It’s taken me an embarrassingly long time to dig into contemporary Japanese literature. When I ask myself why, the answer is usually something like “uhh…translation feels a little scary?”, which leaves me feeling pretty dissatisfied with myself. Having acknowledged this as my starting point, I thought I’d share some titles that got me from “translation’s a little scary” to gobbling up authors like Banana Yoshimoto and reading manga with my teen.

It’s all about finding accessible gateways. This will vary per person, so these titles are only a starting point. There are amazing genre translations in mystery, romance (especially in manga), horror, fantasy, science fiction and what I tend to think of as “cool, speculative, slippery stuff”, so the sky is the limit. 

Manga:

My Hero Academia by Kohei Horikoshi: Don’t let the yelling or flashy fights scare you away from this shonen masterpiece. These characters will make you feel, and it’ll give you a cultural keyhole into everything from school life, the collective good an appreciation for cold soba and mappo tofu.

Bungo Stray Dogs by Kafka Asagiri: This is the ultimate manga for book lovers. “Bungo” means “classical or literary Japanese”. All of the characters are named for writers in the Japanese and Western canons, and the mysteries are full of familiar references and tropes. If you want literary easter eggs and a primer in Japanese literature, you can’t beat it. 

On the other, darker is anything by Junji Ito. If you’re into horror—body horror, literary 

horror, paranormal horror, psychological horror, literally all the horror—check out this prolific horror manga artist. Although he’s easiest to find in the manga section, he’s also done full length works, novel adaptations, and illustrated short stories, so odds are, he’s done something that will make your skin crawl.

Light Novels:

The Apothecary Diaries: Specifically, the light novels by Natsu Hyuga, not to be confused with the manga. What’s a light novel? It’s just the novel version of a manga, (the versions often exist side by side) Personally, I find LN’s to be a little more accessible, given that I didn’t grow up reading back to front, but either way, you’re getting a great story.

The Apothecary Diaries features Mao Mao, one of the driest, most no-nonsense heroines I have ever read in any genre. The series follow Mao Mao, a young apothecary from the pleasure district to servitude in the Imperial Palace where she sleuths out mysteries like an impatient, poison loving Sherlock Holmes.  It also features a super satisfying slow-burn romance with Jinshi, her not-quite Watson.

Short Story collections / Short Novels: 

Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi. This is a collection of inter-related short stories that take place in a cafe in Tokyo where you can go back to a moment in time. This was a poignant, universal read that gave me a lot of strong, quiet feelings.

Revenge: Eleven Dark Tales by Yoko Ogawa. Ogawa has written everything from short, achy books like The Housekeeper and the Professor, to The Memory Police which is set in an authoritarian dystopia that made my stomach hurt. Revenge is a tight, mean little collection that gives you all the bite and darkness of a weird true crime series.

Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto. Oh, my gosh, I love Banana Yoshimoto! You can’t go wrong by picking up anything she’s written, but Kitchen is my favorite. It follows the friendship between a young woman mourning her grandmother and the young man who invites her to live with him and his trans mother.  It came out in 1988, but it feels shockingly contemporary, especially in the way Yoshimoto handles gender identity and the gray zones in relationships. 

After Dark by Haruki Murakami. Murakami comes with a lot of baggage, so I hesitated here. But the fact is that regardless of baggage this short novel was insightful, engaging and fun to read. Everything happens over the course of a single night as we follow Mari, a young woman in a Tokyo Denny’s. There are surreal elements, but they’re woven in so tightly that I barely noticed. It’s a good place to start with a polarizing cultural powerhouse.

These titles are just the tippy tip of the iceberg. There are as many doors into Japanese literature as there are people interested in stepping through. Don’t let the idea of translation stop you from dipping in your toe. The water’s just fine.