I had finished reading through 時をかける少女 this weekend. Both the main story and the short stories from the same author that got bundled into this book. As a first excursion into SF in Japanese, I liked it quite a bit. Although not necessary sure if I would recommend it to anyone, there’s quite a few more interesting books in the genre in between when this came out and now. It is however a classic for a reason and reading it I can confirm it is good. Also it has been quite popular given how many adaptations it got and how many media reference this work. Some more thoughts down below, which may contain some slight story spoilers.
時をかける少女
It’s a pretty simple and kinda cute story, there’s some complexity here and there in the technical explanation, but nothing too ground breaking. The story did take a while to get going and then it was over before you know it. Personally would have liked maybe some more time leaps and/or a longer epilogue, but overall it is quite good. It has bit of that bittersweet note, which I feel would have come through better if there was some more time spent on developing the other characters.
The other stories in the book were kinda interesting and a neat bonus to the experience. I don’t think this version (角川つばさ文庫) is that difficult as it has furigana and some illustrations, but vocabulary wise it can be tough sometimes. I think it might be a good recommendation for a second or third book. The Spy x family novel was a lot more dense for example. I think it’s around the same level as Yoru Cafe, maybe slighter harder.
Anyway I’ll be continuing with using the cards in jpdb this week and put that in the system. Today I’ll be starting Junji Ito’s cat diary, which I thought was kinda apt for halloween. I’ll figure out what I wanna read after that by the time I’m done.