Okay, 「宇宙人ですが質問です」 (
I am an alien. I have a question) is great. It's a very ABe-like work. Does that sound silly? I kind of think it should. It's a very silly work, you know, and a lot of ABe's work has this very restrained sense of the ridiculous, bubbling right beneath the surface.
Here, of course, he just lets it out. I'm kind of a sucker for this kind of story, where a succession of ridiculous things happen for no particular reason. I especially enjoy the way the sister's personality comes across, because everything's so weird and she takes it in stride.
It's pretty great, and of course it comes with both the Japanese and English text. The only thing I don't like about it is reading it on the iPhone. It might be better on an actual Kindle -- but I would have preferred a scanned series of JPEGs that I could read on my computer. Come on, it's a buck. DRM is total overkill at this level.
words from chris, 2010-03-13 00:57:37, los angeles
