Intermediate Japanese Book Club // Now Reading: セーラー服と機関銃

kusuri · March 11, 2021, 2:01am

I was browsing my local Japanese bookstore, and I stumbled upon a whole wall dedicated to 天気の子, so I’m going to nominate it in hopes we can all read it together. I haven’t seen the movie, but check out this cover…

天気の子

Summary

Japanese

高校1年の夏、帆高は離島から家出し、東京にやってきた。連日降り続ける雨の中、雑踏ひしめく都会の片隅で、帆高は不思な能力を持つ少女。陽菜に出会う。「ねえ、今から晴れるよ」。それは祈るだけで、空を晴れに出来る力だった一。天候の調和が狂っていく時代に、運命に翻弄される少年と少女が自らの生き方を「選択」する物語。長編アニメーション映画「天気の子」の、新海誠監督自身が執筆した原作小説。

English

Longing to escape his island home, a boy named Hodaka runs away during his first summer of high school to find a new life in Tokyo. As rain falls for days on end and Hodaka struggles to adjust, he meets a girl named Hina who holds a mysterious power: With a single prayer, she can part the clouds and bring back the sun. But her power comes at a price, and as the weather spirals further and further out of control, they must choose what future they truly want for themselves.

Written concurrently with production of the 2019 film Weathering With You, this novel comes straight from director Makoto Shinkai, the mind behind 2016’s hit your name.!

Availability

Physical: Amazon.co.jp | cdJapan
E-book: Bookwalker | EbookJapan

Personal Opinion

I’m interested in this book for the intermediate book club, because of how popular the movie seems to be. I think it’ll be great motivation to first read the book together, and then the reward is watching the movie.

I’ve also analyzed the difficulty level of the desciption on the back of on a 1-9 difficulty scale (lower beginner to upper advanced). It fits right in with this group’s reading ability.