Hanzai Japan<\/em> is a truly international, cross-genre collection that will make your head spin in a good way.<\/p>\nWhy this mention of head-spinning? Well, in this anthology you\u2019ll find, for example, stories about vampires living in a near-future Japan, a talking map, a morphing tattoo, a high school girl who brings down Japan\u2019s technological infrastructure,\u2026I could go on. But for now, I\u2019ll focus on a few of the pieces that especially tickled my fancy: \u201cRough Night in Little Toke\u201d by Libby Cudmore, \u201cMonologue of a Universal Transverse Mercator Projection\u201d by Yumeaki Hirayama, and \u201cThe Girl Who Loved Shonen Knife\u201d by Carrie Vaughn.<\/p>\n
Freewheeling and foul-mouthed, the narrator of \u201cRough Night in Little Toke\u201d takes us on a trip through that part of New York where tattoo shops and comic book stories rub shoulders with bars that blast heavy metal and feature waitresses in impossibly-skimpy clothing. When the narrator, in a drunken stupor, decides to get a tattoo, he gets much, much<\/i> more than he bargained for.\u00a0 The \u201cdragon\u201d kanji that he chooses begins changing almost immediately, turning into the kanji for \u201csound,\u201d \u201cdemon,\u201d and even \u201crabbit.\u201d He ultimately realizes that whenever someone touches his (increasingly painful) tattoo, he temporarily takes on that individual\u2019s personality. And when his friend Steve goes off the deep end\u2026let\u2019s just say that I\u2019m never getting a tattoo. Ever. Something I will<\/i> be doing, though, is reading more Libby Cudmore, beginning with The Big Rewind<\/i> (out in February). Her prose crackles on the page and the hyper, frenetic pace of \u201cRough Night\u201d both entertains and excites.<\/p>\n
Then there\u2019s the sentient atlas of \u201cMonologue of a Universal Transverse Mercator Projection.\u201d You read that right. But this isn\u2019t just any<\/i> talking map- this one \u201cconceals and emphasizes\u201d its own routes and landmarks to most efficiently get its owner to where he needs to go. But don\u2019t talk to it about GPS devices: those are crude, rude addle-headed toys that don\u2019t know the first thing about the human mind. So when this physical atlas realizes that its owner needs its help to carry out his string of murders, the atlas is up to the task. The problems, though, start when the atlas\u2019s next owner begins relying more on a map he made from the skin of one of his victims.<\/p>\n
*shudders*<\/p>\n
Finally, we come to \u201cThe Girl Who Loved Shonen Knife,\u201d with its narrator who is so incredibly fixated on having her band (Flying Jelly Attack) perform at her high school\u2019s spring dance that the planet could explode and reality come apart at the seams and she\u2019d still be holding rehearsals with the other girls of FJA . Only Lizard Blood, a \u201cLolita death metal band,\u201d threatens this dream, and how could anyone take them seriously when the girls in that band use synthesizers that plug into neuromuscular implants to play their \u201cmusic\u201d? One teeny tiny itsy bitsy problem with this whole rivalry, though: Japan is crumbling around them.\u00a0 Cyber attacks on banks have brought the government to its knees and anarchy looms. But then a strange young man arrives at the school and we learn that the leader of Lizard Blood isn\u2019t as innocent as she seems.<\/p>\n
So if this doesn\u2019t sound like a trippy, fun, and highly entertaining collection to you, then I\u2019m not 100% sure that you\u2019re human. I mean, maybe you\u2019re a space lizard in a human suit. With terrible taste. If my review of Hanzai Japan<\/em> did<\/i> pique your interest, though, then go grab a copy.<\/p>\n(first posted on SF Signal 11\/4\/2015)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
edited by Nick Mamatas and Masumi Washington Haikasoru October 20, 2015 300 pages \u201cI haven\u2019t had this much fun in a long time.\u201d That\u2019s what I kept thinking as I read my way through Hanzai Japan, the latest anthology of tales from and about Japan from Haikasoru. And while \u201chanzai\u201d means \u201ccrime,\u201d that\u2019s not nearly<\/p>\n
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edited by Nick Mamatas and Masumi Washington<\/p>\n