変身

by Novala Takemoto, 嶽本 野ばら

「ある朝、星沢皇児が妙に気掛かりな夢から眼を醒ますと、自分が寝床の中で見知らぬ恐ろしくハンサムな男に変わっているのを発見した…」。主人公の皇児は、としまえんにあるさびれたメリー・ゴーランド「カルーセル・エルドラド」をこよなく愛する売れない漫画家。整形外科医も見放すほど見た目も不細工だった彼が、突然、ハンサムになったとたん、人生が大きく動き(狂い?)始めて―。

フランツ・カフカ『変身』冒頭のパロディで始まる、勘違い男子の勘違いラブ・ロマンス。世界進出も果たして大ヒットしたあの『下妻物語』のテイストも全開の、嶽本野ばらのスーパー・エンターテインメント。

310 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 2007

About the author

Novala Takemoto (嶽本 野ばら) is the professional name of Toshiaki Takemoto (嶽本 稔明), a Japanese author and fashion designer. Takemoto has been one of the most active promoters of the Lolita lifestyle and remains fascinated with the Rococo era in particular. He was nominated for the Yukio Mishima Literary Award twice, for his novels Emily (in 2003) and Lolita (in 2004).

Reviews

[Helena · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was amusing, and I did laugh aloud a few times, but it wasn't as funny as I was hoping for, or as it claimed to be..Shimotsuma and Shimotsuma 2 were much funnier. Not that I normally look to Takemoto for humor, per se, but this was clearly a comedy. But the comedic parts seemed rather thrown in haphazardly whenever he felt it needed something, and rarely felt natural (a few times it did flow very nicely, and those were the times I actually laughed). The story itself was quite entertaining, but being essentially a twisted fairy tale type story, I felt it dragged on too long in some parts. But I'm only being rather harsh this time because normally I do so love Novala. I think my final thoughts on this one would be that it was just too simplistic and trivial and silly. My least favorite Novala so far.