Category: Literature
What Yuki Nagato and Light Yagami read
A portrait of popular Japanese literature trends leading into the early 2000s and the ascent of otakudom.
The World-wide Exploits of Kuroneko Byouinzaka
The World We Broke (Sekai 3) takes on a distinctly celebratory tone compared to the high stakes murder mysteries that preceded it. In contrast to an ordinary whodunit, it was an experience that was distinctly reminiscent of the slice of life genre.
Imperfect Girl: Alone with the past, together within a locked-room
Imperfect Girl is not a story about heroes or heroines. It has nothing but contempt for the scolding attitude of what it might call “normal” stories, of the kind where good people learn to be better people by virtue of their goodness.
Another did it better? Mystery, cross-genre pollination, and crafting the perfect twist
The next time you encounter a twist in a big network TV drama, ask yourself why this school-life horror called Another did it all so much better.
Meiro Byouinzaka’s Enclosed-World of the Constant Suicides
An Eerie and Artless Enclosed World (Sekai 2) is written by Nisio, Isin, and it is the sequel to my favourite mystery novel ever.
Loups-Garous and the mythology of domestication
Natsuhiko Kyougoku’s Loups-Garous is a thrilling blend of traditional Japanese storytelling forms with modern genre sensibilities. It is my pick for book of the year for 2020.
An abridged stylistic history of Japanese mystery fiction
All human stories have two eternal subjects: sex and violence. These, combined with the two primordial genres of Ancient Greek theatre, grant us a basic vocabulary with which we can categorise some of the “raw material” which makes up basic storytelling — all human societies create stories about romance, tragedy, war, comedy, and crime.
Boogiepunk and Steampop: How aesthetic can overcome genre
Genre is such a useless framework on its own. Given that it serves as an universal intermediary between societies and their various art forms, you would expect a lot more from it. This has gotten me thinking about alternatives to conventional genre classifications and the appropriate uses for these alternatives.
Zaregoto, the Debut Novel and the Nihilism of Failure
‘Decapitation: Kubikiri Cycle (The Blue Savant and the Nonsense User)’ was the debut novel of the Japanese mystery and young-adult fiction author Ishin Nishio. It is a novel that has something to say, and is successful in saying it, while still being a viscerally satisfying work of fiction.
Laughing at Lolita
Is it worth reading even the corrupt and pathological descent of a pervert and madman? Nabokov has proven for the ages that the answer is absolutely a forceful yes.
