At a small Japanese pawnshop, nothing is as it seems. Each visitor crossing its threshold is thrown into a state of confusion. Each could’ve sworn they were waiting in line at a notable ramen restaurant in Tokyo but somehow ended up in this place.
The pawnshop’s warm, welcoming proprietor, Ishikawa Toshio, invites his baffled visitors to sit for tea. His young daughter, Hana, hovers in the back of the shop, ready to assist if necessary.
Disoriented, visitors politely comply and sit. Toshio slowly explains to them that the people who find his shop have a regret, a past choice, that they must let go of. His unusual shop allows them to rid themselves of their regrets. Visitors end up exchanging their past choices for a box of tea that will erase their memory of it, bringing them closure and peace.
Keepers of Lost Choices
This unusual location is the setting for Samantha Sotto Yambao’s new novel “Water Moon.” It’s part mystery, Japanese magical realism, romantasy, and Studio Ghibli film all rolled into one. On the surface, this combination sounds like a sure-fire crowd-pleaser. I had high hopes for it.“Water Moon” begins on the day that Toshio’s daughter, Hana, will take over the shop from her ailing father. Ishikawa Hana has spent her life in her family’s pawnshop, trained to follow its strict rules: never question, forget the choices their customers leave behind, and never interfere with fate.
That morning, however, Hana wakes to find the pawnshop ransacked and her father missing. Among the wreckage, she discovers subtle clues suggesting that Toshio might’ve staged his own disappearance.
Before she can act, a stranger arrives at her door: Minatozaki Keishin, a physicist who recently returned to Tokyo to work on a research project. Though they just met, a toss of a coin compels Keishin to accompany Hana on her search for her father, that includes using magical koi ponds and water puddles to enter different realities.
The duo makes their way through a variety of alternate worlds. They visit a “Whispering Temple,” where Hana listens to the smoke of her father’s altar candle and hears his last prayer.
Both Surrealism and Romantasy?
As you can imagine, there’s a lot of Japanese-themed imagery and Murakami-esque surrealism here within a modern “romantasy” framework. Any writer would find blending these elements into a 384-page book difficult. If author Yambao had streamlined the number of fantastic elements and explored the remainder more thoroughly, “Water Moon” might have been more enjoyable.Furthermore, Yambao’s choice to constantly move readers back and forth through time can be awkward. It’s a valid storytelling device to supply background information and insight, but she goes overboard. Each tiny chapter might jolt readers multiple times through short memories or suddenly divert them into a poetic monologue on the nature of reality or living. It’s practically literary whiplash.
The journey isn’t made easier by the overly melodramatic dialogue that sets in when Keishin appears. I thought this might be a translation issue until I realized Filipina author Yambao wrote the book in English. Starting a novel with contemplative, Buddhist-like prose and switching to a dime-store romance style can be jarring for many readers.
Choosing Your Audience
Magical realism is a style of novel that has garnered Japanese authors significant international notoriety. Popular titles include “Before the Coffee Gets Cold” by Kawaguchi Toshikazu or “The Cat Who Saved Books” by Natsukawa Sosuke.The fantasy-romance combination, now coined “romantasy” has, of course, exploded in popularity in America—Melissa Albert’s “The Hazel Wood” and Sarah J. Mass’ blockbuster “Throne of Glass” series are good examples of this.
Excellent examples of cozy magical realism in film can be found in Studio Ghibli’s brilliant works. “Howl’s Moving Castle,” “Kiki’s Delivery Service,” and “Spirited Away” are great options. It wouldn’t be surprising if any author might be tempted to try and bridge these popular markets into a single story.
However, an author who tries to please too many different audiences frequently winds up not delivering a satisfying version for any of them. To me, this seems to be the case for “Water Moon.
