ケーキの切れない非行少年たち
Natively: 35?? (which strikes me as way off)
Summary
(Summary of the book the manga is based on)
The author, a child psychiatrist, has met many juvenile delinquents and has come to realize that there are many “children before remorse”. In juvenile training schools, there were many juvenile delinquents whose cognitive abilities were so weak that they could not even “cut a cake into equal pieces,” but the depth of the problem was the same even in ordinary schools. Focusing on people with “borderline intelligence,” which is estimated to be more than a dozen percent of the population, this book reveals a very practical method to guide them out of trouble in school and social life.
Availability
Physical: Amazon JP ・ CD Japan
Digital: Kindle ・ Kobo ・ BookWalker
Personal Opinion
I stumbled across this manga in a reddit thread about the phenomenon of ‘borderline intelligence’, which is a level of intelligence that is too high to fall within the category of ‘intellectual disability’ but often not quite high enough to allow someone to live independently in today’s world. It is estimated that 12-14% of the population falls within this category. Many youths with borderline intelligence do not get the support they need and end up in juvenile prisons. This manga is based on a book by the same author, who is a child psychiatrist and has experience working with these youths. As for the title, it is derived from the fact that these youths have trouble with tasks such as dividing a cake into three equal pieces.
The experiences of these people are so far removed from my own that I think I have a bit of a blind spot towards these problems. I think it would broaden my views of society if I were to learn more about this perspective, and this manga looks like a great way to do so.
I bought the first volume (currently 50% off on Kindle and Bookwalker 
) and ran it through my segmentation tool. The percentage of unknown vocab is on par with Bocchi and Dungeon Meshi, and certainly lower than Fullmetal Alchemist. The text density is also pretty low. I am not sure why the person who had it added to Learn Natively initially had it pegged at 35, but that seems to me to be quite a way off. I think it’d be a good fit for this club in terms of difficulty.
Pros and Cons
Pros
- Thought-provoking subject matter
- Good food for discussions
- Very limited furigana (yay, kanji practice!)
Cons
- Some might find the subject matter a bit grim
- Very limited furigana (oh no, kanji practice!)
