#mai kawakami

[a-titty-ninja]

「舞先輩！」 by ジャムペン | Twitter

๑ Permission to reprint was given by the artist ✔.

[shanks]

郁(IKU)

[ianime0]

Musaigen no Phantom World | Ep 11 | Since we don't know when you'll be back to normal, we'll have to do some shopping.

[vrwmilion]

[zerori0000]

[fooloftheunknownworld]

This Mai is fun, even if her balance is questionable.

[poppyies]

I made a custom thing for my Tomie dvd

[justsescape]

@widestwaistlines Cow-akami

"You know, just because I'm in a cowkini and hooked up to the milking machine doesn't necessarily make me a cow."

[battle-of-the-persona-arcanas]

[painted-leap]

More of an update! This time, I've drown 2/3 of my BNHA OCs! I still have about 7 more that need re-visiting, but I'll get there... eventually XD

Also includes some doodles of To/mura Shiga/raki in an AU I have with a friend!

[cocksuki2]

breasts and eggs by mieko kawakami is so uniquely woman. not in a feminine sense, or a gender-identity sense, but in the sense that i can feel the soul of womanhood in it, which i have rarely ever felt in other books. 

it captures the experience of being labelled “woman” so precisely that it’s startling and there were several times in the novel i had to put it down and take really deep breaths. 

natsuko, a 30 year old and unmarried woman living in tokyo, experiences the challenges of female bodily autonomy and questions what it means to be a woman and what it means to have children. the novel raises questions about family, sexuality, child-rearing, and womanhood through the eyes of its protagonist who, 10 years later and at the age of 40, grapples with wanting to have a child of her own without a partner. 

in the novel, natsuko, while working on her book, begins to question what it means to raise children, as well as the possibility that she would like to have a child of her own. however, she faces roadblocks on account of strict social norms in japan and the lack of bodily autonomy of women.

the novel, deftly and beautifully, traverses across women’s reproductive rights while posing questions about not only the ethics of anonymous artificial insemination, but of having children in the first place. posing it as both delight and misery, natsuko navigates her way through conflicting ideas about life, death, and birth as a single woman. 

the story deals a lot with natsuko’s own ideas of romance, sex, and loneliness, as well as her own image of herself. she questions her own family and history, reminiscing often on the time she spent with her mother, grandmother, and sister in her childhood, as well as what it meant for her to grow up poor. she considers cycles of poverty, as well as the cycles of mother and daughter, through the lens of a woman with no desire for a longterm partner or sex. 

natsuko, is asexual and sex repulsed. it’s a large part of the story, though it’s not a defining trait in who natsuko is as a person. still, she experiences the desire to have a child. she calls her own womanhood into perspective, doubting it on account of her lack of sexual attraction, detailing it as it “being as if the sexual part of her never grew up”. she states often that she has breasts, that she gets her period, that she is as woman as any other woman, yet still feels that some part of her womahood is missing because of her lack of sexual attraction. 

the novel raises challenging questions of self discovery, as well as details the frustration in being labelled “woman” in society. it beautifully captures the thoughts and burdens that come with womanhood, as well as gender identity and bodily autonomy. 

there are so many aspects of this book i could go into. i truly could not get enough of it while reading. not just because i found the protagonist to be both relatable and interesting, but because kawakami’s voice as an author is so gripping and emotionally real. reading the book, it felt as if natsuko’s thoughts mirrored my own and often, after finishing reading, i questioned whether i had actually read lines in the book or if i had thought of them myself as part of my own inner dialogue. 

it’s so beautifully layered, to the point that i think it would take me multiple posts just to cover what i’ve picked up on the first read-through, and reads like you’re looking back on a life i could have lived at some point. it’s delightfully human but also, uniquely woman. it touches on many of the unspoken (and often unaddressed) trials of being a woman that otherwise would go unheard about. 

i don’t think i’ve ever read anything like it. it touched me in a way no other novel has and detailed an account of womanhood that i felt in a very deep part of my being. this may sound cheesy, but in a way, i felt a large kinship with a lot of the women in the story. whether it was their experiences with men, their experiences with children, or their experiences simply moving through the world, i found connection in all of them. 

[ianime0]

Musaigen no Phantom World | Ep 11 | Maybe we should have just stayed at your place instead!

[apollos-boyfriend]

i do think it’s funny how many people end up adopting akira by the end of persona 5 in one way or another. he’s world’s most found-family coded boy fr

[agender-wolfie]

Trying to finish Tomie and it’s a chore. She’s such a cunt, no wonder terfs love her 🙄

[letsrilakkusu-blog]

Favorite recent reads - Part 2

Finishing off my list of favorite books read in the past two years!

Breasts and Eggs by Mieko Kawakami

Breasts and Eggs is a two-part novel with a woman named Natsu as the center. The first part focuses on a summer when she is visited in Tokyo by her older sister, who is looking to get a breast enhancement procedure done, and her niece, who for reasons unknown has stopped speaking. The second part takes place years later as Natsu contemplates her options to pursue motherhood as she grows older without a partner.

I was profoundly impacted by this story and its discussions of identity, as a woman, as a mother, as a child. One of the characters holds the view that giving birth to a child is essentially an act of violence against them, because the child never asked to be born and you cannot guarantee that it will live a safe, happy, healthy life. While extreme, this tapped into my concerns about bringing a child into the world in its current state, and it strengthened my resolve that a child is a blessing to you as a parent. The child owes you nothing because you wanted to have them, and you should be doing everything in your power to make them feel happy and loved.

The Mountains Sing by Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai

I always thought of myself as more of a contemporary fiction reader, but The Mountains Sing opened my eyes to the beauty and intrigue of historical fiction as well. This epic tale spans three generations of the Tran family as they navigate life in Vietnam through various harrowing historical events, such as the Land Reform, the Great Famine during the Japanese occupation, and the separation of the North and South and the resulting Vietnam War. Each generation of the family experiences loss, suffering, and sacrifice of unimaginable scale, but they continue to endure and build themselves back up each time with inspiring grit and grace. The importance of family, forgiveness (for others, and yourself), and staying true to your values were heavily instilled in me. The prose is beautiful, poetic, and paints a picture of Vietnam that I never knew, and I gained a greater understanding of the history of this embattled country that was never taught to me. Also, it had me craving pho the entire time I was reading it.

Pachinko by Min Jin Lee

I saw The Mountains Sing often being compared to Pachinko, which was published a few years earlier, so I decided to make this my next read and it confirmed that I do in fact love sweeping historical sagas. The central character is Sunja, but the story starts in 1910 with her parents and follows the family all the way to 1989 with Sunja's grandson. I was aware of the atrocities that the Japanese committed against Koreans both in Korea and in Japan, but seeing it laid out on a more detailed, personal level was eye-opening and devastating. As pointed out by Sunja's mother, a woman's lot is to suffer, and so do all the women of Pachinko. They work endlessly and sacrifice everything for a better future for their children, and despite that, things don't always work out the way they wish. But it is the strength and resilience of these woman in the face of adversity that keeps the family marching forward, its flame never extinguished no matter how hard the winds may blow.

As a side note, the television series adaptation by Apple TV+ was ambitious and really well done. It took a lot of liberties with the plot but kept the important points, and the way it tells the story with parallel timelines is very interesting and effective. I live for Steve Sanghyun Noh as Isak, and I look forward to the seasons to follow.

Bonus: Greatest disappointments

The Midnight Library by Matt Haig - Predictable, painfully awkward, and preachy. I read it because it was in like every book club and receiving all kinds of hype but it was a huge letdown.

The Book of Form and Emptiness by Ruth Ozeki - I was excited to read Ruth Ozeki's newest novel after loving A Tale for the Time Being so much, but this wasn't it. The premise was interesting but it felt really long and a little too meta, and Benny wasn't a very likeable main character even though I know it's not really his fault.

[folkfreaks]

does anyone have any french contemporary lit recommendations for enjoyers of elif batuman mieko kawakami carmen maria machado etc etc merci beaucoup