Stopped reading this in December 2020 and picked it up again bc I was craving more Japanese lit, something ethereal and light where nothing happens. Tsukiko is such a slacker and that made me think of the new “rise” of “slacker literature” (memorial, pizza girl) in the USA. Most protagonists in contemporary Japanese lit are slackers. Look at banana, h murakami, ryu murakami. No goals no western canon