Hello, readers! It is Monday again! As it is Monday, welcome to another #5OnMyTBR update. The rule is relatively simple. I must pick five books from my to-be-read piles that fit the week’s theme.

This week’s theme: No Prompt

Since there is still no prompt this week, I opted to feature Japanese coming-of-age novels. Today is 成人の日 (Seijin no Hi) or coming-of-age day for the Japanese. A public holiday celebrated every second Monday of January, it is held to congratulate and encourage all those who have already reached the age of maturity between April 2 of the previous year and April 1 of the current year. Without ado, here are some Japanese coming-of-age novels I am looking forward to.  

5OnMyTBR is a bookish meme hosted by E. @ Local Bee Hunter’s Nook where you choose five books from your to-be-read pile that fit that week’s theme. If you’d like more info, head over to the announcement post!

Title: Sanshiro
Author: Natsume Sōseki
Translator (from Japanese): Jay Rubin
Publisher: Perigee Books
Publishing Date: 1985 (1908)
No. of Pages: 248

Synopsis: 

Sanshiro leaves the sleepy countryside for the first time in his life to experience the fast-moving “real world” of Tokyo, its women, and the cool dark world of the Imperial University. To the timid, unsophisticated though not insensitive man, the new world and its people are at once exhilarating and frightening. There is Hirota, a higher school English teacher who makes pronouncements on everything from art to ethics and the perilous state of Japanese society. Yojiro, a student who lives with Hirtoa and takes Sanshiro under his wing, is a well-meaning, wheeling-dealing maneuverer. His campaign to win a university appointment for Hirota, whom he has nicknamed the “great darkness,” constitutes the novel’s subplot. Nonomiya is a scientist whose research on the pressure of light has won him a reputation. In order to continue his success he must live underground in his “cave.” Nonomiya’s sister Yoshiko and her beautiful, elusive friend Mineko complete Sanshiro’s circle. The novel follows Sanshiro’s shadowy, inarticulate pursuit of the bewitching Mineko. In the subtle tension between our appreciation of Sōseki’s lively humor and our awareness of Sanshiro’s doomed innocence, the novel comes to light.

Title: Go
Author: Kazuki Kaneshiro

Synopsis: 

For two teens, falling in love is going to make a world of difference in this beautifully translated, bold, and endearing novel about love, loss, and the pain of racial discrimination.

As a Korean student in a Japanese high school, Sugihara has had to defend himself against all kinds of bullies. But nothing could have prepared him for the heartache he feels when he falls hopelessly in love with a Japanese girl named Sakurai. Immersed in their shared love for classical music and foreign movies, the two gradually grow closer and closer.

One night, after being hit by personal tragedy, Sugihara reveals to Sakurai that he is not Japanese—as his name might indicate.

Torn between a chance at self-discovery that he’s ready to seize and the prejudices of others that he can’t control, Sugihara must decide who he wants to be and where he wants to go next. Will Sakurai be able to confront her own bias and accompany him on his journey? (Source: Goodreads)

Title: Coin Locker Babies
Author: Ryū Murakami

Synopsis: 

A surreal coming-of-age tale that establishes Ryu Murakami as one of the most inventive young writers in the world today.

Abandoned at birth in adjacent train station lockers, two troubled boys spend their youth in an orphanage and with foster parents on a semi-deserted island before finally setting off for the city to find and destroy the women who first rejected them. Both are drawn to an area of freaks and hustlers called Toxitown. One becomes a bisexual rock singer, star of this exotic demimonde, while the other, a pole vaulter, seeks his revenge in the company of his girlfriend, Anemone, a model who has converted her condominium into a tropical swamp for her pet crocodile.

Together and apart, their journey from a hot metal box to a stunning, savage climax is a brutal funhouse ride through the eerie landscape of late-twentieth-century Japan. (Source: Goodreads)

Title: Spring Snow
Author: Yukio Mishima

Synopsis: 

Tokyo, 1912. The closed world of the ancient aristocracy is being breached for the first time by outsiders – rich provincial families, a new and powerful political and social elite.

Kiyoaki has been raised among the elegant Ayakura family – members of the waning aristocracy – but he is not one of them. Coming of age, he is caught up in the tensions between the old and the new, and his feelings for the exquisite, spirited Satoko, observed from the sidelines by his devoted friend Honda. When Satoko is engaged to a royal prince, Kiyoaki realises the magnitude of his passion. (Source: Goodreads)

Title: Goodbye Tsugumi
Author: Banana Yoshimoto

Synopsis: 

Banana Yoshimoto’s novels of young life in Japan have made her an international sensation. Goodbye Tsugumi is an offbeat story of a deep and complicated friendship between two female cousins that ranks among her best work. Maria is the only daughter of an unmarried woman. She has grown up at the seaside alongside her cousin Tsugumi, a lifelong invalid, charismatic, spoiled, and occasionally cruel. Now Maria’s father is finally able to bring Maria and her mother to Tokyo, ushering Maria into a world of university, impending adulthood, and a “normal” family. When Tsugumi invites Maria to spend a last summer by the sea, a restful idyll becomes a time of dramatic growth as Tsugumi finds love and Maria learns the true meaning of home and family. She also has to confront both Tsugumi’s inner strength and the real possibility of losing her. Goodbye Tsugumi is a beguiling, resonant novel from one of the world’s finest young writers. (Source: Goodreads)