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A review by mairispaceship
The Tatami Time Machine Blues by Tomihiko Morimi
4.0
Every time someone asked me what I was reading whilst it was this book, I followed it up with an "it's okay - though it's a sequel of a book I haven't read, and it's also apparently a wildly popular anime, so I'm not sure I really get it". In fact, I was so sure this was going to be a 2, or 3 stars. I felt I was missing something: Context.
So how did I go from "it was mid" to a 4-star "this might be one of my highlights of the year" review?! That reason is the afterword. Buckle in, this is a wild ride.
The afterword to The Tatami Time Machine Blues is written by Makoto Ueda (the sort of author of the story), and it explains how this book came to be, which I'll shorten here. [b:The Tatami Galaxy|60619439|The Tatami Galaxy (Tatami Series, #1)|Tomihiko Morimi|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1649508834l/60619439._SY75_.jpg|6315219] is the original "Tatami Series" novel. It was written by Tomihiko Morimi back in 2004 and was wildly popular - so popular it spawned an anime, and a film of the same name. The screenplay for this anime was Makoto Ueda who was, in his own right, a popular Kyoto-based screenwriter who worked on a lot of cool TV and films I love (namely, two of my favourite films ever - Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes and Night Is Short, Walk On Girl). Morimi and Ueda ended up working together a bunch. The former writing the books that many of Ueda's most popular films were based on - [b:Penguin Highway|41825397|Penguin Highway|Tomihiko Morimi|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1553255949l/41825397._SX50_.jpg|24076882] and (much surprise to be that it even IS a book, [b:The Night Is Short, Walk on Girl|43252186|The Night Is Short, Walk on Girl|Tomihiko Morimi|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1561636623l/43252186._SX50_.jpg|6315217] ). Ueda describes himself as Morimi's personal playwright in the afterword...
...But The Tatami Time Machine Blues kinda breaks that mould. Why? Ueda wrote the play that the book is based on. Yes! That way round. This play and film is called Summer Time Machine Blues and the story is almost identical down to the little quirky things that happen, such as the missing Vidal Sassoon bottle, specific locations, and so on. Morimi, after working with Ueda for so long read his screenplay and asked him if he could write this play as a book.
What follows in the afterword is a lovely story about trying to wrestle pre-existing characters into the play format and trying to navigate a play told from the point of view of the room into a book told from the point of view of the characters. It's an interesting perspective, and one I'd love to hear more about.
But the TLDR is, that afterword - and more importantly the context - changed my mind. How the book came into existance 16 years after the original. Why the whole thing felt so much like a play. Who the characters actually are. I think also having the context of knowing that this book was created by one of my favourite film writers AND apparently the writer of the source material of many of those films also added that context. For once, the algorithm that suggested "this book might be for you" was correct.
I spent this whole review writing about the interesting story of the book's conception... But I haven't mentioned the book itself really. How was it? Well... Good! Good in the same way games like Shin Chan: Me and the Professor on Summer Vacation are great. Objectively good and clever story with excellent worldbuilding, but with unusual maybe slightly out of place characters. I don't know anything about the characters of the Tatami series (just like I know nothing of Shin Chan in that game), but I can appreciate something being good without "getting" the characters, and this book is it for me.
Do I recommend it? MAYBE.
Or maybe just read the original screenplay for Summer Time Machine Blues instead...
So how did I go from "it was mid" to a 4-star "this might be one of my highlights of the year" review?! That reason is the afterword. Buckle in, this is a wild ride.
The afterword to The Tatami Time Machine Blues is written by Makoto Ueda (the sort of author of the story), and it explains how this book came to be, which I'll shorten here. [b:The Tatami Galaxy|60619439|The Tatami Galaxy (Tatami Series, #1)|Tomihiko Morimi|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1649508834l/60619439._SY75_.jpg|6315219] is the original "Tatami Series" novel. It was written by Tomihiko Morimi back in 2004 and was wildly popular - so popular it spawned an anime, and a film of the same name. The screenplay for this anime was Makoto Ueda who was, in his own right, a popular Kyoto-based screenwriter who worked on a lot of cool TV and films I love (namely, two of my favourite films ever - Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes and Night Is Short, Walk On Girl). Morimi and Ueda ended up working together a bunch. The former writing the books that many of Ueda's most popular films were based on - [b:Penguin Highway|41825397|Penguin Highway|Tomihiko Morimi|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1553255949l/41825397._SX50_.jpg|24076882] and (much surprise to be that it even IS a book, [b:The Night Is Short, Walk on Girl|43252186|The Night Is Short, Walk on Girl|Tomihiko Morimi|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1561636623l/43252186._SX50_.jpg|6315217] ). Ueda describes himself as Morimi's personal playwright in the afterword...
...But The Tatami Time Machine Blues kinda breaks that mould. Why? Ueda wrote the play that the book is based on. Yes! That way round. This play and film is called Summer Time Machine Blues and the story is almost identical down to the little quirky things that happen, such as the missing Vidal Sassoon bottle, specific locations, and so on. Morimi, after working with Ueda for so long read his screenplay and asked him if he could write this play as a book.
What follows in the afterword is a lovely story about trying to wrestle pre-existing characters into the play format and trying to navigate a play told from the point of view of the room into a book told from the point of view of the characters. It's an interesting perspective, and one I'd love to hear more about.
But the TLDR is, that afterword - and more importantly the context - changed my mind. How the book came into existance 16 years after the original. Why the whole thing felt so much like a play. Who the characters actually are. I think also having the context of knowing that this book was created by one of my favourite film writers AND apparently the writer of the source material of many of those films also added that context. For once, the algorithm that suggested "this book might be for you" was correct.
I spent this whole review writing about the interesting story of the book's conception... But I haven't mentioned the book itself really. How was it? Well... Good! Good in the same way games like Shin Chan: Me and the Professor on Summer Vacation are great. Objectively good and clever story with excellent worldbuilding, but with unusual maybe slightly out of place characters. I don't know anything about the characters of the Tatami series (just like I know nothing of Shin Chan in that game), but I can appreciate something being good without "getting" the characters, and this book is it for me.
Do I recommend it? MAYBE.
Or maybe just read the original screenplay for Summer Time Machine Blues instead...