Kinofhera's book reviews

A pretty disturbing revenge story involving the delicate relationship between the perpetrator, the victim, the perpetrator’s family, and the victim’s family.

Instead of school bullying, this novel talks about criminal offences. It also focuses on the problems of juvenile laws, which could easily be bent to protect the defendants instead of punishing them. Criminal laws don’t apply to kids and juvenile laws mostly “protect” them so they could get a second chance in life and society. But what if a kid did commit horrible crimes like arson, murder, or… terrorism? Just a year or two rehab? What would the victim’s family feel? What actually are punishments? Will they make the victim's family happier? Or will they make the criminal a better person?

Lots of questions raised in this novel.

Written by Shiomi Natsue who also wrote I Wish I Could Meet You Again on the Hill Where That Flower Blooms, one of my favourite authors who wrote a lot of bittersweet / tragic romance stories.

This one is quite hardcore. It has an in media res prologue about two high school students committing suicide together. So you could probably get the gist of this novel. The story of two teenagers coming from broken families with abusive, overbearing single mothers. It contains some interesting moral debates on whether committing suicide is in fact considered a “bad choice”. Since it is both stated in the Bible and in Buddhism that it is considered a “sin”, as one indeed kills someone (oneself). But then, what about free will?

It’s a rough ride but also very thought-provoking.

Written by Shiki Taiga who also wrote Miri Lives in the Cat's Eyes. Unlike his previous two novels which are very depressing and brutal, this one is actually quite heartwarming. It’s the story of a shut-in girl who could not face work and society anymore and decided to live inside a bathtub. Luckily she has a geek older brother who transformed the bathtub into some kind of state of the art automated living environment, including air conditioning, internet and computer, hi-end audio equipment, etc.

The premise might sound a bit sad but she ended up getting addicted to gaming and eventually became a very popular ASMR vlogger, live streaming everything from inside the bathtub! It’s surprisingly a very motivational read, and it also showed how family support could heal a broken soul.

Shiki Taiga’s writing and prose is always the best. You might wonder if you are actually reading a bungei novel instead of a light novel.

This series is getting better and better, with a lot of surprises!!

I was expecting a slice of life food porn when I began reading volume 1 but there are more and more exciting, high stakes adventures and conflicts as the story progresses. It almost felt like a light-hearted action thriller to me!

It’s also a heartwarming romance and it reminded me of the manga/anime series Grandpa and Grandma Turn Young Again. Although the main couple was just high school students, they were in love for more than one thousand years! As they were both reincarnations of high-rank demons from the Heian Period. So they acted and talked like grannies, which is the best comedic element of this series too.

A very satisfying romance story complemented with action, adventure, and food porn.

A spiritual sequel to Otsuichi's Summer Ghost.

It’s a very down-to-earth slice of life romance, having quite a similar theme like I Want to Eat Your Pancreas where the protagonist took the dying FMC to visit various tourist attractions in Japan. Well, except in this novel the FMC was pretty much dead… as a ghost.

Can’t say I totally enjoyed this novel because of the slow-burn slice of life. Well, I was actually expecting something more peculiar and bizarre as it’s coming from Otsuichi. In the end, it’s a very realistic (apart from the ghost element) romance story, which is kind of surprising too! Having said that, it’s still a very well-written story that is both heartbreaking and heartwarming.