Finished: 02.04.2026
It is yet another chance encounter with the book. I got it as birthday gift, but I never even heard about it, so I didn’t have any expectations. In my previous review I elaborated on false impressions of the blurbs, but here I let myself to be swayed with the blurb. One of the comparisons it gave was Studio Ghibli so I couldn’t help, but imagine the events and scenery of this novel as if animated by Studio Ghibli.
It is not completely out of place comparison. The author is not Japanese (she’s from Philippines), but the story is set in Japan with Japanese characters. Imagery is distinctively Japanese as well. Story is set specifically in Tokyo (at least in its non-magical part), pawnshop is magically hidden behind the same door that lead to ramen restaurant.
At first it seems that it could be cozy fantasy, that impression given by warmth of ramen and apparently slow business of pawnshop. One of main characters is young woman who inherits magical pawnshop after her father, who prepared her for this role since she was born. Something tragic happens and at her first day her father gone missing. Unaware muggle client enters her shop and decides to help her find her father.
They travel across magical world together to find her father. It is like tour from place to place of this hidden magical world. One protagonist is a woman who is deeply familiar with it and serve as a guide. The other is a muggle, physicists who confronted with strange phenomena of this world is challenged on every step. It was attractive setup for me, because I had such similar education and I would react similarly to strange physics-breaking occurrences.
And there’s a lot of strange things. Traveling through ponds as portals, origami birds that fly and move on its own, tattoos that depicts person’s life fate, village that casts stars on the firmament every day, paying by memories or by song and much more. At first our poor physicist try to reason, bargain his way through understanding of this world, but eventually accepts. At some point he comes to conclusion that he saw in one short adventure everything that is contrary to his life of learning, whole muggle civilization learning even, so nothing new can surprise him anymore. It’s not simply tour through wonder and beautiful locations. Our protagonists are on the run. Through their struggles together there’s also development of romance. Some hidden agendas lurk in the shadows as well.
It is book that is best experienced through letting go and being swayed by wonder of magical adventure. By those more analytical, we have our physicist protagonist and through him we try to make sense of the magic. Perhaps, like him, we will be able to let go and just experience wonder. By reading this book, I did.