Reviews - Unusual Fragments: 20th Century Japanese Fiction

15 reviews for:

Unusual Fragments: 20th Century Japanese Fiction

Sarah Coolidge

3.25 AVERAGE

melissadaustin's review

4.0

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

lostcupofstars's review

3.0

Average overall.

The hole in the sky by nobuko takagi 3/5

I liked the idea of it. A little light hearted but still interesting

Husband in a Box by Tomoko Yoshida 4/5

Weird in the right way. I’m still trying to figure out what the hell happened lol

The False Mustache 1/5

This story doesn’t belong in this collection.

Hot Day 2/5

This was fine.

Cage of Sand 2.5/5

This was too long and slow for me. It needed impactful moments and imo it had none.

blairing's review

2.75

dark mysterious

Plot or Character Driven: Character

WELL… I mean. It’s… something!

Given its anthological nature of varied writers, it can’t really be helped that some stories are vastly better than others. Was a bit of a slog to get through some parts and short story #3 jump scared me <.<

Overall, i wish I had my time back.

Content Warnings

calcanei's review

2.75

dark mysterious medium-paced

tavernacle's review

2.5

challenging dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

With an anthology, especially one this short but this expensive, the quality of the individual stories matter more than they might if the book was significantly longer. The 1st, 2nd, and 4th stories are great and the collection is likely worse off for the 3rd story (which, unless I totally misunderstood it, seems kind of a weird thing to decide to highlight at all let alone to bring back from obscurity to a translation) and the 5th (which doesn’t seem to go anywhere yet is the longest of them all. Even the worst stories have great characterization and insight but they don’t do much with it. The second story, too, feels like a semi-memorable Yokai story but is also just ‘good.’ So at the end the great and mysterious first story, tense and heartbreaking, and the terrifying mundanity of the 4th story stand alone and neither are so great as to be worth the cost themselves. I do appreciate the effort and the connective themes between the stories, though (and, again, 1 and 4 were great!)

lucha_kaiju's review

5.0

adventurous challenging dark emotional inspiring reflective fast-paced

dreesreads's review

3.0

dark mysterious medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Short stories by Japanese authors—odd, weird, unsettling. I liked Husband in a Box by Tomoko Yoshida (tr Margaret Mitsutani) and Hot Day by Takako Takahashi (tr Brian Bergstrom).