Tomihiko MorimiRecensioni

I made it through 1 1/2 of the 4 “stories” and that was enough for me. I just couldn’t bring myself to care about these characters and their choices.

A college student tries to steal and eventually falls in love with a sex doll. This happens four times. Not the main storyline but one of the only memorable moments in the book, for the wrong reasons.

While I’m sure the anime series is great, the book was very repetitive, and while I’m sure that’s what the author was going for, it does not work. While the point of the book is to show the same story happening across multiple parallel universes, these universes are not different from each other, with the second and third tale being borderline identical. The writing is great but the book quickly begins to get lost in its own loop that it created for itself.

the summary is a little misleading but overall, a solid novel that explores the idea of the butterfly effect (er, moth effect?), whether or not fate can be changed, and concludes with a touch of self enlightenment. the concepts in this story is definitely something to admire, even if you might not agree with it. the way the novel is laid out is also very lovely and i enjoyed every moment of the book

Penguin Highway

This is a coming of age novel, a story of children facing reality bending mystery, and lots of talk about boobs.

Akireta Aoyama is a young boy with an analytical mind and an obsession with breasts. Not exactly in a prurient way, but in the confused way of a young boy on the cusp of puberty who knows he's interested, but not exactly why.

One day, his small Japanese town is set abuzz by the sudden appearance of penguins... And that is only the beginning of the weirdness.

I read this novel as a bit of exploration of Japanese SF, and I fear it did little to deepen my understanding of the first. This is a shallow, wide ranging look at all kinds of things: friendship, death, reality, love and so on. The topics can be heady, but they're all destiny with by children, so nothing goes very far-topics are touched on, then left to wander as the children go about their adventures.

The climax mixes utter predictability (there is very heavy foreshadowing of a certain event) and utter nonsense in a vaguely unsatisfying way. The characters are memorable and enjoyable, though, and there is enough going on to keep interest going.

But in the end, this felt like a pretty rote "kids in small Japanese town have weird adventures and grow up a little" kind of story, complete with Summer festival yukatas and the bully who ends up helping the heroes when they need it.

Very unusual and clever. Would love to read more of his books.

this was a great read. I did cheat and watch the movie about halfway through reading. The movie was great as well. Anyway, I recommend both! Almost has a Studio Ghibli feel to them.

氏の作品の魅力はコメディさにあると思っていたが、この作品にはニヤニヤ感はない。オムニバス形式を最後の章でまとめる手法を取っているが、各章が単発すぎてかつ関連性も薄いため、作品として不満。「彼女はまだ、あの夜の中にいる。」とコピーを付けるのならば、より彼女をフィーチャーしてほしかった。½

最初の3章に比べて最終章はちょっと物足らない気がしなくも無いが、とりあえずは終わり良ければ全てよし、という事にしておこう。些細な出来事の詳細や描かれ方、そして"私"と小津には大変楽しませてもらった。YouTubeでアニメを見ることが出来るようなので、見てみよう。チラ見した分にはかなり本に沿っていたようだった。