Aruhi, Bakudan ga Ochite Kite
Created/Updated 2009-07-04
- ISBN Number : ISBN987-4-84-023182-6
- Catalog Number : N/A
- Manufacturer : Dengeki Bunko
- Series : Aruhi, Bakudan ga Ochite Kite
- Printing Date : 2005-10-25
- Price : Y550
- Author : Furuhashi Hideyuki (story), Higa Yukari (illustrations)
- Total Pages : 257 + advertisement
I don't remember exactly how I found this book, but I think it was
"Iriya no Sora, USO no Natsu." Amazon.co.jp recommendation link had
this book, and it had high marks, so I added it to my order... at
Mangaoh. Yeah, I don't order from Amazon.co.jp these days :P
I'd figured it'd be some sort of a sappy love story (in a good way,
like Iriya no Sora, UFO no Natsu). I was kind of wrong, in a pleasant
way. It's a collection of seven short stories, "aru hi, bakudan ga
ochite kite," "ookiku naare," "koi suru shisha no yoru," "Totokamija,"
"shusseki bangou 0-ban," "sanjikanme no Madoka," and "mukashi, bakudan
ga ochite kite." Note the last story is not related to the first
story, despite the title.
I suppose they're all love stories of sorts, but most of them are far
from conventional, as they all deal with time. There's even a helpful
diagrams to show the time relations of each story in the afterwords
section.
Main ideas are as follows:
- It's hard to explain this one without making it sound trivial,
but it's really a moving story. The girl will explode and pretty
much clean out half the country if she is really loved by the
boy. Think of it as a nice and clean way to go. Both of them
actually liked each other in the past, but never really got
together, and the story happens 3 years after their last
meeting. The whole bomb theme comes from the fact that the girl
has a heart condition and requires an occasional dose of
nitroglycerin.
- There's this cold going around. It's not your common cold,
though. If you get it, you temporarily lose your memory. For
example, you might lose 3 years worth of memory at first, and
then another 5 years, and so on, until you get some rest and
recover. A couple takes turns in taking care of each other with
this cold. Very neat.
- One day, dead people start to not stay dead. Maybe hell/heaven
is full and can't take any more people. These undead just live
on, but only to repeat a single chosen day in their lives each
night. The sickly (when she was alive) girl lives her first
date with the boy over and over, and the boy, who is still alive,
repeats that day with her, each night.
- The boy eventually catches up with the little girl goddess
(ghost) of the library. She went way ahead of him, but waited
for him, and he caught up. Cute little love story.
- There is a single student in the class who does not have an
actual body, so s/he takes over one of the classmates bodies each
day. Very intriguing love story.
- Classroom window becomes a window to the same classroom 6 years
ago for the boy and the girl sitting next to it, but only for a
few minutes each day. The boy finds out what happened to the
girl 6 years ago and tries to prevent it from happening, and the
result is....
- A bomb distorts space-time at the detonation point and traps a
15-year old girl in a cylinder shaped time distortion. Her time
flows six billion times slower than normal time. In other words,
if her watch ticks one second, 190 years would have gone by in
the world surrounding her. It's been 60 years since the war, so
only about 0.3 second has passed for her, and she's still waiting
for the boy to show up. The boy missed the train, so he wasn't
even near her when the bomb exploded. In a way, it's good he
didn't make it because he'd be dead if he were any closer,
although, if they were both at the exact spot of space-time
distortion, they'd be trapped together, or if him showing up
caused her to move away from the spot, they'd have died together
in the explosion. He has spent the last 60 years helping to
rebuild the destroyed city, and to create and care for the
monument around the time distortion. He dies, though. But what
does his grandson do? Go read it yourself :P
Highly recommended!
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