Specs
Reviews
(3.55/5)Good choice for a first book but...
First off: I picked this LN as the first (non-manga) book to read in japanese, kind of as a test to see if I'm ready for this kind of material. And I think it was a decent choice for that.
Due to this being a children's book the grammar and writing style are easy and straightforward. There's no long metaphors or unusual kanji usage (and since this is a Tsubasa bunko there's furigana anyway). So language learning wise this is really helpful, especially if you want a chill first read, just looking up a word here and there.
Speaking solely as a reader, not as a learner, though, I sometimes had trouble keeping my motivation up to finish this. This is likely because I'm really not the target audience of this book (and that's fine). The short stories were still fun overall, but it often dragged on quite a bit, though that feeling was also enhanced by the writing being quite repetitive at times.
I would recommend this to people who want to test the waters of native material outside of manga, or anyone who likes odd stories and isn't bothered by reading something intended for younger audiences and the at times monotonous prose.
I love the concept of this book. A collection of short stories about (mostly) ordinary people discovering weird, magical items, with a dark twist? Sign me up!
Unfortunately, this book was a mixed bag for me due to three reasons:
- Two of the twists were rather lackluster, with one of them feeling more like a joke than an actual twist.
- In some of the stories, there are passages which were rather boring with barely anything interesting happening. If you're faster at reading than me, this might be less of an issue.
- My favourite part in books is usually characters interacting and talking to each other. This book has almost none of that. The stories mostly consist of the protagonist thinking and talking to themselves, and interacting with the world and the Catalog item in question.
It wasn't all bad though. The other twists were great, I liked most of the Catalog items, and in the end, I enjoyed most of the stories.
Here are my individual ratings:
- Instant shinigami 「インスタント死神」3/5
- Tomodachi Kuji 「友達クジ」1/5
- Shokei set「処刑セット」3/5
- Fuyu shika kaenai Ice-cream「冬しか買えないアイスクリーム」 4/5
- ??? kingyo (Red)「？？金魚（赤）」 4/5
- Kioku Shoukyou Button 「記憶消去ボタン 」3.5/5
- Epilogue 「エピローグ 」5/5
Most of the grammar was N4/N3, with a few N2 and one or two N1 grammar points. My vocab isn't great, so that's what I had most trouble with. There were barely any sentences I couldn't figure out with the usual tools (Yomichan, ichi.moe, and sometimes DeepL to get a hint on how to parse a particularly challenging one).
If you like the premise of the book, and are okay spending most of your time with just one character in each story, this is a book you might want to read!
As for me - for now, I won't continue the series, but I'm thinking of doing that once reading books at this level is easier for me. The later half of the book was pretty nice, and I think I wouldn't have minded the less eventful parts so much if I wouldn't have to invest so much time and effort into them.
Interesting short stories with a twist, excellent for light novel beginners.
Fully furigana?: Yes (It's a Tsubasa Bunko after all)
Story: As the book title says, it's about a catalog full of weird/unusual items, and the people that came across them.
The book contains 6 mini-stories that are not directly interconnected, except for two characters making appearances, making it very easy for beginners as there's not a big timeline where you can get lost along the way. Also if you don't fully understand one of the stories, doesn't prevent you from enjoying the rest of the book.
The stories themselves start quite innocent, but all of them have a bit of a dark twist, which makes them even more interesting in anticipation of what the twist will be.
I'm going to disclose rating per story, since you can enjoy them by themselves:
- Instant shinigami 「インスタント死神」 5/5
- Tomodachi Kuji 「友達クジ」 4/5
- Shokei set「処刑セット」 4/5
- Fuyu shika kaenai Ice-cream「冬しか買えないアイスクリーム」 4.5/5
- ??? kingyo (Red)「？？金魚（赤）」 4.5/5
- Kioku Shoukyou Button 「記憶消去ボタン 」5/5
Conclusion: Definitely recommend for those interested in light novels. Very glad I came across this obscure series, and I will definitely jump into the next volume.
