上海金魚

上海金魚 #1

by かわい有美子, 花本 安嗣 (イラスト)

しっとりとした花のような色香を持つ水端佑季の恋は、初めて訪れた異国の地、上海で終りを告げた。男の狡さに気付きながら、嘘を信じていた佑季は突然の別れに傷付き、旅先で出会った男、滝乃と体を重ねてしまう。滝乃の包み込むような優しさに、つかの間の関係だとわかっていても、心惹かれることを止められない佑季だったが…。

231 pages, Paperback

First published May 23, 2003

Reviews

[Commie Simpson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very nice. After a series of disappointment, this book 思い出させる me of why I like Kawai Yumiko. It’s essentially quite a 平凡なお話, but it is the unpretentiousness, 情けなさ、臆病な心, 単純なところ, even the shallowness of the characters that makes the story resonates with me. And all the tiny little things, the attention to details, the soft and sensitive writing style as if from a dream, that evokes this sense of nostalgia and tenderness. And yet there are times when Kawai writes in such a 生々しい way, reminding you of the mundanity of human relation.

Still, the book is also very かわい有美子らしい in its borderline WWA aka. wanna-be-white-asian tone that’s very hard to ignore especially when Kawai writes about the difference between Japan and Shanghai. I’m not saying that she shits on Shanghai all the time, but even when she speaks positively about the place, she sounds like a darn 1920s 1930s colonialist exotifying Japan’s colonies from a 上目線. Idk, maybe I’m reading too much into it?

Nevertheless, the book is overall quite pleasant.