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(4.21/5)Immediately hooked!
I am a bit of a sucker for a dystopian story, and this has been no exception! Each volume of this has been somewhat short, but the pages are used to the fullest. I never really felt like I was waiting for things to finally happen, as the story moves along at a great pace in my opinion.
Vocabulary and sentences are mostly easy, but I think what brings the difficulty up a bit is the medical vocabulary here and there. A bit of government-related talk as well.
The protagonist Shion tested into the elite track, and lived as one of the privileged until the age of 12, when he helped a fugitive, Nezumi. This disqualified him from the elite world, and he became a commoner. Several years later, a strange incident occurs and Shion becomes the prime suspect. The one who comes to help is Nezumi.
The story is fast-paced and full of action. I haven’t seen the anime but it doesn’t surprise me that it was made into one, because this is packed with the type of action sequences that translate well to film. For me this hit the sweet spot of blending “easy to read” and “hard to put down,” and I was surprised at how quickly I finished the book.
There are a lot of compound words containing 6 to 8 kanji in a row describing a device or some municipal bureau. However, they’re usually made of otherwise common words, like “city resident registration number.” This series, especially digitally, is probably a great way to get practice reading these. Adjectives and verbs that I’ve seen with kanji in other books were often written using only hiragana.
The vocabulary is mostly pretty common, although there are some fairly specific medical/scientific words now and then. The grammar is straightforward too. There are few advanced grammar patterns, and no dialect.
A great intro to utopia/sci-fi fiction
Protagonist 紫苑 (しおん) lives in the utopia called No. 6: there's plenty of food, the well-maintained spots of city nature are beautiful, and everyone is happy in the slice of society that's been assigned to them. Things begin to change for him one stormy night when 12-year-old 紫苑, wanting to feel and experience the force of a typhoon passing through the city, accidentally (and then intentionally) helps a young boy named ネズミ who's on the run and has a bullet in his shoulder. 4 years later, mysterious deaths begin to pop up in No. 6, deaths where the deceased suffer rapid aging and die within minutes of symptoms appearing.
I read the manga adaption in English years and years ago, so I came in with a (now fuzzy) appreciation of the story. And I can now safely say that the original source material is just as good as, and even better than, I remember. 紫苑 is a smart young man who tries to see the good in everything, leading to some beautiful passages about his observations about the world and people around him. ネズミ acts as a foil, showing a starkly different viewpoint on No. 6, and I loved the contrasts the two brought to the table about the city.
The biggest stretch in terms of vocab most learners will face will be the scientific and medical vocabulary that pops up fairly often; 紫苑 and the people of No. 6 he hangs out with are well-educated and able to talk science in a conversation at the drop of a hat. This isn't to say that any vocab used is necessarily difficult jargon by English standards, it's just that I doubt most learners will have pre-studied the necessary vocab beforehand. (Apologies for having no examples on hand.) Later on there are quotes from Macbeth, Hesse, and Faust, but understanding them is not integral to the story.
Other than that this felt like a very approachable L30 book; there's no tricky grammar, speakers are generally well marked, and the pacing is pretty tight, allowing the reader to be carried along quite easily.