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Story:

This novel consists of three short stories:

Calling You: A girl with no friends conjures up an imaginary cell phone to fight her loneliness. Surprisingly, one day someone actually calls her imaginary cell phone. A strange, yet beautiful friendship forms across space and time.

Kiz/Kids: A troubled boy is put in the special class after a violent outburst, and there meets the quiest Asato. Asato has the strange power to transfer any wounds to his own body, and the two boys form an odd friendship based on wounds and healing. But even Asato’s powers may not be enough to heal the emotional scars in their pasts.

Flower Song: A person discovers a singing flower with a girl’s face in the woods, and through her song rediscovers a part of themselves that was lost after a tragic accident.

Impressions:

After reading only this one book I would have to say that Otsu Ichi is an amazing writer. His plots are incredibly unique; whimsical and bittersweet, yet amazingly beautiful. The pacing for each story is tight and the character’s emotions draws you right in. Of the three stories Calling You is probably the weakest, but that doesn’t mean it’s a bad story at all. The plot twist at the end becomes obvious halfway through, but that doesn’t lessen the impact of the actual twist and its effects on the characters. Kiz/Kids takes a bit to get started, but once it does it goes full speed straight to the climatic ending.

Flower Song is my favorite story of the three. It’s an unique tale with its own sense of loss and redemption. The twist for this story is very sudden at the very end. It really forces you to stop and think about the story again. While I don’t think the story quite needed the twist ending, it certainly did help make the thematic ties of the story stronger. I would say Calling You is in the top tier of light novels released so far, right next to Kino no Tabi. It’s a powerful collection of stories that can leave you wondering long after you’ve finished reading. I hope more of Otsu Ichi’s works are translated soon in the future.