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kurenai's review
4.0
I quite enjoyed this collection, more than I thought I would. Grammatical and italics differences aside, I happily followed along the path set out by Mr. Wallace with his choice of story order.
However, I feel that most who would pick up this book should have more than a passing interest in Japanese culture, history, and mythology so would hopefully be familiar with such words as kitsune, hibakusha, okaa-san, Amaterasu and Tokugawa Ieyasu. Having been a student of Japanese culture for many years and a language-learner as well I am lucky enough to know all of the terms mentioned in their native Japanese and could generally guess whom most of the mythological creatures and gods could be. If someone picked up this story without any knowledge of Japanese myths or even horror stories I'd think that they would be missing out on so much of the stories and rich culture displayed.
This is not me trying to sound boastful but rather to say that some people might have difficulties understanding the meaning behind some of these tales as they are not clearly but more cleverly expressed. Some words are never given in English leaving the reader to infer the meaning and there are stories that leave after certain twists that might not make as much sense if one does not know the mythos behind it.
With all of that said, I enjoyed myself quite and bit and would definitely recommend this to the Japanese aficionado!
However, I feel that most who would pick up this book should have more than a passing interest in Japanese culture, history, and mythology so would hopefully be familiar with such words as kitsune, hibakusha, okaa-san, Amaterasu and Tokugawa Ieyasu. Having been a student of Japanese culture for many years and a language-learner as well I am lucky enough to know all of the terms mentioned in their native Japanese and could generally guess whom most of the mythological creatures and gods could be. If someone picked up this story without any knowledge of Japanese myths or even horror stories I'd think that they would be missing out on so much of the stories and rich culture displayed.
This is not me trying to sound boastful but rather to say that some people might have difficulties understanding the meaning behind some of these tales as they are not clearly but more cleverly expressed. Some words are never given in English leaving the reader to infer the meaning and there are stories that leave after certain twists that might not make as much sense if one does not know the mythos behind it.
With all of that said, I enjoyed myself quite and bit and would definitely recommend this to the Japanese aficionado!
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