So, I read this because it is the first English translation of an author I genuinely respect. How do I respect him if this is the first English edition of one of his books? Adaptations. In Japan Morimi’s work is very popular, and has been made into several movies and TV series. In fact, the recent adaptation of his novel “The Night is Short, Walk on Girl” is one of my favorite anime films in recent years As such, I was greatly looking forward to checking out an actual copy of one of his novels… I was extremely disappointed (Note: a translation has also been announced of “The Night is Short…” Despite my negative reactions to this, I will probably give that one a shot as I liked the movie so much).
This book is so overly sentimental as to be infuriating. Every page tries so hard to be nostalgic and heartwarming, that it only frustrated me. Now, I’m not against nostalgia and sentiment if it is done well, but it requires a proper execution and that it requires us to give a damn about the characters, and that is not the case for me. Our lead is in the fourth grade and he’s way too smart to be a fourth grader. He’s infuriatingly smart; a little know it all that praises himself every other page. Maybe this is meant to be charming? I don’t know. He tries to be calm and adult to such an extent that he doesn’t really feel like a child. Even his “charming” (quotation marks due to I think that was the author’s intention, but honestly it’s somewhat baffling) quirk to keep calm is to think about breasts. I’m not joking. Everything becomes associated with breasts to him… mountains, candy, clouds, everything. I don’t know if this was trying to be a joke for a future anime adaptation or what, but it comes off bizarre and unfunny in context with the novel.
Side characters are a little better than our lead, but are mostly forgettable. There’s responsible adult 1, responsible adult 2, the bully, the best friend, the possible crush. For the most part they are fine and accomplish their intended goals in the novel (and frankly I would have much rather read about ANY of them). The only side character of any interest is the Lady, who interestingly, despite my joke of giving characters fake titles, is actually nameless and just referred to as the Lady throughout. She’s a bizarre one, who comes off a touch on the Manic Pixie Dream Girl trope side, but actually has strange abilities such as creating penguins out of coke cans… yeah, the plot goes some weird places.
Speaking of, for a book with such a fantastic plot (and I mean it in terms of fantasy, and not in terms of being good) it’s a shockingly dull read. In fact, I found myself around the half way point getting bored every ten pages or so and putting it down. At first I attributed this to jet lag as I had just gotten off a 30+ hour series of flights and having traveled from an 11 hour time zone difference, but upon trying another book, I realized that I was able to finish 60+ pages easily, so nope, it was just boredom with this one.
I debated on the 1 or 2 star rating for some time and decided to go with a 2. Despite my complaints, it started off well enough and had me interested at the start. It carried on well for about 1/3 of its length before falling flat. I honestly think that this book isn’t extraordinarily awful; it’s just nothing I would want to read. I can easily imagine others reading it and being charmed by its sappy leads and nostalgic wonder. Perhaps I’m just too much of a grouchy old man, but this is just not for me.