カテゴリー: Fiction Japanese

★★★★☆ It's a collection of short stories of regular people in Japan, you know one or two of these people. So diligent, awkward and unintentionally funny. I should have read the previous book in the series though

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Nanisama 
Ryo Asai, 2012 
何様
朝井リョウ
Read 2025 .03
Not available in English


🔽 Book review and notes 🔽
My first time reading Ryo Asai.
6 short stories, but who know there was a book before this in the series, called Nanimono.
Both titles meaning something along the line with "who do you think you are"

It's mainly about job hunting, and in Japan they still mass recruit college students in their last year, so that if they successfully graduate, they can work directly from April of the year (if you don't get expected grades, they can cancel their offer)
In winter, you see all the 21, 22 year olds going around Japanese cities in their "recruitment suits" with the same hairstyles, same bags, same nervous faces, memorising the perfect answers to what they know their recruiters will ask.
Anyway so the protagonists are at the verge of new challenges; just got recruited, new start at college, instructor of recruitment.
Their struggles are so normal, they are awkward, but aren't we all a bit awkward?
You want to do thing correctly but end up unintentionally funny, loveable ordinary people.

🔽 Where to buy 🔽

●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

何様 Paperback Bunko Japanese Edition

●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
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●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
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Not available but the prequal "Nanimono" is here;
Voglio essere qualcuno

★★★★★ "Pride and Prejudice" in Japan, where the society has a very strict "standard". And you realise you also measure people with those yardsticks. The reality of everyone who has ever been told "you should be married by now"

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Gouman to Zenryou
(Arrogance and Virtue) 
Mizuki Tsujimura, 2019
傲慢と善良
辻村深月
Read 2025.7


🔽 Book review and notes 🔽
I had never read books by her, but glad I did.

Japan has a very strict "standard".
Be a good boy, a good girl, listen to your parents, don't like, don't stand out.
This is how you get educated since you are little - "when I was young this is how it was, so you should do the same"

It seems to be a modern love story, at least at the beginning, then his fiancée disappears completely. 
Slowly we learn about her way of thinking and her past, and I'd dare say any Japanese young people "at the marriageable age" will understand both sides, that THIS is the reality they are forced to live in.

Until our parents' age, it was not unusual to have arranged marriage in Japan, but today they have to go on their "konkatsu" a marriage hunting (rather than a job hunting), using websites, seminars, or apps without help from family or community - what exactly are we looking for in someone you wish to marry?

It might be difficult for people who grew up in the West to completely understand, because they did not receive the similar education when they were 14, or 8 or 5 years old.
Or it might be difficult for people from other Asian countries where arranged marriage might be still normal, because you have a backup from both families.
In Japan, it doesn't belong to either. You cannot stand up for your opinions, or you cannot reply on the safety your family provides. 
Konkatsu is a lonely battle.

I can't say much without revealing the plot, but just one thing, no you don't need to give up.

🔽 Where to buy 🔽

●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

傲慢と善良 Tankobon Hardcover (Japanese)

●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
傲慢と善良 Tankobon Hardcover (Japanese)

●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
傲慢と善良 Tankobon Hardcover (Japanese)

★★★★★ The feeling of confinement, hopelessness, and the raw human connection that exists there. If you remove everything other than what you'd need to live today and maybe tomorrow, what kind of humanity are we left with? A strong message of anti-war and hatred towards hypocrites.

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Lavish are the Dead, Prize Stock and other stories
Shisha no ogori, Shiiku
Kenzaburo Oe, 1958
死者の奢り 飼育
大江健三郎
Read 2024.05

🔽 Book review and notes 🔽
I kind of avoided reading it because I knew it'd affect me strongly especially if I was unwell.
And it did.

Tragedies of a war obviously mean the death and physical injuries or destruction but it takes away people's spirits, scrape off anything that define us as human.

Lavish are the Dead is a story of a student who does a day job cleaning corpses at university, and how he connects with the bodies floating in a pool for preservation.
Stock Prize, which is probably more well known, tells a wartime story of a village and their "catch", a black American airman whom they found and kept. Fed like an animal by locals and their kids, he is kept in the village (Shiiku means "breeding") 
It's a short story full of racism, xenophobe, cruel innocence of kids, violence, and it makes you sick reading it, but, what's more disturbing is that, right or wrong, you as a reader do understand their point, too. 

Reading these stories, it feels like your world is becoming so small that it almost chokes you. 
Remove all the wonderful things about being human, like humanity, social interaction, fraternity or benevolence, and you face another human with the raw cold iron feeling - you're barely a human at this point.
Oe's message is clear, anti-war and anti-hypocrites, but he exposes our own hypocrisy while sending out that message.  

If you are not well mentally or physically, it's a book to avoid.

🔽 Where to buy 🔽

●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●
Catch and Other Stories (English and Japanese Edition)
(contains Catch a.k.a Stock Prize)

●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
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●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
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★★★★☆ 31 men and 1 woman on a remote island. She makes sure to take advantage of being the only woman, but it’s not that simple, she gets old and fat, and gets greedy, too.

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Tokyo Island
Natsuo Kirino, 2008
東京島
桐野夏生
Read 2024.7


🔽 Book review and notes 🔽

31 men and 1 woman on a remote island. 
She makes sure to take advantage of being the only woman, but it's not that simple, she gets old and fat, and gets greedy, too.

As time goes on, 5 years, 6 years, they slowly start to fall apart and form their own communities.
I only recently read Robinson Crusoe, and I'm not sure if he'd prefer years alone, or with these people.

Men are not to be depended on, but she's so used to be treated like a queen by now, what should she do now that she's getting old and fat?
It's not a beautiful story, it's the real woman with real problems, even if she's on an island with dozens of men alone.

🔽 Where to buy 🔽

●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●
L'Ile de Tokyo (French Edition) 

●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
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★★★★★ What’s so fab about it is that you know it’s impossible, but it’s so good that it doesn’t matter. Exciting and entertaining, definitely the most loved mystery of 2025 in Japan.

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一次元の挿し木
松下龍之介 2025
(Labyrinth of Hortensia and Minotaur)
Ryunosuke Matsushita
256 pages 
Read 2024.8
(Not available in English)


🔽 Book review and notes 🔽
The author is in his mid-20s and it was only his debut novel.
It's so entertaining that all bibliophiles have read it in Japan.

The DNA of an ancient bones found in India matches the DNA of his missing sister.
And there are evil organisations and scientific secrets that are bigger than life; so you know it's impossible, there is no reality to it, but, but! you let that go because the story is so good.
Who cares if it's the story is unlikely, but not even SF, if it's entertaining, people will read and get addicted to it.

The protagonist is a beautiful lone young man who never smiles, his younger sister is a quiet pretty girl, there are also a bored housewife and poor students and Greek mythology, Frankenstein's monster, then the sound of mysterious liquid splashing - all the good ingredients are there.

We're all waiting for his future books now.
(And I'm sure it will soon be available in English)

🔽 Where to buy 🔽

●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

One-Dimensional Cutting (Japanese Edition)

●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
One-Dimensional Cutting (Japanese Edition)

●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
One-Dimensional Cutting (Japanese Edition) (Giapponese)

★★★★★ Women looking at each other, women being looked at by each other. This is everyday stuff, a mundane, but why does it have to be a taboo to talk about women's normality? Sharp and warm.

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Breasts and Eggs
Mieko Kawakami, 2008
乳と卵
川上未映子
Read in 2020.05

🔽 Book review and notes 🔽

There's no other stories like this.

3 women, 3 days.
What does it mean to be a woman?
It goes on about sexual "tools" and about reproduction "tools" and menstruations that just happen in between
Women looking at each other, women being looked at by each other.
This is everyday stuff, boring, a mundane, but why does it have to be a taboo to talk about women's normality?
In the original Japanese it's written in a way that's not easy to read mixed with Osaka dialects, there was nothing like this before Kawakami, a story that talks about the truth in everyday life. Her theme and storytelling is sharp, but her writing is warm.

Today her books can be found in English and many other languages, but naturally I wait to get them in Japanese!

 

🔽 Where to buy / Summary and more info 🔽

●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

Breasts and Eggs: A powerful and intimate novel about what it means to be a woman in modern Japan

●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
Breasts and Eggs: A powerful and intimate novel about what it means to be a woman in modern Japan

●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
Seni e uova

★★★★★ Maids in Japan this period were not just housekeepers, they were a part of the family. And it’s Tanizaki, all his women are unique and loveable, and all a bit crazy.

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The Maids
Junichiro Tanizaki, 1963
台所太平記
谷崎潤一郎
Read 2024.8


🔽 Book review and notes 🔽
In the house with an old man, many maids come and go.
Back then, maids were not just housekeepers, the young girls come out from countryside, and their employers treat them like nieces, taking care of their affairs.

And remember it's Tanizaki, it means all the women in the book are unique, loveable and a bit crazy.
The house is always noisy with the maids chatting away and running around, exactly as the old man likes.
Yes he likes the girls and looking at their feet, but he also lets go of their little madness, or their love affairs, even love affairs among the girls.
It's an old custom or value that's disappeared.

It might not be one of his more famous books, but it's fun, it's sensual, it's subtly sensational, definitely a lovely read.

🔽 Where to buy 🔽

●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

The Maids

●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
The Maids

●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
Le domestiche (Italiano)

★★★★★+♥ The film was an instant blockbuster, so I had a very high expectation – and it blew it away. A story of a son of yakuza turned kabuki actor who is the beauty itself, a national treasure.

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Kokuho (National Treasure)
Shuichi Yoshida, 2018
国宝 上下
吉田修一
Japan
Read 2025.09


🔽 Book review and notes 🔽
The film had just come out and was an instant hit, the second highest-grossing live-action movie in history in Japan, so I had a very high expectation - and it blew it away. 

Kikuo, a son of a dead yakuza boss in Nagasaki, becomes an apprentice in a kabuki family in Osaka where he spend his entire childhood learning the way of kabuki with their son, Shunsuke, a thoroughbred whose success and career guaranteed by bloodline.
They are the best friends, the best partners and rivals - of course you know already from this setting that it'd be a good story.

But wait until you read the book, it's not that simple.
Kikuo loves kabuki and has an usual talent, but that's not enough.
He gets thrown into the dark pit of the destiny, and by random chance he gets saved, then fallen, then picked up and admired; he has no life of his own, but he has his genius, dedication and his beauty as an art.

This is a story of how one lives for an art, and as an art, as a "kokuho" living national treasure.

I hope to watch the film soon too, by Lee Sang-il, hands down everyone is praising it.
As of now, it will be released in US and France.
Of course Ryo Yoshizawa and Ryusei Yokohama will be beautiful, Ken Watanabe will be powerful, but I want to see Min Tanaka, 80 year old dancer/actor who has the strongest presence on screen in Japan today.

🔽 Where to buy 🔽

●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●
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●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●

【Amazon.co.jp限定】国宝　オリジナル・サウンドトラック - 原摩利彦 (国宝ロゴオリジナルメガジャケット付)　(Audible Japanese)

●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
国宝 (上) 青春篇 (朝日文庫)　(Giapponese) 

★★★★★ Lily the cat is everything. The man loves Lily, only Lily, as for female human, he doesn’t care if it’s his ex-wife or lover or his mother. Is he an owner or servant? Well, does it matter

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A Cat, A Man, And Two Women
Junichiro Tanizaki, 1937
Japan
Read in 2020.04

🔽 Book review and notes 🔽

Lily the cat is everything.
The man loves Lily, only Lily, as for female human, he doesn't care if it's his ex-wife or lover or his mother.

A typical obsessive love story from Tanizaki, it's just that the man is attracted to a cat, a beautiful, Western coquettish, pure white female cat.

Is he an owner or servant? 
Well, does it matter because serving Lily is his happiness.
She cares much less, but she probably knows her human competitors are way below her.

 

🔽 Related pages 🔽

🔽 Where to buy / Summary and more info 🔽

●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

A Cat, A Man, And Two Women

●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
A Cat, A Man, And Two Women

●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
La gatta (italiano)

★★★★★ Tanizaki’s debut novel, Tattoo, the eroticism and fetishism are already there. He depicts the woman’s true self by the beauty of her feet, and she is awaken. Yes that’s Tanizaki.

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The Tattoo
Junichiro Tanizaki, 1910
刺青 秘密
谷崎潤一郎
Japan
Read in 2020.04

🔽 Book review and notes 🔽

Tanizaki's debut novel, Tattoo (Tattooer, Shisei), the eroticism and fetishism that you find in his books are already there, established but still pretty raw in an exciting way.

He depicts the woman's true self by the beauty of her feet, and she is awaken.
Yes that's Tanizaki.

Kafu Nagai describes Tanizaki literature as "urban", so true, Tanizaki's characters have absolutely nothing to do with countryside poverty; posh boys, girls from good family, the world where there are only gentlemen and ladies, and the dark desires hiding in the beautiful world.
Yes that's Tanizaki.

 

🔽 Related pages 🔽
tag

🔽 Where to buy / Summary and more info 🔽

●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

The Tattoo and Other Stories

●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
TATTOO: Bilingual Literature in Easy Japanese and English
(I could only find this Easy version)

●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
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★★★★★ A heavy read, because it’s saying to you “I know you are thinking the same”. Sure it’s easy to accept and celebrate the diversity that’s within your imagination, but what if someone’s desire is way beyond what you can possibly imagine?

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正欲
朝井リョウ, 2021 
(Ab)Normal Desire
Ryo Asai
Japan
528 pages
Read in 2025.10

(Not available in English yet)

🔽 Book review and notes 🔽
It's a heavy read.
And I was thinking why, and it's not merely because you don't really understand their (ab)normal desires and how they are treated by others.
But it's because the book is saying to you "I know you are thinking the same"
"I know you think I'm gross"
"I know you only tolerate diversity that's convenient to you"
"I know you too have a secret you can't tell anyone"

The title seiyoku, normally means "sexual desires".
The author applied the word "correct" so the title now means "correct desires".

It's easy to accept and celebrate the diversity that's within your imagination.
What if someone's desire is way beyond what you can possibly imagine?
Would you be able to accept that it exists? 
Would the society be able to accept it as a possibility?

After all happiness of us people is to connect with others, whoever you are.
To be understood.
In this cruel world, it was a miracle that the main characters met, and they found someone with whom they didn't have to hide their true selves.

Within our little lives and in history, we keep making mistakes by not accepting others, but we keep working on it, it's the best we can do.

🔽 Where to buy / Summary and more info 🔽

●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

正欲 (新潮文庫 あ 78-3) (Japanese)

●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
正欲 (新潮文庫 あ 78-3) (Japanese)

●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
正欲 (Japanese)

★★★★☆ A naïve country girl who’s not pretty and not smart, a girl the protagonist took advantage and left behind, thrown away like a rubbish. I knew it’d be painful to read, her pure selfless love.

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The Girl I Left Behind
Shusaku Endo, 1972
Read in 2020.04

🔽 Book review and notes 🔽

The author of "Silence", I knew it'd be hard to read - and it was.
"Silence" was full on religious, the author's eternal struggle, this one in a way also was.

It's about a naïve country girl who's not pretty and not smart, a girl the protagonist took advantage and left behind, thrown away like a rubbish.
She is aware that she was hurt, yet she tries to free him from his guilt; her pure selfless love, maybe that's a religion.
Her religion is to live only for others.

🔽 Related pages 🔽
tag

🔽 Where to buy / Summary and more info 🔽

●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

The Girl I Left Behind

●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
The Girl I Left Behind

●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
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★★★★☆ Something so painfully normal and boring yet full of madness. Then she realises, she didn’t just end up being a convenience store woman, this is her true self.

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Convenience Store Woman 
Sayaka Murata, 2016
コンビニ人間
村田沙耶香
Read in 2020.03

🔽 Book review and notes 🔽

I always saw the book in bookshops in London but of course I wanted to read it in Japanese so I wanted a bit.
Completely unpredictable.

Somehow I thought it was a love story about a girl working in a convenience store, but of course it was everything but.
It was about no-love-story, it was about something so painfully normal and boring yet full of madness.
It's a pleasant surprise that people not living in Japan get this.

She's getting close to 40 years old, not married, not doing a "grown up's job", no kids, no boyfriend.
It's the "other side" that anyone, I mean everyone, could end up on, but then she realises, she didn't just end up being a convenience store woman, this is her true self.

She doesn't give a sh*t, she is clever and quick.
She can actually defeat the loser guy in arguments, and you just cannot predict the next step, anything can happen.
It's short, and in a way a feel-good book, and for me ends with a happy ending.
 

🔽 Where to buy / Summary and more info 🔽

●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

Convenience Store Woman: A Novel 

●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
Convenience Store Woman: Sayaka Murata

●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
La ragazza del convenience store (italiano)

★★★★★  What did I just read. It’s about strong women, but it’s not only that it’s full of female rage. She flies to wherever she wants as a modern Tinker Bell, and she throws up whatever she wants in the toilet. Fabulous.

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女が死ぬ
松田青子, 2021
The Woman Dies
Aoko Matsuda
Read in 2025.11


🔽 Book review and notes 🔽

What did I just read.
My first time reading Aoko Matsuda, and as you can see from the title it's about strong women, but it's not only that it's full of female rage (also feminine rage).
It's not explosive anger though, it's the anger that's slowly simmering.

"I hate the girl you like" or "a male sensitivity" these are the things she hates and she tells you in your face with "the woman dies" and "demonstration of misogynies demolished".
It might be surprising for some but in Japan it's still normal to say "typically female" or "it talks to the female sensitivity" in advertisement or magazines.

She won't give in.
Whatever the others say, she flies to wherever she wants as a modern Tinker Bell, and she throws up whatever she wants in the toilet.
Fabulous.

🔽 Where to buy / Summary and more info 🔽

●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

The Woman Dies

●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
The Woman Dies

●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
The Woman Dies (English)

★★★★★ Isolated at the war on the field, he questions everything. It’s haunting, but not merely because the plot is shocking, it’s because, even people like me, who never had the experience, can recognise his internal struggles.

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Fires on the plain
Shohei Ooka, 1952
Read in 2021.10

🔽 Book review and notes 🔽

I had always wanted to read it, but hadn't, and when I finally started reading it, I just wanted to get it done with and delete it from my memory. 
Too painful.
It's so daunting and it haunts you, it's about a man who's completely isolated during the war and he questions his survival, moral, humanity, everything outside of him as well as inside.

You're on the edge and a step away from the death. Do you trust or not, and what do you trust, yourself? others? Can he trust himself to stay a human or will he cross the line?

The book is haunting, but not merely because the plot or its description is shocking, it's because, even people like me, who never had the same experience or anything remotely close, can recognise his internal struggles.

🔽 Where to buy / Summary and more info 🔽

●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

Fires on the Plain (Tuttle Classics) 

●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
Fires on the Plain (Tuttle Classics) 

●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
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★★★★★ Christianity and evil. It’s the evil that overflows out of the moral of White Man, of Christianity in which you believe in the one absolute God, or not. / A resignation from good or bad, believe or not-believe, it’s the lightness of living without a sin.


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White Man, Yellow Man
Shusaku Endo, 1955
Read in 2020.01


🔽 Book review and notes 🔽

Christianity and evil.

White Man
The protagonist understands his ugliness, and he fantasises his superiority because of it.
Evil is universal, it’s political but above all it’s so powerful that you can destroy the others.
Crushing his friend means crushing all hypocrites, and violating this girl means violating all virgins.
It’s the evil that overflows out of the moral of White Man, the moral that’s cultivated in Christianity where you believe in the one absolute God.
It’s whether you tolerate it, or you reject to tolerate the absolute good and become evil itself.

Yellow Man
In a way this is harsher.
It’s close to the author’s personal yet eternal struggle of “Being a Christian even if I am Japanese”
During the war, a Christian Japanese young man was exhausted.
Us yellow people actually do not truly believe the God you white people fear.
Us yellow people actually do not have Original sin like you, any way Mother Mary is not in this country.

An ex-priest who betrayed his God finally realises that the truth is in the tired eyes of the yellow people.
They don’t fear death or life, they have no sins, they don’t believe in the God, his absoluteness, and in this country even the criminals are saved as they are.
Can we, the men with white hands, come close to these yellow people?
It’s a liberation or rather resignation from good or bad, believe or not-believe, it’s the lightness of living without a sin.

🔽 Where to buy / Summary and more info 🔽

●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

White Man, Yellow Man: Two Novellas

●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
White Man, Yellow Man: Two Novellas

●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
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