Waiting on Wednesday: Book Girl and the Suicidal Mime by Mizuki Nomura

(Meme from Breaking the Spine)

This week I'm waiting on the U.S./Canadian release of Japanese light novel Book Girl and the Suicidal Mime

Book Girl and the Suicidal Mime by Mizuki Nomura

For self-styled "book girl," third-year high school student Tohko Amano, being the head of the literary club is more than just an extracurricular activity with minor perks. It's her bread and butter . . . literally! Tohko is actually a literature-gobbling demon, and instead of the less palatable option of water-soaked bread, she opts to munch on torn out pages from all kinds of stories. But for Tohko, the real delicacies are handwritten stories. And to satisfy her gourmet tastes, she's employed (aka. browbeaten) one Konoha Inoue, an underclassman who has retreated from writing novels after his experiences with getting published at an early age. So day in and day out, Konoha scribbles away to satisfy Tohko's appetite. But when, one day, another student comes knocking on the literary club door to seek advice on writing love letters, will Tohko discover a new kind of delicacy to whet her voracious appetite?

Release Date: July 27, 2010

I've been hearing about this title on and off for the last year. Or, to be more specific, I've been hearing about the buzz for the anime film adaptation Bungaku Shoujo, which was going to be produced by Production I.G., whose company is known for producing quality shows/movies/OVAs. (I concede that there is also a 3-part OVA adaptation for this novel as well, but I've heard less buzz over that, and wasn't aware of it until recently) So when I found out that the novel was getting translated into English, my interest was piqued because I always like to try reading the original novel source before watching the film adaptation, you know? Also finding this review for the novel made me even more curious about this title. From the summary I thought it was going to be a straight-up comedy, but it seems to be going down a slice-of-life wistful tone which can be an interesting handle on playing out this premise. With translated books though, often the quality of the translator's work will make or break the book. A lot of light novels that get translated have pretty shoddy to mediocre translations at best (Though I do tend to like the translations provided by VIZ company, they're pretty reliable. This book however, is done by YEN Press, and while I like their manga/manhwa translations, the translation of the Haruhi novels on the other hand, were awkward). Oh well, guess we'll have to wait for July to see.

I will hopefully get to this novel and finish reading it in time for the Debut Author Challenge, as this U.S./Canadian release is Mizuki Nomura's debut on this side of the ocean. I'm being flexible with my interpretation of the YA/MG qualifications of this challenge here, as I'm interpreting this as any novel that is marketed towards a teenage audience, nevermind that the original language it was written in wasn't in English and the target audience isn't based in the US or UK. While I see that international blogger participation is encouraged in this challenge, I think non-English-language titles are far less promoted for this Challenge. In fact, I have yet to see one review for a non-English debut YA title. (Please correct me if I'm wrong about this.) And I see no reason why this should be the case.

Movie Trailer:



OVA Trailer: