It was interesting to see a slightly more lighthearted story set in a dystopian world in Scattered All Over the Earth. I enjoyed Knut and Hiruko's characters and found them both to be quite endearing. Given the setting in Europe with Scandinavian languages, I was curious about how the dialogue is portrayed in the original Japanese and the decisions that had to be made to translate that into English. It was nice that the translator put extra thought into her sentence structure beyond it just being broken English and kept it related to Japanese sentence structure. At least as far as my Japanese knowledge goes, though, most of Hiruko's sentences seemed to be in grammatically sound Japanese, unlike the English translation. I found it especially interesting that the translator decided go the extra mile to discover a way to convey the mixed grammatical forms of Panska in the English version when it wasn't heavily conveyed like that in the Japanese dialogue. On an unrelated note, I was also surprised by the short mention of pidgin languages in the text, as I'm from Hawaii where our most common form of pidgin is considered extremely informal and had no idea it was used in trade and business in other locations.
The Easy Life in Kamusari was a fun read with the absurdity of Yuki's situation and his witty narration. There was a nice discussion of how shallow connections tend to be in more modernized society and despite the physical challenges of work on the mountains, staying might be worth it with how nice it is to have a tight-knit caring community. I also appreciated the characterization and how Miura managed to show so much about most of the characters' personalities within just a few lines of dialogue. It was a very heartwarming and humorous chapter, and I can really see Yuki growing and finding himself more in this environment than he ever would have in the city.
Having recently read 1984 by George Orwell, I couldn't help but compare it to Memory Police as I was reading. They were very similar in terms of concept but managed to be different in terms of execution. Both included an oppressive police force enforcing a certain way of thinking, but most of the society in 1984 had to consciously worry about controlling their thoughts and actions whereas most people in Memory Police had disappearances in memory happen to them unconsciously, even before the existence of the police force, likely leading to their quiet submission. It was an almost somber environment, especially with how people seemed to question what the point of keeping any sort of record, even for sentimental memories. I suppose in a world where any memory can disappear at any moment and you won't have the chance to bring it back once it goes, keeping track of all of your memories may seem somewhat pointless.
I liked reading through Furukawa's thoughts and stories in The Little Woods in Fukushima as I've been looking into the Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami for my presentation. I was glad that he managed to garner up the courage to write about something close to home and share the perspective of those working in agriculture in Fukushima at the time. When you read about it from a stand point of broad facts and statistics, it can be much more difficult to connect than when reading a personal account. I knew that Fukushima was the most heavily affected area by the nuclear meltdown, but I wouldn't have been able to connect the dots around Fukushima being one of the most heavily involved prefectures in farming and how beyond the destruction and regular health concerns of exposure to radioactivity, so many people's careers were also at stake.
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