Novels

Young Wataru flees his messed-up life to navigate the magical world of Vision, a land filled with creatures both fierce and friendly. His ultimate destination is the Tower of Destiny where a goddess of fate awaits. Only when he has finished his journey and collected five elusive gemstones will he possess the Demon's Bane - the key that will grant him his most heartfelt wish... the wish to bring his family back together again!

This collection of short stories by non-Japanese who choose to live in Japan is an absorbing look at the Outsider in a nation that does not absorb foreigners easily. Unlike that other, earlier hotbed of expatriate writing, Literary Paris, which was not so different from home, postwar Literary Japan has confronted its expatriate writing community with a challenging mental and physical landscape.

The "rounds" are humans with the sex organs of both genders. Artificially created to test the limits of the human body in space, they are now a minority, despised and hunted by the terrorist group Vessel of Life. Aboard Zeus I, a space station orbiting the planet Jupiter, the "rounds" have created their own society. Security chief Shirosaki keeps the peace between the "rounds" and the typically gendered "mono," but when a terrorist strike hits the station, the balance of power and tolerance is at risk, and an entire people is targeted for genocide.

"Manager Takino" is just trying to live a quiet life running a suburban supermarket when an old yakuza mate convinces him to help two lovers on the run from the mob escape the country. On his tail is Detective Takagi, a smooth noir fixture with a French cigarette always dangling from his mouth. The beast within Takino will chafe against the cage of domesticity in which he's locked himself, and once he busts out there'll be no going back.

Born into the burakumin - Japan's class of outcasts - Kenji Nakagami depicts the lives of his people in sensual language and stark detail. The Cape is a breakthrough novella about a burakumin community, their troubled memories, and complex family histories. Includes House on Fire and Red Hair.

When a baby box opens in Southern Japan, an infant boy is deposited with lacerations from head to toe. Hanging on to life by a hair's breadth, the child is taken in by a local hospital and named Yoshio Iizuka. As an adolescent, Yoshio appears to have overcome his traumatic start and become an exceptional youth residing in Tokyo. He even founds a non-profit organization to represent abused youths. It is with this work as a front that he is able to fund and devise a plot to topple the city's most iconic structure, Tokyo Tower.

Goro Kawakubo, the dashing son of a famous artist and now a widower, hires an au pair, Masayo Hariu, to care for his eight-year-old daughter Momoko, whose only companion is her cat Lala. The au pair quickly falls in love with Goro's lifestyle and then with the widower himself. One fateful night, Goro throws a party and meets the gorgeous Chinatsu, who soon becomes his girlfriend. Masayo is tormented with jealousy but can do nothing but watch.

For nearly a century, Japanese writers gave voice to the anxieties of a nation headed inexorably towards war. Beginning with US Navy Commodore Matthew C. Perry's first visit to Japan in 1853, Japanese novelists and military analysts produced a dizzying combination of prophetic visions of this coming conflict, creating a massive body of popular works through which Japan would debate its own passage, however violently, into the modern, globalized era.

Karin isn't like all the other teenage girls. Once a month, she experiences intense bleeding - from her nose! Karin is from a family of vampires who love to suck blood. But she prefers to give blood to her "victims." If done right this act of giving can be extremely positive. The problem is that Karin seems to never do things right!

Clumsy Karin stumbles and dumps food all over a young woman named Kira Matumiya and her guardian Shougo Tachikage. She has to pick up a part-time summer job to pay for the exuberant cleaning bill. The job turns out to be easy and fun, but then, two young women at her summer job go missing. Where did they go? Will more people disappear? Between unsolved mysteries and blood-spurting, Karin's in big trouble.

Kenta Usui, Karin's classmate, has remained just friends with Karin despite a strange attraction between them. So why is he so jealous when Karin meets Hidemi, a young teacher who rescues her and then is concerned for her younger sister Anju? While Karin struggles with the meaning of her newfound "friendship," Kenta fights his feelings of jealousy - and Anju and Karin's father Henry only makes matters worse!

Out loveable reverse vampire Karin can't help it: classmate and coworker Kenta's unhappiness triggers her bloodlust. Although she's learned to control her urges around Kenta, when her excess blood becomes too much to handle, even Kenta isn't safe!