Realizing Fun Things Through Water
I liked this story a lot. I wasn't expecting to like it as much as I did because I was really confused about the water upon first reading. A big reason why I liked it so much was one particular symbol in the story. When I first read it, I was a little confused as to why they went to a hedgehog cafe. I know they're a little popular in Japan, but there were so many other options that could've been better like a cat, or a dog, or even a pig, but a hedgehog didn't seem right. Then I remember something I heard in this anime I watched, Evangelion. The hedgehog theory, by Arthur Schopenhauer claims that people desire human connection, but those same connections bring conflict or emotional pain. As a result, people find themselves distant, close enough to get some connection, but guarded enough to avoid getting hurt too often. As Evangelion simply put it: "The closer we become, the more deeply we hurt each other." Hatsuoka herself is a great representation of this theory. She didn't want to get to know Hakozaki because topics like love or men and women made her feel alienated so she only brought up shallow topics. While at first Hakozaki adapted to this, when they eventually get engaged, he hopes to fix her hedgehog theory. The symbolism of water kinda confused me still, was she only able to connect with water for a reason?
Sea Horse
This one honestly haunted me a little. It took me a while to piece together what was actually going on, like I kept thinking okay she's just old, she's just been through a lot of marriages, and then the detail about the first child only living three years and being "half human" made me go back and reread everything. Because wait, if her kids are half human, what does that make her? The husband stuff was rough to sit with. Every single one of them treats her like property, handed off from man to man, and the way it's described so flatly, like her being "fed" for twenty years or chained up for years at a time, made it hit even harder because she barely reacts to any of it. That line about not feeling anything while she's being raped stuck with me. It's not dramatized, it's just stated, and that felt worse somehow. I loved that her name, her real name, only comes from the sea, and her sons don't even get names while her daughter does. That's when I fully clicked into her being a siren, and once I saw it I couldn't unsee it, especially with the way people are just drawn to her and her daughter without explanation. Honestly the part that stayed with me most was the very end. Decades of men caging her, dolling her up right after hurting her, keeping the ocean just out of reach—and then the storm comes, her daughter's already gone into the water, and this time nobody grabs her arm to stop her. She just walks in. I sat there for a second after, not sure if I was supposed to feel happy for her or just sad about everything it took to get there.
Convenience Store Woman
This book unsettled me in a quieter way. I kept waiting for Keiko to have some realization, some moment where she wants more, and it just never comes. I think that's the point, but it still felt strange watching her "absorb" coworkers' voices and clothes like she's assembling a personality from spare parts, and nobody around her notices how odd that is. The Shiraha thing threw me too. For a second I thought it might turn into something almost sweet, two outcasts finding each other, and instead he's just cruel and lazy and uses "society is broken" as an excuse to treat her badly. And she just lets him move in. The ending got me most. She walks back into a random convenience store and has this almost spiritual moment hearing "the voice of the store," and I genuinely couldn't tell if I was supposed to feel relieved for her or sad for her. Like is this her finally being honest about who she is, or proof she's been hollowed out completely? I don't think Murata wants us to know either.
Tomo-Chan's Happiness
This story was so jarring. I felt a little unsettled not gonna lie. I knew something was weird because they referred to her as Tomo-chan instead of the story being in the first person and I thought it was weird they included the honorifics when talking about her. Little did I know, the ending was so random and caught me off guard. I didn't really know what it meant, but I think it was a clear indicator that no matter how much people want to believe that Misawa would be different from the other men in Tomo-Chan's life, it's unrealistic to think there was an exact ending. I did like that her rapist had karma tho, but I guess karma isn't real in this case because that happened to just be a coincidence. Or maybe god was looking out for her.
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