out to me the most. It quietly captures the struggles of being a housewife—something that many women around the world can relate to—losing your sense of self and searching for meaning in daily life.
But what really makes this book special is the artwork. Every page feels like a piece of art. It’s not just a manga—it’s a visual and emotional experience. I highly recommend it for both Murakami fans and anyone who appreciates thoughtful storytelling and stunning illustrations.
Of the two stories, Sleep stood out to me the most. It quietly captures the struggles of being a housewife—something that many women around the world can relate to—losing your sense of self and searching for meaning in daily life.
But what really makes this book special is the artwork. Every page feels like a piece of art. It’s not just a manga—it’s a visual and emotional experience. I highly recommend it for both Murakami fans and anyone who appreciates thoughtful storytelling and stunning illustrations.
October 8, 2025
Sleep was my favorite. Scheherazade just ok.
“Sleep” by Haruki Murakami
“No one had noticed that I had changed... that my mind was someplace a hundred years – and hundreds of miles – from reality.” P.125
“Sleep both calms and provides a discharge for thought circuits that have likewise only been used in one direction.
This is how people are cooled down.
Sleeping has been programmed into the human system. If a person diverges from it, the person’s “ground of being” is threatened.
Tendencies? The only tendency of mine I could think of was housework.
Those chores I perform a day after day, like an unfeeling machine. Pretty soon, reality just floats off and away.” P.129-130
“Of death was like this, being eternally awake and staring into darkness, what should I do?” P.148
“Sleep” by Haruki Murakami
“No one had noticed that I had changed... that my mind was someplace a hundred years – and hundreds of miles – from reality.” P.125
“Sleep both calms and provides a discharge for thought circuits that have likewise only been used in one direction.
This is how people are cooled down.
Sleeping has been programmed into the human system. If a person diverges from it, the person’s “ground of being” is threatened.
Tendencies? The only tendency of mine I could think of was housework.
Those chores I perform a day after day, like an unfeeling machine. Pretty soon, reality just floats off and away.” P.129-130
“Of death was like this, being eternally awake and staring into darkness, what should I do?” P.148
April 10, 2025
5 Stars • Haruki Murakami Manga Stories 3: Scheherezade; Sleep adapts two short stories by Haruki Murakami into manga.
• Scheherezade: Habara, a confined man, relies on a woman dubbed "Scheherezade" for supplies, sex, and stories. She recounts her teenage obsession with breaking into a boy’s house, but her tale cuts off, leaving Habara longing for her return.
• Sleep: A housewife, unable to sleep for 17 days, spends nights reading Anna Karenina and reflecting on her mundane life, finding freedom in sleeplessness while her family remains unaware.
Illustrated by PMGL, the stories blend realism and surrealism with a striking, chaotic art style.
#MangaStories #HarukiMurakami #Bookish
• Scheherezade: Habara, a confined man, relies on a woman dubbed "Scheherezade" for supplies, sex, and stories. She recounts her teenage obsession with breaking into a boy’s house, but her tale cuts off, leaving Habara longing for her return.
• Sleep: A housewife, unable to sleep for 17 days, spends nights reading Anna Karenina and reflecting on her mundane life, finding freedom in sleeplessness while her family remains unaware.
Illustrated by PMGL, the stories blend realism and surrealism with a striking, chaotic art style.
#MangaStories #HarukiMurakami #Bookish
December 11, 2025
Dette er den bog i serien, jeg synes mindst om. Det er ikke det samme som, at det er den dårligste. Begge bogens historier er intense, ikke mindst den anden og sidste. 'Sleep'. Jeg har ikke læst novellen, men som tegnet fortællinger kommer, så mindes jeg ikke, at jeg nogensinde har læst noget så intenst. Og derfor er slutningen også meget ærgerlig. Den er måske en logisk konsekvens af handlingen. Det kan jeg ikke gennemskue. Men alligevel føles den også som en 'nåh, jeg skal også se at komme ud af det her igen'-løsning. Det grafiske layout er outstanding. Enestående. Virkelig enestående.
June 3, 2025
Sheherezade is a good and fun - even lighthearted story. Sleep isn’t fun at all. It’s a deep and emotional tale about a mother and housewife who’s deeply unhappy without knowing it - and who tries to take her life back when she suddenly no longer needs to sleep. I think it might be Murakami’s best short story. Or at least it is to me. And I loved reading it in manga format. The illustrator of these books is so good at the creepy and macabre.
December 29, 2025
Un incontro affascinante tra letteratura e fumetto. Le storie di Murakami prendono nuova vita in forma manga, mantenendo intatte le atmosfere surreali, malinconiche e sospese che lo contraddistinguono. Il lavoro grafico di PMGL accompagna con eleganza il senso di straniamento e introspezione tipico dell’autore.
Una lettura suggestiva e originale, perfetta per chi ama Murakami e per chi vuole scoprirlo in una veste diversa. Onirico e magnetico.
Una lettura suggestiva e originale, perfetta per chi ama Murakami e per chi vuole scoprirlo in una veste diversa. Onirico e magnetico.
December 25, 2025
Surreal yet realistic notions of past lives, current lives, warnings, and a cultural landscape into how some people move throughout their lives all with some sort of vastness, something empty, or realizing too late. Very profound. Plus the art style is really gritty and awesome. I will say it might not be everyone's cup of tea but this is a thought provoker.
July 29, 2025
Enjoyable and consistent in style to the other Murakami Manga stories.
Scheherazade was a replacement level story for Murakami’s standards.
Sleep was much better and the protagonist was a more fleshed out character.
Scheherazade was a replacement level story for Murakami’s standards.
Sleep was much better and the protagonist was a more fleshed out character.
May 28, 2025
I’ve read the short stories but adding the manga edition makes the manga series a great addition to a Murakami’s collection.
June 1, 2025
I think I'll stop reading these now... only 2 stories in this volume. I think Sleep is the better story in this one but I was hoping for more.
June 16, 2025
A couple of Murakami stores with illustrations. You know it's going to be good.
July 28, 2025
Great strange stories that were exactly what I needed.
August 24, 2025
I hate the art style, but I will read anything Murakami. I like these short stories, which I read in the past. It's nice to see them visually laid out though.
October 2, 2025
Somehow I’ve managed to read volume 3 first. I would rather give this a 3.5 but! The focus on women is interesting, lots of reflection.
November 3, 2025
Weird and delightful is the best way to describe works by this author. The only thing I don't like is every story is left hanging with no clear end. The two stories in this book were very good!
November 14, 2025
A cute couple of stories with overlapping themes
August 26, 2025
Haruki Murakami Manga Stories 🎎
💤 The third and final volume (as of now) was a straight five star! It has slightly longer stories so it contains only two of them but they are pretty iconic so one would be completely dazzled!
💤 If you ever enjoyed the crazy ‘fishes falling from the sky’ moment or came to terms with the perplexity in Norwegian Wood, you’d probably grow to love ‘Scheherazade’, the first story in this book. Two characters, one room, conversations about dreams, certain helplessness and bizarre metaphors. I honestly wonder how a brain can string this up together because it might make no sense and it might just make a lot of sense.
💤 If you’ve read Banana Yoshimoto’s 'Sleep' and wondered how Japanese writers can write whole books on random things, I’ll add one more to your list and it’s ‘Sleep’ by Murakami. Complete insomnia, no backing out of it, stuck in thoughts and books and midnight chocolate cravings. A story of a middle-aged housewife who thinks her life can have no dregs of liveliness anymore. What will sleep(lessness) lead her to?
💤 Great illustrations; punchy, evocative, edgy, just the right fit for bizarre Murakami stories. These volumes were such a joy ride!
Thank you @tuttlepublishing for the copy ; I do hope new volumes are published soon because you’ve got a fan!
💤 The third and final volume (as of now) was a straight five star! It has slightly longer stories so it contains only two of them but they are pretty iconic so one would be completely dazzled!
💤 If you ever enjoyed the crazy ‘fishes falling from the sky’ moment or came to terms with the perplexity in Norwegian Wood, you’d probably grow to love ‘Scheherazade’, the first story in this book. Two characters, one room, conversations about dreams, certain helplessness and bizarre metaphors. I honestly wonder how a brain can string this up together because it might make no sense and it might just make a lot of sense.
💤 If you’ve read Banana Yoshimoto’s 'Sleep' and wondered how Japanese writers can write whole books on random things, I’ll add one more to your list and it’s ‘Sleep’ by Murakami. Complete insomnia, no backing out of it, stuck in thoughts and books and midnight chocolate cravings. A story of a middle-aged housewife who thinks her life can have no dregs of liveliness anymore. What will sleep(lessness) lead her to?
💤 Great illustrations; punchy, evocative, edgy, just the right fit for bizarre Murakami stories. These volumes were such a joy ride!
Thank you @tuttlepublishing for the copy ; I do hope new volumes are published soon because you’ve got a fan!
June 15, 2025
26.3.25
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