"Kino no Tabi 19" by Shigusawa Keiichi

2015-11-19 : previous : next : index : [books]


"Kino no Tabi 19" by Shigusawa Keiichi. This series is where I get my annual sample of social problems and philosophical questions. The latest volume includes topics ranging from child education, senior population, and racial segregation. It feels especially relevant this year.

The child education bits spans two short chapters, one of which involves seeking prodigies in a fairly average country, while the other involves raising average kids in a very advanced country. It's two related views on how kids should be educated, but while the first chapter has a punchline that should please many parents, the second chapter probably has the opposite effect. What do we do with kids who performs poorly in school? This latter chapter has more of the dark sense of humor that is characteristic of this series, and it actually sounds like a reasonable idea that we might want to apply to real societies.

Even before the child education bits, this volume opens with the second half of a story that deals with the senior population. The narrative got to the point rather bluntly -- seniors over a certain age are required to be "discarded", hiding seniors at home is a crime. I thought: wow, things got real quickly in this volume, but where do all the senior people end up? Like previous volumes, the end of the book is where we find the first half of this story, in an unexpected and unusual country.

The highlight of this volume comes from the longest chapter in the middle, a grand plot that spanned a great time scale. The existence of different countries in this chapter was a surprise, the purpose for traveling to a country was a surprise, and the reason for leaving that country was the greatest surprise of all. I did not expect to find an epic story about different races in this volume, and it felt more relevant than ever with respect to the conflicts in the real world today.

The remaining chapters are equally great, they are all interesting whether you are seriously look for deeper meanings or not (most likely not, especially for the afterword chapter). It has been the same level of consistency for the fifteenth year, looking forward to volume 20.


Previous (2015-11-09): Fernando Sor
Next (2015-12-04): "Hatsukoi" by Kazuharu Kina

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