A review by lory_enterenchanted
Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi

emotional mysterious reflective fast-paced

2.0

Reviews and more on my blog: Entering the Enchanted Castle

This was sort of sweet, but nothing terribly special. The translation at times seemed clumsy and stiff, and the storytelling was odd - with its breaks from the action to tell us the backstory of the characters. I wonder how that would have been incorporated in the form of a play. 

The idea was not bad -- what if you could go back in time but couldn't really change the outcome in the future; is meaningful change still possible? -- and was worked out in a few different ways. But it was too quick and shallow to make much impression on me.

It was also not addressed what happens when one goes back to a point in time where one was already present in the cafe. What happens to the other "version" of you? Though other "rules" were repeatedly discussed, this classic time travel paradox got no attention, which seems strange.