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A review by modernzorker
The Girl Who Leapt Through Time by Yasutaka Tsutsui
3.0
Since it's a collection of two novellas, each only about 90 pages long, TGWLTT is a very fast read. I've not read Tsutsui before, so I wasn't sure what to expect when I started, but while I wasn't blown away I didn't feel the stories were a waste of time and I've picked up another collection of his short stories to read at a later date.
The first story in the collection is the titular story of the girl, in this case a high school student named Kazuko, who has remained after school one day with her classmates Kazuo and Goro to help with some cleaning. Hearing someone messing around in one of the science labs, she goes to investigate and surprises an intruder in the process of concocting something. The beaker falls to the floor, she inhales the fumes, and passes out. When her friends find her, she's groggy but unharmed. All trace of the intruder and the chemicals he was mixing are gone.
But Kazuko's encounter has changed something inside her head. Either she's receiving visions of the future, one in which she watches a fire break out near Goro's house in the aftermath of an earthquake, or she's actually traveling in time (the title pretty well gives away what's actually happening). Now she's got to learn to harness this power if she can, and possibly use it to confront the intruder in the science lab from a couple of days ago to see if she can undo everything. It's a nice idea for a story, but it's all wrapped up a little too cutely and the identity of the intruder as well as what he's doing at Kazuko's school isn't very compelling. The language is nice, the translation is fine, but the story itself is pedestrian, refusing to delve too far into the inner life of its protagonist aside from a few scattered musings on what this means for her as a person.
The second story in the collection is "The Stuff Nightmares Are Made Of" and I enjoyed it much more than "The Girl Who..." It reads more like an episode of Twilight Zone, with characters trying to deal with how phobias and fears can be spontaneously generated by a simple misunderstanding of words or phrases, repressed memories, and facing one's own fears to conquer them completely. Like the first story, it's a very fast read, but there's more substance here as we get deeper into the main character's mind and slowly learn about her past. "Nightmares" is stronger than its predecessor and was what convinced me to pick up another book by Tsutsui. This is one author certainly worth pursuing further.
As a side note, "The Girl Who Leapt Through Time" has been adapted for film and TV several times over the years in Japan, including both live-action and animated features. I've not seen any versions of it, but it could appeal to people who prefer their stories told in a more visual format.
The first story in the collection is the titular story of the girl, in this case a high school student named Kazuko, who has remained after school one day with her classmates Kazuo and Goro to help with some cleaning. Hearing someone messing around in one of the science labs, she goes to investigate and surprises an intruder in the process of concocting something. The beaker falls to the floor, she inhales the fumes, and passes out. When her friends find her, she's groggy but unharmed. All trace of the intruder and the chemicals he was mixing are gone.
But Kazuko's encounter has changed something inside her head. Either she's receiving visions of the future, one in which she watches a fire break out near Goro's house in the aftermath of an earthquake, or she's actually traveling in time (the title pretty well gives away what's actually happening). Now she's got to learn to harness this power if she can, and possibly use it to confront the intruder in the science lab from a couple of days ago to see if she can undo everything. It's a nice idea for a story, but it's all wrapped up a little too cutely and the identity of the intruder as well as what he's doing at Kazuko's school isn't very compelling. The language is nice, the translation is fine, but the story itself is pedestrian, refusing to delve too far into the inner life of its protagonist aside from a few scattered musings on what this means for her as a person.
The second story in the collection is "The Stuff Nightmares Are Made Of" and I enjoyed it much more than "The Girl Who..." It reads more like an episode of Twilight Zone, with characters trying to deal with how phobias and fears can be spontaneously generated by a simple misunderstanding of words or phrases, repressed memories, and facing one's own fears to conquer them completely. Like the first story, it's a very fast read, but there's more substance here as we get deeper into the main character's mind and slowly learn about her past. "Nightmares" is stronger than its predecessor and was what convinced me to pick up another book by Tsutsui. This is one author certainly worth pursuing further.
As a side note, "The Girl Who Leapt Through Time" has been adapted for film and TV several times over the years in Japan, including both live-action and animated features. I've not seen any versions of it, but it could appeal to people who prefer their stories told in a more visual format.