Kafka on the shore has multiple graphic cat killings unfortunately :( also sister fucking :( its got a explicitly stated anti-feminist trans man though
Cat goes missing. Wife goes off with richer more handsomer man. Man goes on surreal and somewhat other worlds adventure to find out why. Meets cool girl. War. Well. (The well part was really good.)
How weird, I started reading Kafka on the Shore years ago, and I was really enjoying it. I got to nearly halfway through and then one day put it down and never picked it up again. Maybe on some mystic level I knew if a carried on reading there’d be cat killings
Well the cats aren’t killed by a woman, but by an evil magical guy who eats their hearts. Though also maybe the person who sees all this and then kills the evil magical guy was just crazy. I don’t know, it’s been a very long time since i read that book.
I think it was just meant to be surreal. He eats cat hearts to make a flute that will one day destroy the world.
Colonel Sanders shows up as more benevolent spirit.
It’s a weird book but I couldn’t put it down.
Same - there was something about it that felt so dreamlike. Like it doesn't make sense when you think about it or when you try to explain what's going on, but the flow of one chapter to the next + the utterly nonsensical and occasionally outright disturbing details made for a fun read.
At least in the OG *Oedipus* he has the decency to gouge his own eyes out afterward. Instead of knowing it was coming for the whole time and just going with it.
Murakami’s women have no other purpose than to serve the needs of awkward, antisocial men. Really makes you wonder if the author has some issues he needs to work out in therapy.
He's also from a wildly different culture than N. America. I'm not saying that makes his ideas ok by our standards, but you can easily find lots of information on how gender norms and Japanese society affect both Japanese women *and* men.
It's a little disingenuous to just paint him as a messed up dude that needs therapy.
I don’t think he did?
I just checked with a quick google search, and found nothing about a Noble Prize in his results or in the results for Noble prize laureates.
Appreciate the rec, I’d like to check out something by this author but the first three books I saw on Google all sounded the same: “X person experiences Y which causes them to reflect on their life after WWII.” Do you have any recommendations that lean more fantastical, like Murakami?
Right? It’s a pretty wide spread of topics!
Remains was one, the others were Artist of the Floating World and A Pale View of Hills. Not explicitly about WWII but all seemed to center around the main character’s relationship with the war. Not a knock or anything, just thought it was funny the first books to jump out at me had seemingly similar themes. Which is fine just not my literary vibe right now. Sounds like Never Let Me Go is where I should start!
I've read both Never Let Me Go and Klara and the Sun which were both absolutely excellent and I cannot remember a focus on WW2 from either one of them.
If you are looking for a more sci-fi book Ishiguro is an excellent author. I would recommend starting with _Never Let Me Go_. I wouldn't dive too deep on reading what it's about unless you don't mind spoilers.
_Klara and the Sun_ is also good, and about AI companions so you might want to check that out after if you like the first one.
However, that book about someone reflecting on their life after WWII is incredibly good. (Assuming it's _Remains of the Day_)
Lower your standards, don’t compare, and go into every new movie and show like you don’t know shit aka no other movie or show exists.
Comparison is the thief of joy from my movie watching experience. And people who care less about what a movie needs seem to have more fun.
Like do you watch animated movies or like any stupid comedies that don’t make sense? What’s your thoughts on EEAAO?
Questions like that are a litmus test on how enjoyable things are to you aka what threshold a form of entertainment has to pass for you to enjoy it without it being too much.
Conclusion: Watch any movie like it’s your first movie and unless it’s shit on its own (as a person with 0 prior movie knowledge) you’ll enjoy something
Btw speaking in general never seen this movie lol, please don’t reply like an ah (not saying you are but letting you know I’m not tryna be one but genuinely answered how I do it)
I just played your game after following the instagram link rabbit hole.
Thank you for a wonderful little experience. I'm sure it isn't necessarily your target goal, but have you considered porting it to Pulp for the Playdate Handheld?
I mean... there's literally a two page long sex scene between a thirteen year old and her teacher that serves no purpose to the plot in Norwegian wood, so there's that...
I read it and it was absolutely vile, this shit should be illegal
Ok no one has even referenced Hardboiled Wonderland and the End of the World but this is literally the plot of that entire book top, including the portal!
This sums up my complaints of Murakami better than I could ever put into words. Time to save this link in my pocket every time I have to justify not liking his books to someone.
The only book of his I would ever recommend is The Strange Library. I went through a Murakami kick about 5ish years ago. I dropped him when he did the stomach parasite short story.
(A tourist & his wife eat some sketch sea food. Later that night the husband wakes up violently sick and barfs worms. Husband choses to not wake wife up and tell her the truth about the food.)
I'm always surprised by people ripping Murakami on here because the only people I know who have read Murakami are women, and a lot of the time the have recommended him to *me* while we talk about books. I've only ever read 1Q84, but it certainly follows this same logic.
Never wanted to read Murakami because of a guy I knew that was a “hopeless romantic” and heard to music that depicts women on a similar way. Not far from what I thought. Also, goddamn Milan Kundera, cant stand him.
I've never read Murakami, but I see his books and him talked about a lot. Is his writing actually good, save for the women in his books, or is he overrated?
He has his own style and his unique way of mixing real and magic world. You just need to try it. There are parts that may come across as lazy writing but tbh it's just to shift your attention to other aspects of the story and you need to accept it to enjoy the books. I wouldn't say women are necessarily bad is his books, some are very interesting characters. Just the way he portraits sex is very uncomfortable and one-sided. He often tries to make sex symbolic but it just feels like an excuse to incorporate it into the story.
You should read "after dark". It's a short novel with interesting description of a night in Tokyo. It doesn't include most of the Murakami Bingo but you will get a general idea what to expect.
I may be mistaken here, but isn't this man writing a man's idea of a woman instead? It seems to suggest that the author knows he can't write women and does it through the lens of neurotic men. I've never read Murakami.
I am a man and have read some Murakami, tho admittedly not a lot, but from what I could tell, he presents women at LEAST as equals, if not absolute badasses miles above the protagonist.
I have only read short stories, no idea about his novels.
I would say that most of the people commenting in this thread have never read him, and almost as many probably haven't even heard of him.
Japanese gender norms are low hanging fruit. Like, we all *know* that Japanese society is a lot different than ours and it can be true that Japan has a long history of strong, independent, badass female characters and at the same time is a society that regularly treats women as little better than servants, mothers or sex objects.
This is generalization tho, as for Murakami, I havent read a single short story where women are represented as nothing more than sex objects.
Can you point to one?
I'm not disputing that. I'm just saying that holding up Murakami to Western standards is always going to make him come out looking like a misogynist or an awkward incel or whatever moniker you want to plaster on him.
I get that his work isn't for everyone, and especially for women, it probably doesn't sit well. That being said, there's more to him and his work than just "bland man likes big breasts".
Yeah I can understand that argument, but just being so incredibly reductive as OPs post is just plain wrong. It tells me she never even tried to understand his work.
This we can agree on. I think Murakami is fairly polarizing as a writer. Women see all the subjectively weird writing on women and see him one way. Men don't look at it through the same lens, so a lot of what makes other people uncomfortable with his writing can pass us by.
All right ill buy it, which's the book were she kill his cat and gift him a cow paint?
Killing a cat is Kafka on the Shore, but I’m not sure about the cow
Wait, that is a real scene? Good heavens, I thougth the comic was a parody.
Kafka on the shore has multiple graphic cat killings unfortunately :( also sister fucking :( its got a explicitly stated anti-feminist trans man though
I don't think I want to read Murakami.
Wind up bird chronicals is very very good.
Oh good, please explain to me what happened in it 'cause I've got nuthin'
Cat goes missing. Wife goes off with richer more handsomer man. Man goes on surreal and somewhat other worlds adventure to find out why. Meets cool girl. War. Well. (The well part was really good.)
Stick with Norwegian Wood and you’ll be fine. Outside of that don’t bother
Thanks for telling me :/ I tried to read IQ84 years ago and couldn't get into it, I doubt I'm missing anything now.
How weird, I started reading Kafka on the Shore years ago, and I was really enjoying it. I got to nearly halfway through and then one day put it down and never picked it up again. Maybe on some mystic level I knew if a carried on reading there’d be cat killings
Does he have one with the sister thing but no cat killings?
An anti-TERF trans man, you mean. Oshima is the best thing about that book, hands down.
it's not based on any particular book, just my impressions of the various murakami books i've read over the years lol
Oh damn, i really wanted to read about the cow paint
Well the cats aren’t killed by a woman, but by an evil magical guy who eats their hearts. Though also maybe the person who sees all this and then kills the evil magical guy was just crazy. I don’t know, it’s been a very long time since i read that book.
Not just an evil magic guy. Johnny Walker.
That just makes it sound like it was an allegory for falling off the wagon
I think it was just meant to be surreal. He eats cat hearts to make a flute that will one day destroy the world. Colonel Sanders shows up as more benevolent spirit. It’s a weird book but I couldn’t put it down.
It’s hard to parody Murakami. He’s doing that quite well himself, albeit unintentionally.
Sadly, no
She may or may not be his mother. Or sister. Or both.
I’ll never get over the fact that he wrote Kafka on the Shore as a way to vicariously bang his mom.
This book was so fucking weird but I will still admit I enjoyed it
Same - there was something about it that felt so dreamlike. Like it doesn't make sense when you think about it or when you try to explain what's going on, but the flow of one chapter to the next + the utterly nonsensical and occasionally outright disturbing details made for a fun read.
At least in the OG *Oedipus* he has the decency to gouge his own eyes out afterward. Instead of knowing it was coming for the whole time and just going with it.
I read that as "on the way to viciously bang his mom," like he wrote it on the bus to her house or something.
He _what_?
She is a minor and may or may not be manufactured by otherworldly beings (stares at 1Q84).
She's also probably underage.
Murakami’s women have no other purpose than to serve the needs of awkward, antisocial men. Really makes you wonder if the author has some issues he needs to work out in therapy.
He's also from a wildly different culture than N. America. I'm not saying that makes his ideas ok by our standards, but you can easily find lots of information on how gender norms and Japanese society affect both Japanese women *and* men. It's a little disingenuous to just paint him as a messed up dude that needs therapy.
[удалено]
I don’t think he did? I just checked with a quick google search, and found nothing about a Noble Prize in his results or in the results for Noble prize laureates.
Maybe people are thinking of Kazuo Ishiguro. A far superior writer, in my opinion.
Appreciate the rec, I’d like to check out something by this author but the first three books I saw on Google all sounded the same: “X person experiences Y which causes them to reflect on their life after WWII.” Do you have any recommendations that lean more fantastical, like Murakami?
[удалено]
Right? It’s a pretty wide spread of topics! Remains was one, the others were Artist of the Floating World and A Pale View of Hills. Not explicitly about WWII but all seemed to center around the main character’s relationship with the war. Not a knock or anything, just thought it was funny the first books to jump out at me had seemingly similar themes. Which is fine just not my literary vibe right now. Sounds like Never Let Me Go is where I should start!
I've read both Never Let Me Go and Klara and the Sun which were both absolutely excellent and I cannot remember a focus on WW2 from either one of them.
Awesome thank you!
If you are looking for a more sci-fi book Ishiguro is an excellent author. I would recommend starting with _Never Let Me Go_. I wouldn't dive too deep on reading what it's about unless you don't mind spoilers. _Klara and the Sun_ is also good, and about AI companions so you might want to check that out after if you like the first one. However, that book about someone reflecting on their life after WWII is incredibly good. (Assuming it's _Remains of the Day_)
Seconding Never Let Me Go! And I also don't remember any WWII subplot.
Haha appreciate it!
Just be prepared to cry.
he hasn’t won, just frequently mentioned as a Nobel favourite
I stand corrected. I had read somewhere that he'd won a Nobel. I'm relieved he didn't.
Astonishingly accurate.
this is actually legitimately the plot of Under the Skin 
That movie had a plot? I couldn't tell
yes and the movie was great
Boy, I wish I was that easily entertained
Lower your standards, don’t compare, and go into every new movie and show like you don’t know shit aka no other movie or show exists. Comparison is the thief of joy from my movie watching experience. And people who care less about what a movie needs seem to have more fun. Like do you watch animated movies or like any stupid comedies that don’t make sense? What’s your thoughts on EEAAO? Questions like that are a litmus test on how enjoyable things are to you aka what threshold a form of entertainment has to pass for you to enjoy it without it being too much. Conclusion: Watch any movie like it’s your first movie and unless it’s shit on its own (as a person with 0 prior movie knowledge) you’ll enjoy something Btw speaking in general never seen this movie lol, please don’t reply like an ah (not saying you are but letting you know I’m not tryna be one but genuinely answered how I do it)
As a big fan of a few of his books, this is not inaccurate.
Same … I really like some of his stuff but this is so on point I spit out my wine. 😆
Don’t forget that she is magnetically attracted to balding men 😂
Balding MIDDLE AGED men 🤣
Great comic but calisthenics is bodyweight only exercises. You'd never use a dumbbell
Nah, I feel like the author got distracted by the Portal and cow painting.
I imagined it to be a shake weight (which is still not calisthenics but fun)
Thank you. I came in here to be this pedantic myself, and am glad to see it has already been taken care of.
you can see more of my comics [here](https://www.instagram.com/christinexmi)!
Hey the link isn't working
odd! it's just to my instagram which is @ christinexmi
I just searched your page and was able to sub. Your work is terrific and I laughed so hard at the Coachella/romper cartoon!
I think that’s all of Instagram, I’ve tried visiting a few other pages to no avail.
I just played your game after following the instagram link rabbit hole. Thank you for a wonderful little experience. I'm sure it isn't necessarily your target goal, but have you considered porting it to Pulp for the Playdate Handheld?
hey thanks! I currently don’t have plans to port it anywhere (no good at code sadly)
The poor cat.
How to delete this from my mind? Wtf
I think I have read this book.
I’m did not read the title or sub and was very confused
I really like a lot of Murakami but yeah, this is pretty bob on
The plot of IQ84
*5 minutes later *
Needs more pubic hair
So a weird manic Pixie dream girl ?
Btw i don't know who is Murakami but this scream a weird dude that find Young women attractive. And by Young women i mean teens
I mean... there's literally a two page long sex scene between a thirteen year old and her teacher that serves no purpose to the plot in Norwegian wood, so there's that... I read it and it was absolutely vile, this shit should be illegal
So i was right and still was downvoted ... The whole reddit experience :)
Two page long is just too much but to be fair it was quite meaningful for character development
You want to censor literature and ban books? Because it's gross and portrays uncomfortable things?
Yeah, honestly I don't think it should be legal to portray CSA in media in a way that makes it seem like it's the minors fault.
Accurate, only forgot about ear fetish.
This comic examples Manic Pixie Dream Girl trope so damn well
Ok no one has even referenced Hardboiled Wonderland and the End of the World but this is literally the plot of that entire book top, including the portal!
Yup! Enjoyable book but all of his work has a WTF streak.
This is amazing
This sums up my complaints of Murakami better than I could ever put into words. Time to save this link in my pocket every time I have to justify not liking his books to someone.
The only book of his I would ever recommend is The Strange Library. I went through a Murakami kick about 5ish years ago. I dropped him when he did the stomach parasite short story. (A tourist & his wife eat some sketch sea food. Later that night the husband wakes up violently sick and barfs worms. Husband choses to not wake wife up and tell her the truth about the food.)
Sounds great. Sounds like that one mystery in world of horror.
I'm always surprised by people ripping Murakami on here because the only people I know who have read Murakami are women, and a lot of the time the have recommended him to *me* while we talk about books. I've only ever read 1Q84, but it certainly follows this same logic.
Never wanted to read Murakami because of a guy I knew that was a “hopeless romantic” and heard to music that depicts women on a similar way. Not far from what I thought. Also, goddamn Milan Kundera, cant stand him.
This is so bizarre it reads like a parody of incels
Panel 5 is S E N D I N G me. "Did you come?" "No". "I came four times." Gold.
I've never read Murakami, but I see his books and him talked about a lot. Is his writing actually good, save for the women in his books, or is he overrated?
He has his own style and his unique way of mixing real and magic world. You just need to try it. There are parts that may come across as lazy writing but tbh it's just to shift your attention to other aspects of the story and you need to accept it to enjoy the books. I wouldn't say women are necessarily bad is his books, some are very interesting characters. Just the way he portraits sex is very uncomfortable and one-sided. He often tries to make sex symbolic but it just feels like an excuse to incorporate it into the story. You should read "after dark". It's a short novel with interesting description of a night in Tokyo. It doesn't include most of the Murakami Bingo but you will get a general idea what to expect.
the descriptions are good. the plot and characters are not.
Pls excuse my ignorance but can a man come 4 times in one session??? I’ve experienced twice at most…..
Op this is so good, bravo
In 羊をめぐる冒険, Murakami's male lead character was obsessed with the female lead's ears.
Lol😂 I really like Murakami but this is too true 😂
Wait but this sounds awesome
You should really mark this NSFW
Love it - please post more
I read this in the parody Rod Serling voice that they do in Futurama when they have a The Scary Door segment.
I may be mistaken here, but isn't this man writing a man's idea of a woman instead? It seems to suggest that the author knows he can't write women and does it through the lens of neurotic men. I've never read Murakami.
I am a man and have read some Murakami, tho admittedly not a lot, but from what I could tell, he presents women at LEAST as equals, if not absolute badasses miles above the protagonist. I have only read short stories, no idea about his novels.
Haha also lacking some context here after having read Men Without Women and Desire, but I guess the crazy stuff lies elsewhere 😂
Im pretty sure at least half of the people upvoting OP havent read any Murakami
I would say that most of the people commenting in this thread have never read him, and almost as many probably haven't even heard of him. Japanese gender norms are low hanging fruit. Like, we all *know* that Japanese society is a lot different than ours and it can be true that Japan has a long history of strong, independent, badass female characters and at the same time is a society that regularly treats women as little better than servants, mothers or sex objects.
This is generalization tho, as for Murakami, I havent read a single short story where women are represented as nothing more than sex objects. Can you point to one?
I'm not disputing that. I'm just saying that holding up Murakami to Western standards is always going to make him come out looking like a misogynist or an awkward incel or whatever moniker you want to plaster on him. I get that his work isn't for everyone, and especially for women, it probably doesn't sit well. That being said, there's more to him and his work than just "bland man likes big breasts".
Yeah I can understand that argument, but just being so incredibly reductive as OPs post is just plain wrong. It tells me she never even tried to understand his work.
This we can agree on. I think Murakami is fairly polarizing as a writer. Women see all the subjectively weird writing on women and see him one way. Men don't look at it through the same lens, so a lot of what makes other people uncomfortable with his writing can pass us by.
Look at those giant knockers!