Black Fairy Tale by Otsuichi - Book Review

Otsuichi is a celebrated Japanese writer who perfectly blends dark and unsettling themes with a style that appeals to both young adults and seasoned readers. After thoroughly enjoying his earlier work, Summer, Fireworks, and My Corpse, I dove into Black Fairy Tales with high expectations, but was it any good?

The book weaves together several seemingly unrelated tales into a single, cohesive narrative. It begins with a dark, fable-like story about a loyal crow who collects eyes for a blind girl. The story then transitions to Nami, a high school student who loses her memory and an eye in a bizarre accident. After receiving a transplant, she starts experiencing eerie visions from the perspective of her donor.

Black Fairy Tale by Otsuichi

As Nami delves into the mystery behind her new eye, the story introduces us to Miki, a character with a disturbing past and a chilling scientific fascination with torture. These two narratives converge in a thrilling and suspenseful climax. Ultimately, Nami's quest for the truth leads her on a dangerous path, culminating in a tense, cat-and-mouse chase with a truly sinister villain.

Otsuichi is a master of blending the bizarre with the believable. In Black Fairy Tales, he crafts a murder mystery with fantastical elements like talking crows, living corpses, and a strange, inverse phantom eye syndrome where a donor's eye offers glimpses of their lived experience. The way he weaves these disparate elements together—from a dismembered "found family" to the unsettling, everyday realism of his characters—is what makes his work so unique.

While the prose itself is functional and not particularly ornate, there are occasional moments of beauty such as;

The past flows on. You die and fade away. Like streets and railroads vanish from a town, so too do people become no more. And the world becomes a little different.

Wonderful stuff indeed when it does pop up but it's clear that the story is king here. The plot's continuous momentum and shifting perspectives had me absolutely gripped from beginning to end. If you're looking for a genre-bending tale that is both strange and compelling, you'll want to add Black Fairy Tales to your reading list. It's a dark, unsettling, and thoroughly unique experience. Righto - I'm off to disinfect my body with swarfega as this story was icky in the best possible way.

Zoo by Otsuichi- Cult Film Review

Otsuichi is a celebrated Japanese writer who perfectly blends dark and unsettling themes with a style that appeals to both young adults and seasoned readers. After thoroughly enjoying his earlier books Summer, Fireworks, and My Corpse and Black Fairy Tales I thought I'd dive into my first film work of his. I had high expectations, but was Zoo, an anthology of five stories, any good?

Kazari and Yoko- The mother of twin sisters loves only one of her daughters and abuses the other. When the abused daughter does a good Samaritan deed, her fortunes seem to change but... can it last?

I enjoyed this story, even though it is one of neglect and abuse. The idea that 'a person can change' is a wonderful life-affirming thing but this Single White Female motiff is taken to a dramatic conclusion. The mother sure overeacts to her CDs being moved and her computer having a bit of water on them in an extreme way.

Seven Rooms- After being knocked out, a young boy and his older sister find themselves trapped in a small, concrete room. There are seven rooms in all, each containing a different young, female prisoner. The young boy is able to crawl through the sewage pipe but can't get out. What is the purpose of their incarceration? No-one knows but they do know that on the sixth day a body is chopped up.

The premise reminded me of Saw or the early 00s gore porn horror phase like My Little Eye in that there are few sets but the tension is cranked up high as heinous things are done to innocent people.

So Far- After a car accident, a young boy's life is turned upside down as his father is convinced that his mother is dead whilst the mother is convinced the father is dead. However, the boy can see both parents who cannot seem to see each other. What is going on? He becomes the go-between and it becomes a little too much.

This seems like The Sixth Sense in that you think it's going to be an 'I see dead people' kinda thing and it's pretty much that, untik it isn't... but with music by Satie, or is it Debussy? Either way, the soundtrack for this segment is pretty special as the boy's worlds start to drift apart, breaking the bridge between his parents.

When the Sun Shines- In this CGI animation, a scientist creates an automaton who he sets about learning about life and death in a world where most of humanity has already died out.

Compared to the other stories, this one stands out just because of the medium it uses to convey this post-apocalyptic story. It is a heartwarming story about the brevity and transience of life as the automaton has a kill switch date so she starts to appreciate all the small things: the sound of cicadas, the taste of coffee and the wonder of metal wind chimes. The animation here reminds me of the art style of the cult Nintendo DS videogame Another Code: Two Memories, which is no bad thing as I loved the sketchy painterly art style of that game by Taisuke Kanasaki.

Zoo- After wanting to break up, a man kills his girlfriend and dumps her body in an abandoned zoo. Weirdly, he continues to take pictures of her dead body everyday. However, when he goes back to take another picture the zoo suddenly vanishes yet new pictures are sent to him daily. Did he imagine it all? And what does the lonely zebra mean?

This is an offbeat story about toxic relationships, domestic violence against women and how our past can haunt us. It's a strange one alright but I still enjoyed it.

I have to say that I thoroughly enjoyed this anthology movie as the five stories were all pretty different and quirky with a unusual atmosphere. The budget was obviously very tight but a lot has been done with little financial backing, showing that, as ever story is king.