Reviews with content warning for Sexism - Strange Weather in Tokyo

Reviews tagging 'Sexism'

Strange Weather in Tokyo by Hiromi Kawakami

8 reviews

americattt's review against another edition

emotional reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

“‘That’s how love is,’ she used to say. ‘If the love is true, then treat it the same way you would a plant—fertilize it, protect it from the elements —you must do absolutely everything you can. But if it isn’t true, then it’s best to just let it wither on the vine.’”

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theothergrl's review

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reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

An interesting prose that's simple, though not bad. There are two scenes of surrealism in the second half that make this book worth the read, though at times it trudged along quite slowly. This is not the sort of love story you'd think about if someone said romance. The love between the characters is told like the love that grows between two lonely people who feel very content in each other's company. It's a very understated passion, a slow-burn passion that asks you to rethink what passion means to you. I think these are the sort of love stories that we miss out on - comfortable love that is full of imperfections, that at times feels boring and tired, that is between people you wouldn't think to match. Honestly, I appreciate this book now more than I did when I was reading it. If it were longer I'm not sure I would've stuck with it, but it's a short story with a beautiful, surreal ending and therefore im glad that I did.

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robinks's review against another edition

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emotional mysterious sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

Some of this felt vaguely similar to Mieko Kawakami. The parts of this that dabbled into fantasy were my favorite. However, I couldn’t get over the age/power gap between Tsukiko and Sensei. There were also times where I was really bothered by how Sensei treated Tsukiko.

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mindins's review against another edition

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lighthearted relaxing medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

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sydneybedell's review against another edition

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funny hopeful lighthearted reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

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thewordsdevourer's review against another edition

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reflective relaxing slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

2.0

a sparse, slice-of-life novel in the vein of banana yoshimoto, strange weather in tokyo depicts urban life and an age-difference love, w/ moments of greatness yet still never quite reaching its full potential.

i particularly enjoy the book's nature scenes - aplenty in being a feast for both the senses and stomach - as well as the bar scenes w/ all the food + behavior and interactions that reveal the characters' personalities.

however, i never quite feel the connection between tsukiko and sensei; wish some things were resolved more clearly (whatever happened to kojima?); and find the stillness of the story a bit dull. the book's indeed elevated by the bittersweetness of the last chapter, only to take a dive again bc of the last paragraph.

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ichthusangel's review

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emotional mysterious reflective sad fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.25

The book starts with an introduction of the protagonist’s sensei (a respectful term for a person’s teacher) who taught her Japanese in school. Having never paid attention to Japanese class, she doesn’t remember her teacher’s name however the teacher does remember her name. Tsukiko Omachi. They meet (unplanned) each other at a bar and end up eating & drinking together as slowly, their relationship grows from faint acquaintance to companionship, friendship and blossoms into love (still they hardly ever plan to meet at the bar).

The story is nicely written, and very practical, be it with Matsumoto’s (sensei’s) sexist remarks, his sentimentalism, love for haiku, his love-hate for his ex wife, his irritation, Omachi’s mental issues, her struggles with relationships, her irk for being called ‘girly’, her clumsiness and lonely independence. Even the side characters, with as much as we get their story, are practically written. No character is eulogised or lacks the commonly present evils of Japanese society even if it gets irritating for the readers at times.

Small things and gestures are what makes this book beautiful. Apart from that, sensei and omachi’s loneliness has a distant beauty to it (sort of the aesthetics I search for on tumblr to feel better about my loneliness). Japanese writers usually intertwine state of mind and nature beautifully as does this book, be it in Omachi’s musings, parties thrown to watch cherry blossoms and when Matsumoto (later joined by Omachi) wrote haiku.

Some places are funny, some are excruciatingly tender, some are lonely and some are irritating, but nothing seems overdramatic. I’ve read people calling Omachi dumb, childish and spoiled which led me to realise that perhaps non Asians do not understand the mental issues caused by reasons most cannot trace the reason back to which is a common thing for Koreans, Japanese, Indians and Persians (at the very least), thus found heavily written in many books. So if you’re not a fan of unexplained loneliness, lacklustre everydays, profound and powerful emotional connection with friends, lovers and nature and societal stereotypes presnted without admonition, this book would be utter trash and a waste of time for you. For me, however, it was a beautiful experience reading it. At one point it reminded me Banana Yoshimoto’s Moonlight Shadow in Kitchen (one of the best books I’ve read till date). That part was slightly confusing and surreal but nicely written.

As much as I found the book nice & beautiful, I’m confused as to what to take away from the book. Perhaps the book was meant to serve as a friend of lonely souls, and that’s what makes me appreciate the book a lot. Partly practical, partly whimsical, this book is a story of a tender person living their life, and on the way, falling in love with a tender person despite their age difference.

(The book was too short to really explore any of the characters deeply. The book could’ve been longer, deeper and better, in my opinion.)

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now_booking's review against another edition

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challenging reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.75

I found this to be a weird sort of other-worldly, meandering novel. I picked it up because a reading challenge I’m participating in demanded a romance novel in translation. Admittedly this can be said to be a sort of romance novel in that romantic love, unrequited romantic love is sort of the main theme of this book. However as a fan of romance novels and a stickler for what I consider the genre rules are, I would say this is more the awkward love story between an awkward Japanese 30-something and her former Japanese teacher who’s about 40 years her senior. Even beyond love, this is a story of intergenerational friendship and kindred lonely spirits finding one another and building an odd relationship.

I started out really liking it for that quiet, understated, observational literary style I’ve come to love in Japanese novels. It was expectedly slow-moving, but I loved the relationship slowly building between Tsukiko and her Sensei. But then somewhere around the halfway mark, this just kind of stagnated and became perhaps a little too abstract and too… meandering for me. A large portion of this had no movement. Characters were introduced like Tsukiko’s old schoolmate with the crush on her for no real purpose and with no real direction. Timelines of what happened when and where were completely blown. Tsukiko’s heavy alcohol use meant that it was always doubtful what was said and what was real and what was imagined and she kind of seemed juvenile for her age. And yet, I did like her as a character overall. The resolution was beautiful but extremely abrupt and out of nowhere and brief and jarring. And I think the book kind of was a little to ponderous for the abruptness of the ending. It almost felt like the author got a little bored and wanted to end things. Overall, I didn’t dislike this, but it’s also not my favourite. I liked the first half, but for my taste, not enough existed to fulfill that potential in the second half. I’m glad I pushed through for the couple of pages of payoff but I wouldn’t read this again.

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