"5fun de Waraeru! Obaka de Yukai na Monogatari" (Laugh in 5 minutes! Silly and funny stories), a collection of short stories. The emphasis is on "silly".
The "laugh in 5 minutes!" bit is part of the same series as the 3 minute cafe stories book, following the same format of collecting short stories that fit a particular theme. I bought a batch of these books from this same series because the first one seemed pretty good, although I wasn't expecting any continuity between these two books. I was particularly not expecting the nudist detective from the other book to show up here not just once but three separate occurrences, that seemed a bit too much.
The collection of exhibitionist stories can be interpreted as a lack of balance in this book, and it's a fair assessment. For people who rate books based on the average of all parts, this book is somewhat a wash. But for people who enjoy books for the best parts -- there are a few stories that are very well done, with very well calculated silliness. These gems lived up to the "5 minutes to laugh" promise, and made the book worthwhile for me.
Looking forward to other anthologies from this series.
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