I'm telling you, Japanese authors are. a. different. Breed. They are unapologetic even if their work contains gut-wrenching parts.

It boggles my mind how they develop stories and concepts like this. Wherein at a far valley lives the fattest woman in Japan who is poor yet can't stop eating even at the expense of her family, a wife who gave birth to a child who acts no better than a vegetable and is now carrying her brother-in-law's child, and a fallen leader who isolated himself for years for self retribution. It struck me that the deceased had chosen death because of the things incapable of communication. Mitsu, the bearer of his brother's truth and a protagonist stricken by depression throughout the story, will allow himself enlightenment and redemption.

The book is strange, bloody, and indeed is a major feat of the imagination.