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Full title: Aru Hi, Bakudan ga Ochitekite
Author: Furuhashi Hideyuki
Illustrator: Higa Yukari
Label: Dengeki Bunko
Year of publication: 2005
Pages: 253
Importing books is expensive, so in order to keep shipping costs down I always try to buy at least ten books at a time. However, finding ten interesting titles can be a difficult task, and sometimes I end up throwing dubious novels on the pile just to pad the numbers. One of these was Aru Hi, Bakudan ga Ochitekite, a name I only vaguely remembered having seen somewhere, but its meaning — One day, a bomb came falling down — got my imagination going, pondering what kind of missile it could be, and how the victims of this explosion would be affected. It was nothing like I imagined.
Furuhashi Hideyuki is somewhat of a veteran, having published his first novel Black Rod back in 1996, which won him the Dengeki Novel Prize. He’s followed it up with more than a dozen works (including Demonbane novelizations), but there seemingly hasn’t been much published after 2007. The illustrations were made by Higa Yukari, a woman whose work on the Lyrical Nanoha Force manga may be familiar to many. She’s also drawing some sort of manga version of Kiddy Girl-and, the upcoming sequel to Kiddy Grade. Personally I find the illustrations in this novel to be a bit wonky, but if the images on her website are anything to go by, she’s improved since then.
I started reading Aru Hi… like any old novel, but was stumped when after 50 pages, a new chapter appeared with an entirely new main character — despite being a first person narrative. That’s when I realized it wasn’t a full length novel, but rather a collection of short stories. Unlike the recently reviewed GOSICKs, where the short stories were about the same characters living through new events, the short stories in Aru Hi… all have completely different characters and settings, but these are bound together by a common theme: time. Ended time, reversed time, looped time, time length, swapped time, time difference, and time jump.
These seven tales aren’t all good, but there are true gems among them. My favourite was the second, where a high school boy is tasked with taking his childhood female friend home, since she’s caught the “idiot cold”. It’s a temporary infection that causes her memory to leap back a few years whenever she sneezes, effectively making her believe she’s younger, because she has no recollection of later events. Thus she moves closer and closer to infancy as the two walk homeward. While it may sound like a journey into pedophilia, it’s nothing like that. The beauty is in how this setting is used to gradually disclose details of the girl’s life, and the relationship between her and the narrating protagonist.
The short story is a fascinating format. There are authors who spend dozens upon dozens of volumes trying to tell their stories (Zero no Tsukaima comes to mind), describing every minor event and filling thousands of pages. Yet this book contains examples of stories told in under 50 pages, which have just as much emotional impact. And depth, because whereas recounting everything in utmost detail leaves nothing for the reader to imagine, the big, rough strokes of a short story will create gaps that your own imagination can fill, increasing its reach far beyond what is written. These short stories are like snowballs; an idea that rolls around in your mind, picking up thoughts and emotions, growing until it comes tumbling down like an avalanche. Furuhashi’s words guide you, but as a reader you take part in the tale’s conception.
Aru Hi… closes with a thought-provoking story of a young woman who stands in the middle of a park, frozen in time like a monument to a war many years earlier. She was at the focal point of a spatiotemporal tidal bomb’s detonation, which wiped out the entire city around her, but her position in this perfect eye of the storm left her stuck in a bubble where time has slowed down to 1/6000000000th. While life outside the bubble has moved on 60 years with the city rebuilt, to her no more than 0.3 seconds have passed, as the seasons flicker past before she’s even managed to blink. Intrigued by this “girl in amber” is our narrator — a boy whose thoughts and choices end up touching us, but along the way we’re also gifted with an opportunity to fantasize about what it must be like to see civilizations flash away one after another, unable to move and all alone.
Amazon link: Japanese
I’m assuming they’re talking about the Atom Bomb from the Enola Gay. It’s kinda interesting to give provocations to the mind regarding any sort of historical thing, positive or negative.
Great writing, too bad NO ONE read light novels except you. Also too bad NO ONE get to enjoy these light novels since no one bothers to TRANSLATE THESE.
@kovski, you could always attempt to learn japanese >_> I’m using light novels to supplement my own learning of the language and I’ve found myself discovering new ones with Patrick’s posts, which gives me an even larger reading list than I had before. So, he’s not the only foreigner who chooses to import and read Japanese Light Novels in Japanese.
hm…
and Omni, could you tell me from where (webiste) you buy those light novels?
I don’t live in USA, however I would like to buy it and I need to find a website that sells to other countries.
Hidden, it’s not Omni writing these entries.
I can recommend Amazon Japan for large orders and BK1 for smaller orders. They both ship internationally.
@Kovski
I believe that your “NO ONE” seems to be flawed. First, there are lots of people reading these stuffs. Another thing, if no one bothers to translate them, you can always try to translate them yourself. Therefore, It’s not practical to assume such thing.
Great review, sounds really interesting to me. I’m still in the midst of learning Japanese, but at least now I know if I see that novel at a Japanese book store, I’ll be sure to pick it up. 🙂
@Kovski He’s not the ONLY one reading Light Novels, there are other blogs and forums where people are discussing Light Novels.
There’s also finally an entire blog dedicated now to Light Novels, and it seems to be becoming more and more popular recently: http://ranobecafe.wordpress.com/
Just do a google search and you’ll see lot’s of other people are reading Light Novels too. 😉
LoL!
sry about that.
and thanks for the information
The two story that you mention sounds really interesting. Hopefully, the novel would translate one day. (However, I am not hopeful about this, I don’t see many short story collections translate into Thai or Eng language. I really wish that I didn’t leave my Japanese.
the closing story of the novel gives me the creeps.
esta mas interesante de lo que vi en otros foros acerca de la misma voy a descargarla
Ok noob’s question: are there any LN with furigana (and I mean for all the kanji, not only the complicated ones)? Would love to start reading one raw, but my knaji fu isn’t there yet. Would probably take me like a year or so, but who cares.
If you are in the US, have you tried Kinokuniya and Asahiya? Kino offers free shipping on $100 orders in the US and they have stores in a couple of different countries. They also have discounts sometimes but mainly MSRP/current exchange rate (sorta sux right now).
I really like Higa Yukari’s designs. Thank you for bringing this to my attention.
Thanks for the review as always ~
+ Thanks for the links too, though my level of japanese is no where enough to read LNs….
By anychance you got links to places with the chinese translated ones ? XD
Looking forward to the next review ~ ^^