The Night is Short, Walk on Girl Book Review

Most of what I read are series of several or more books. I haven’t read too many standalone novels in my life, but most of the ones that I have read sucked hot a**.  And yet… I decided to read another standalone- The Night is Short, Walk on Girl– published in English by Yen Press. Let’s see if I made another big mistake.

The premise is really simple. Almost too simple for its own good. A wholly unremarkable boy sees a beautiful woman at someone’s wedding reception, and naturally, falls in love at first sight (Every Day and Fault in Our Stars PTSD ahoy). So, the guy decides to talk to her. But that ends up being easier said than done.

Yeah, so, Night is Short is basically this dude trying to talk to her, but dumb bullcrap keeps getting in his way, as if it was some kind of sitcom. That’s the entire book. 

As for the presentation of the whole thing… hoo boy. The way this thing is written reminds of Haruki Murakami, at least going off of 1Q84, the sole novel of his that I read. Since a lot of people consider Murakami to be a genius, maybe you’re already interested in Night is Short. However, I found 1Q84 to be incredibly pretentious and pseudo-intellectual; trying to be weird for the sake of being weird. Night is Short is peppered with a lot of similarly superfluous passages and hackneyed philosophical commentary. 

Let’s use the very beginning of the story as an example. Night is Short starts with a whole passage about how punching people with your thumb under your fingers is “friendlier” than wrapping your thumb around the outside. It goes into some metaphor about how the thumb represents love or something. It doesn’t really mean anything, but sounds like it does when taken at face value.

Fortunately, the actual antics themselves are pretty funny. From vengeful bookstore gods to massive cyclones, it’s ridiculous how much crap this guy has to go through just to talk to a single girl. But hey, that’s how it feels in real life, right?

Hopefully you enjoy said antics, cuz the characters are next to non-existent. The main man is as generic as you’d expect, while the girl’s only defining quality is her rendition of The Robot. There are others who take part, such as the self-proclaimed tengu, Mr. Higuchi, and the drunken loan shark, Rihaku. They have more personality than the unrequited lovebirds, but not by much.

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Final Verdict: 7/10

Night is Short, Walk on Girl is a bog-standard romcom with a bunch of waxy poetic sugar-coating on it. It’s not utter misery, like some other things, but I can’t call it money well spent either. Check it out if you want a silly, short tale of unrequited love.