Strange Weather in Tokyo

“Regret is a heavy burden, but forgiveness can set us free.”

An adorably small book with a massive heart, Strange Weather in Tokyo tells the story of Tsukiko, a woman who runs into and befriends her old school teacher - a charming older man who is mostly referred to from her perspective as just ‘Sensei’. The book tells of the small adventures of the pair as they drink together, eat together and discover the two lifetimes of joy and pain and love between them. I wasn’t sure going in if the couple were a romantic pair or just friends - and I won’t spoil it here - but the end is surprisingly poignant and well-told.

I found this book incredibly charming. So much of what I like about Japanese fiction is in the often-unorthodox telling. This book is told through short little vignettes or stories. Perhaps one story is about the pair hiking up a mountain, another about listening to a baseball game on the radio, another about a reunion of Sensei’s fellow schoolteachers. We follow them almost like a sitcom - each episode starts and ends at the status quo, with a little adventure in the middle. Like the best sitcoms it was incredibly moorish and bingeable.

It also helped me to google the odd Japanese word in the book, to get a flavour for the setting and the food!