Hanbun no Tsuki ga Noboru Sora Volume 1
September 7th, 2009Been ages since the last time I posted something in this blog! What have I been doing meanwhile? Among other things, I have been reading the light novel “Hanbun no Tsuki ga Noboru Sora”. Some of you may remember this title thanks to the anime adaptation released a few years ago. I haven’t watched it, but since I had read some good reviews, I decided to try to read the light novel on which the anime was based.

Cover of the first volume
To start with, “HanTsuki” (for short) is the first light novel I have read in japanese. I was a bit afraid at first of not being able to understand anything of it. Fortunately, before reading “HanTsuki” I had read a novel in japanese aimed towards young children which was easy to understand (not very complex grammar and kanji) and that helped me to get used to the written style japanese novels usually display.
Long way short, “HansTsuki” revolves around the life of Yuuichi, a 17 year-old boy who is sent to the hospital and has to spend about three moths there to recover from a certain illness (I read in a blog that he actually suffers hepatitis, but I don’t remember that being mentioned in the book). At the hospital, Yuuichi meets different people like the nurse Akiko-san and an old patient called Tada-san who is a bit of a pervert. The hospital is very small and almost all the patients are old people, so Yuuichi rapidily gets bored and sneaks out from the building every night. However, Akiko-san tells him one day that a young girl has just been trasferred into the hospital, and suggests him to make friends with her… This is the beginning of a complex, but heartwarming relationship between Yuuichi and the new girl, Rika.
As you may notice, the plot of “HanTsuki” is nothing remotely resembling a comedy. There are some little gags all throughout the novel, but to be honest, there is a nostalgic, almost melancholic feeling surrounding the characters and their actions. Yuuichi, who is the narrator as well, describes how the town he lives in (and where the hospital is located) has slowly decreased in population as many shops have closed down. What was once a lively town is now silent. That “silence” also seems to affect the characters. Rika and Yuuichi may spend a whole hour without speaking, each of them lost in their own thoughts.
I must say that the interaction between Yuiichi and Rika is more interesting and less clichéd than I thought at first. I had imagined Rika as some kind of annoying tsundere character (she is constantly ordering Yuuichi around). She is a bit tsundere, but at least, as Yuuichi says to himself, she has got a reason to act like one.
Now I’m looking forward to reading the following novels in the “HanTsuki” series, but that will have to wait a little bit. I still have to read two other novels I ordered along with the first volume of “HanTsuki” and there’s always the money issue…
See you!









