Book Discuss

Watanuki gets mysteriously drawn to this shop. The owner Yuko tells him “hitsuzen - a naturally foreordained event, a state in which other outcomes are impossible, a result which can only be obtained by a single causality and other causalities would necessarily create different results”  She also tells him that she grants wishes, for a price. He doesn’t want to believe, doesn’t want to be there, but there is a problem. He sees spirits, has all his life and he’s tired of it, so if there’s a chance that Yuko could rid him of this ability. The price Yuko asks is his help in cleaning the store and running errands and Watanuki feels trapped and he doesn’t trust Yuko. Yuko seems to be training Watanuki for something and at the end two strangers from another world appear.  I’ll have to read the next volume to find out what happens.

I enjoyed this story, I especially enjoyed the drawings. Yuko looked like a woman and not a 5 year old. The drawings were artistic and would look great in color!  This volume was really setting up the story, not a lot happened beyond getting to know the characters but I was intrigued enough, especially by Yuko to continue reading this series.

Goth - Otsuichi

I picked this up on a whim, keeping with the dark theme I seem to have fallen into.  Goth follows two teens who have a more than healthy interest in murder, death and the violent nature of people. Several connected stories, all looking at different violent murders and how the teens solve them, but mostly by thinking like the murderers or victims. There were little interesting things that I liked about this story and the drawings were one of them, they looked like teens and didn’t have the big eyes and the drawings were simple. The overall violence though was hard to look at, there are pictures of dismemberment, hanging, among other things, so this is not for the lighthearted or for those who don’t like to see the ugly side.