Komugi and Tohru are young newlyweds (or about to get married? I’m not entirely sure) who move in with his family while they find their own place. Tohru’s family – mom, grandpa, brother Dai and sister Yukari – are warm and welcoming (except Yukari) and eager to make Komugi feel like part of the family. For her part, Komugi is sweet and helpful and just generally delighted to be part of the family. Just as everyone is starting to get comfortable with the new living […]
“We all live our lives carrying secrets we cannot disclose.”
It’s nice to be back at CBR! Last year I went on a reading rampage, tearing through about 90 books (though I didn’t review all of them). This year, I’m taking a more focused approach. I’m intentionally reading more international and female authors in order to expand diversity of thought and experience, and I’m also tackling longer books. I expect to read fewer books, although I still expect a rich year full of growth, thanks to reading and to y’all. My first book up this […]
People who love to eat are always the best people
Known in English as Midnight Diner (although I don’t believe the manga has been published in English, or maybe it has but it’s out of print, I wasn’t able to find any precise info), this is the manga that inspired the Netflix show Midnight Diner: Tokyo Stories. The titular diner is open from midnight to 7 am, and even though it has a very modest menu, the chef will prepare anything you want as long as he has the ingredients. The diner is located […]
The Thrill of Banality
I read Hideo Yokoyama’s Six Four at the start of 2018. I was expecting it to be one thing (a dense, layered murder mystery) and instead got another (a character study and bureaucracy-heavy police procedural). It wasn’t what I would normally read but I appreciated that it was something different. I appreciated the inflections of the main character and how Yokoyama could inject such nuance about life in Japan in the midst of a professional crisis. I had difficulty focusing in the beginning of Seventeen. Yokoyama takes his sweet […]