What do you think?
Rate this book
少女不十分
Pub 2014-03-20 304 Traditional Chinese sophisticated light literature Sorry. this girl is not very (full) no way to write the plot summary. Because. this is not a novel. If you want to find out what hints and surprises in the text transforms room. or uplifting ending. I certainly did not meet expectations. This is one thing that happened a long time ago. is the last thing. but something has been painted next sentence points. 10 years ago there had been something of memory has long been ambiguous. and not linked to what the future. This is not even a used book entertainment. but there is one thing I can guarantee. In order to write this girl is not very (full). I spent a full 10 years on Girl and I are not very unrelated.
- GenresComics Manga
232 pages, Paperback
First published September 7, 2011
1 person is currently reading
27 people want to read
About the author
NisiOisiN
288 books967 followersNisio Isin (西尾維新 Nishio Ishin), frequently written as NisiOisiN to emphasize that his pen name is a palindrome, is a Japanese novelist and manga writer. He attended and left Ritsumeikan University without graduating. In 2002, he debuted with the novel Kubikiri Cycle, which earned him the 23rd Mephisto Award at twenty years of age.
He currently works with Kodansha on Pandora, the Kodansha Box magazine, and Faust, a literary magazine containing the works of other young authors who similarly take influence from light novels and otaku culture. He was also publishing a twelve volume series over twelve months for the Kodansha Box line; Ryusui Seiryoin was matching this output, and the Kodansha Box website stated that this is the first time in the world two authors have done twelve volume monthly novel series simultaneously from the same publisher.
In February, 2008, his novel Death Note Another Note: The Los Angeles BB Murder Cases was released in English by Viz Media. Del Rey Manga has already released the first volume in his Zaregoto series. His Bakemonogatari, Nisemonogatari and Katanagatari novels have been adapted into anime series. Nekomonogatari (Kuro) has been adapted into an anime TV movie, and Kizumonogatari will be release in theaters this year. Monogatari Series: Second Season, adapted from 6 books in Monogatari Series will air in July 2013. Another of his works, Medaka Box (manga), has been adapted into a two-season anime series.
He currently works with Kodansha on Pandora, the Kodansha Box magazine, and Faust, a literary magazine containing the works of other young authors who similarly take influence from light novels and otaku culture. He was also publishing a twelve volume series over twelve months for the Kodansha Box line; Ryusui Seiryoin was matching this output, and the Kodansha Box website stated that this is the first time in the world two authors have done twelve volume monthly novel series simultaneously from the same publisher.
In February, 2008, his novel Death Note Another Note: The Los Angeles BB Murder Cases was released in English by Viz Media. Del Rey Manga has already released the first volume in his Zaregoto series. His Bakemonogatari, Nisemonogatari and Katanagatari novels have been adapted into anime series. Nekomonogatari (Kuro) has been adapted into an anime TV movie, and Kizumonogatari will be release in theaters this year. Monogatari Series: Second Season, adapted from 6 books in Monogatari Series will air in July 2013. Another of his works, Medaka Box (manga), has been adapted into a two-season anime series.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
April 21, 2016
Mark my words, I went into this book with low expectation because I never enjoy novels by this author (he is very popular in Japan, but his stories aren't my cup of tea) and in the end, like many of his stories before, this story also leaves me underwhelmed.
The setting is surreal and interesting enough (a school girl kidnapping a college male student!) but there is no depth nor emotion behind the two main characters nor their action; to tell the truth these main characters bore me a great deal. Plus it's really annoying when an author so readily expects his readers to read all of his previous books *and* only after that the readers can be able to get those in-jokes and the backstories in this particular story. So, 1.5 to 1.8 stars only.
The setting is surreal and interesting enough (a school girl kidnapping a college male student!) but there is no depth nor emotion behind the two main characters nor their action; to tell the truth these main characters bore me a great deal. Plus it's really annoying when an author so readily expects his readers to read all of his previous books *and* only after that the readers can be able to get those in-jokes and the backstories in this particular story. So, 1.5 to 1.8 stars only.
September 16, 2025
"Nisio Isin is my favorite author" are words I used to proclaim with an annoying frequency not too long ago, and I even started a wiki dedicated to cataloguing his entire body of work, so it should come off as pretty surprising that I haven't read any Nisio work in over a year. There are multiple reasons to it, ranging from the fact that I've been exploring a lot of new authors lately as well as catching up to some of my other favorites, to feeling something of a fatigue after continuously hearing that his new stuff has been declining in quality (I can't attest to it one way or another, since I haven't read a single thing he's written past 2019).
Still though, maybe I've been hesitant to read more from him lately because I was scared of burying the admiration I had for him under disappointment. If I popped open a Nisio book (or manga) today and found out that I just didn't really care anymore, what would that mean for me? That I've become disconnected from someone whose work used to mean so much to me?
None of that really has anything to do with this book though, since for one it was written in 2011, before even some of the certified Nisioisin classics I have in my favorites to this day, and also since I already read the manga adaptation long ago and already loved it back then. Still, I think reading this now has sparked an even more interesting reaction in me compared to when I first came across this story. This is the tale of an aspiring author, and that connects with me much more now given that I am also an aspiring author (well, the internet has made it so that I can expose my amateur musings to the void instead of locking them away forever, so while I certainly am no professional author, the lines have become a little blurrier. Still, I definitely don't feel like a real author, whatever that means). As interesting and good as the manga was, I think this novel should fairly be considered the truest form of this story. There is so much of the narrator and his worldview that seeps out of every sentence, and the gimmick/pretense of it being a true story about the author comes across as much more consistent in this form compared to something outright fictional as a manga.
And in general, the kind of metafiction that this story engages is in something that never really fails to grab me by the balls. As shameful as it probably is, despite being a champion of death of the author and free interpretation and all that, in the end I am still very much succeptible to the dangling of some glimpse into the author's true self, a real view into who they are that bleeds through their fiction. It's why other works like The Beginner's Guide resonate with me so much, and I think it's a big part of why this novel is so impactful, not just because it is gripping as prose, though it undeniably is, but because it hinges on you, the reader, being fundamentally interested in who Nisio Isin is as a human being, in how he became the writer he is and how he came up with the stories he did. And while I would never dare assume that words on a page would be enough for me to truly understand who a person is, every bit of that narration feels painfully real. It could all be a lie for all I know, but it fits everything about the image I had of him from reading his work. And so, while alluring you with that promise of a glimpse into something real, the book pulls off an amazing magic trick: right at the end, after the whole affair is through, in one final section, it lays bare its fictionality for all to see. In that final chapter, the author is no longer the author but Kakimoto, and U U is no longer an unknown girl that he would part ways with forever, but Yuugure Yuu, whom he would reunite with in dramatic fashion, giving a happy ending to the whole thing. So it was all fiction in the end, but of course it was. Nisio Isin was not kidnapped by a 4th grader in 2004. This is an entertainment novel written from the perspective of a fictional character. We all knew it from the start, but the promise of an actual connection with an author we love was just too seductive a proposition, so that we would willingly blind ourselves to that obvious fact. But in the end, is Kakimoto really Nisio Isin? Did veiled author Nisio Isin surreptitiously reveal his true identity in this book? Or is he simply a character that, by being bestowed with a name, can finally truly be separated from his creator? In that final chapter, we are reminded that it doesn't really matter one way or the other. It doesn't matter because we never needed the promise of something real―because there was something real there to begin with. Because every tale has something real in it, and every novelist tells the truth when they tell those tales.
Many thanks to ShwampBam for the translation of this great book.
Still though, maybe I've been hesitant to read more from him lately because I was scared of burying the admiration I had for him under disappointment. If I popped open a Nisio book (or manga) today and found out that I just didn't really care anymore, what would that mean for me? That I've become disconnected from someone whose work used to mean so much to me?
None of that really has anything to do with this book though, since for one it was written in 2011, before even some of the certified Nisioisin classics I have in my favorites to this day, and also since I already read the manga adaptation long ago and already loved it back then. Still, I think reading this now has sparked an even more interesting reaction in me compared to when I first came across this story. This is the tale of an aspiring author, and that connects with me much more now given that I am also an aspiring author (well, the internet has made it so that I can expose my amateur musings to the void instead of locking them away forever, so while I certainly am no professional author, the lines have become a little blurrier. Still, I definitely don't feel like a real author, whatever that means). As interesting and good as the manga was, I think this novel should fairly be considered the truest form of this story. There is so much of the narrator and his worldview that seeps out of every sentence, and the gimmick/pretense of it being a true story about the author comes across as much more consistent in this form compared to something outright fictional as a manga.
And in general, the kind of metafiction that this story engages is in something that never really fails to grab me by the balls. As shameful as it probably is, despite being a champion of death of the author and free interpretation and all that, in the end I am still very much succeptible to the dangling of some glimpse into the author's true self, a real view into who they are that bleeds through their fiction. It's why other works like The Beginner's Guide resonate with me so much, and I think it's a big part of why this novel is so impactful, not just because it is gripping as prose, though it undeniably is, but because it hinges on you, the reader, being fundamentally interested in who Nisio Isin is as a human being, in how he became the writer he is and how he came up with the stories he did. And while I would never dare assume that words on a page would be enough for me to truly understand who a person is, every bit of that narration feels painfully real. It could all be a lie for all I know, but it fits everything about the image I had of him from reading his work. And so, while alluring you with that promise of a glimpse into something real, the book pulls off an amazing magic trick: right at the end, after the whole affair is through, in one final section, it lays bare its fictionality for all to see. In that final chapter, the author is no longer the author but Kakimoto, and U U is no longer an unknown girl that he would part ways with forever, but Yuugure Yuu, whom he would reunite with in dramatic fashion, giving a happy ending to the whole thing. So it was all fiction in the end, but of course it was. Nisio Isin was not kidnapped by a 4th grader in 2004. This is an entertainment novel written from the perspective of a fictional character. We all knew it from the start, but the promise of an actual connection with an author we love was just too seductive a proposition, so that we would willingly blind ourselves to that obvious fact. But in the end, is Kakimoto really Nisio Isin? Did veiled author Nisio Isin surreptitiously reveal his true identity in this book? Or is he simply a character that, by being bestowed with a name, can finally truly be separated from his creator? In that final chapter, we are reminded that it doesn't really matter one way or the other. It doesn't matter because we never needed the promise of something real―because there was something real there to begin with. Because every tale has something real in it, and every novelist tells the truth when they tell those tales.
Many thanks to ShwampBam for the translation of this great book.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 7, 2022
前大半段都没什么意思，而且西尾维新的注水量y'all know...但尾声着实惊人...如果真的是半自传性质，这个故事我实在没法评价了...友邻长评里说“西尾维新应该说是那种一直在写同一个故事的作家”，戏言，刀语，物语——原来如此，原来如此啊。
October 13, 2025
“Your life has become an incomprehensible mess… But you can still be happy.”
I read the manga for imperfect girl 4 years ago, April 16th, 2021, to be exact, when I was getting into Nisioisins bibliography. Back then I could blast through a novel of a week, I don’t where that stamina came from or where it went over the years, but I was infatuated by his writing to say the least. You could say he was my favourite author, quite easier to say so back then when I hadn’t read that much generally, if you’ve only seen 10 movies and 6 was by one director, you’d probably say they’re your favourite. As years pass, it's not as easy to say with certainty if that’s still true, but that’s a reflection to have another time.
The manga still is one of my favourite stories ever told, I adored it so much. Given the chance, thanks to Isla Execution Squad Novel's translation of the novel, I got a chance to finally read what it was based on, and all these years later, it's still one of my favourite stories ever told. It reminded me what I love about art and stories that, to someone who does writing in his spare time, gave me a question that I never stop thinking about- what, or more rather who, do we write stories for?
I often think of Imperfect Girl as a sequel to the short story Nisioisin wrote when he first started out, Dawnless Night & Wakeless Dream, where he laments his worries and fears of becoming an author, the contradiction of not wanting to be seen and judged but at the same time, knowing if you don't write something, nobody else will write it for you. The 10 years between that and Imperfect Girl show a shift in vision. A writer isn't just about writing what nobody else will, but its writing in the vein hope that somebody else out there will connect, that somebody else will feel what you feel, that your emotions, love, hate, fear, ambitions, dreams and nightmares can be shared and understood by somebody else.
"Writing novels would only leave you with painful memories.
That’s fine.
—You might end up not finding an ounce of happiness at all.
That’s fine.
—You'll be compared against many others. That’s what all this so-called performance is. Compared against your predecessors who now live in the history books, against contemporary geniuses, against the successors trying to catch up to you. Maybe it'll be unfair and you'd end up looking bad, maybe through sheer error you'd end up overrated. It’s nauseating either way. Though I guess being compared to would be the most nauseating thing?
Nauseating indeed. But, it can’t be helped. It’s something inevitable, something unsolvable. Something unchangeable, nor does anyone possess the wherewithal to change it."
A short story I wrote years ago now has meant a lot to somebody, a friend of mine I hold quite dear, I hope he isn't reading this, it'll be quite embarrassing if he does. Knowing my story, less than 500 words it may be, meant something to somebody touched my heart. All these years later, Imperfect Girl hasn't changed in how it impacts me profoundly. I would urge you read both this and the manga, as both versions have their merits. I don't think one far outweighs the other totally, just different ways of expressing the same emotion- one through art, one through text.
Apologies if this one was sappy, I just couldn't leave the worlds I had to say unspoken. Despite all the changes in my life and the way things have turned out, for better and for worse, I can always go back to one of my favourite stories for inspiration. Thank you.
I read the manga for imperfect girl 4 years ago, April 16th, 2021, to be exact, when I was getting into Nisioisins bibliography. Back then I could blast through a novel of a week, I don’t where that stamina came from or where it went over the years, but I was infatuated by his writing to say the least. You could say he was my favourite author, quite easier to say so back then when I hadn’t read that much generally, if you’ve only seen 10 movies and 6 was by one director, you’d probably say they’re your favourite. As years pass, it's not as easy to say with certainty if that’s still true, but that’s a reflection to have another time.
The manga still is one of my favourite stories ever told, I adored it so much. Given the chance, thanks to Isla Execution Squad Novel's translation of the novel, I got a chance to finally read what it was based on, and all these years later, it's still one of my favourite stories ever told. It reminded me what I love about art and stories that, to someone who does writing in his spare time, gave me a question that I never stop thinking about- what, or more rather who, do we write stories for?
I often think of Imperfect Girl as a sequel to the short story Nisioisin wrote when he first started out, Dawnless Night & Wakeless Dream, where he laments his worries and fears of becoming an author, the contradiction of not wanting to be seen and judged but at the same time, knowing if you don't write something, nobody else will write it for you. The 10 years between that and Imperfect Girl show a shift in vision. A writer isn't just about writing what nobody else will, but its writing in the vein hope that somebody else out there will connect, that somebody else will feel what you feel, that your emotions, love, hate, fear, ambitions, dreams and nightmares can be shared and understood by somebody else.
"Writing novels would only leave you with painful memories.
That’s fine.
—You might end up not finding an ounce of happiness at all.
That’s fine.
—You'll be compared against many others. That’s what all this so-called performance is. Compared against your predecessors who now live in the history books, against contemporary geniuses, against the successors trying to catch up to you. Maybe it'll be unfair and you'd end up looking bad, maybe through sheer error you'd end up overrated. It’s nauseating either way. Though I guess being compared to would be the most nauseating thing?
Nauseating indeed. But, it can’t be helped. It’s something inevitable, something unsolvable. Something unchangeable, nor does anyone possess the wherewithal to change it."
A short story I wrote years ago now has meant a lot to somebody, a friend of mine I hold quite dear, I hope he isn't reading this, it'll be quite embarrassing if he does. Knowing my story, less than 500 words it may be, meant something to somebody touched my heart. All these years later, Imperfect Girl hasn't changed in how it impacts me profoundly. I would urge you read both this and the manga, as both versions have their merits. I don't think one far outweighs the other totally, just different ways of expressing the same emotion- one through art, one through text.
Apologies if this one was sappy, I just couldn't leave the worlds I had to say unspoken. Despite all the changes in my life and the way things have turned out, for better and for worse, I can always go back to one of my favourite stories for inspiration. Thank you.
July 11, 2020
"This book took 10 years to write"
The only "Non-fiction" book written by Nisio
It may very well be the best book I've read so far this year
My thoughts on "少女不十分" (English title: Imperfect Girl)
Written by 西尾維新 (NisiOisiN)
Art by 碧風羽 (Foo Midori)
The story:
A writer is retelling the events of 10 years ago that made him become a writer, the "trauma" that made him become what he is.
During the story, it is said many times that it is not a work of fiction but I think only some small fragments of it were true.
It is a story about a young aspiring writer that can't get anything published and that is only focused on things that can be good to write in a story. And how during his time in university and how he was kidnapped by an elementary school girl.
The book starts like this:
He witnessed an accident where a girl was hit by a truck while walking from school. The stranger thing for him, however, was the other girl she was walking with, who made sure to save her game before running up to her brutalized friend.
After that, he gets kidnapped by the same girl because she didn't want the world to know her true nature.
The rest of the story is about how the MC develops Stockholm syndrome and investigates why the actions of U are so strange. Inevitably leading him to save her life.
How difficult was it to read this novel in Japanese?:
Amazingly it is the easiest novel of Nisio I've read so far, most of the story are monologues from the MC and it uses Japanese that you would use every day. (with some exceptions). I understood 100% of it.
If you want to read this book in Japanese:
I made a PDF containing a vocabulary list with pronunciation, the meaning of the kanji, and definitions of the of the most "difficult/strange" words I found while reading it. https://drive.google.com/file/d/12mkQ...
Enjoyment:
The book was not much at first so for a good part of it I was reading it very slowly.
But then when the MC starts discovering the reasons behind the actions of U and actually starts helping her it gets very good very fast.
It was a very incredible development and for a very dark novel to have such a bright ending it definitely is the most enjoyable novel I've read so far this year.
(spoiler)
And at the end when they are reunited 10 years after it made me very happy.
(End of spoiler)
My favorite scene of the book:
Near the end, U asks the MC to tell her some stories so she can go to bed. The MC starts telling her stories he is coming up right in the spot, and those stories are actually novels that Nisio published later in his life.
During that scene some of the references to other of his works are:
Brilliant blue haired girl - Zaregoto
Magical girl - Mahou Shoujo Risuka
Murderer than prizes familial love - Ningen
Emotionless giant on a remote island - Katanagatari
Hypocrite and a vampire - Monogatari
Contractor who fails no matter what - Saikyou
Female ninja - Maniwagatari
Girl who can't stand ambiguity - Sekai
Popular author - Nanmin Tantei
Movie theater - Ningyou ga ningyou
How the manga compares to it:
The manga covered all of the important points of the story, the biggest difference is that (for obvious reasons) it had cut a lot of inner dialogue of the MC.
How the manga compares to it pt2:
The manga also shows some scenes absent in the novel, showing U in school. These do not appear in the novel because the novel is strictly first person from the point of view of the MC.
a pro of the manga is that the art is very good.
As you can tell it took me a lot of text to talk about a single book and if you haven't noticed it by now I really loved this book, it was incredible from start to finish and legit it made me realize how much I missed reading Nisio. This book is a solid 10/10
my sources:
Thanks to AstralBread on MAL for telling all the references to other of Nisio's works during that one scene.
Thanks to the NisiOisiN Wiki for the extract of how the books starts.
The only "Non-fiction" book written by Nisio
It may very well be the best book I've read so far this year
My thoughts on "少女不十分" (English title: Imperfect Girl)
Written by 西尾維新 (NisiOisiN)
Art by 碧風羽 (Foo Midori)
The story:
A writer is retelling the events of 10 years ago that made him become a writer, the "trauma" that made him become what he is.
During the story, it is said many times that it is not a work of fiction but I think only some small fragments of it were true.
It is a story about a young aspiring writer that can't get anything published and that is only focused on things that can be good to write in a story. And how during his time in university and how he was kidnapped by an elementary school girl.
The book starts like this:
He witnessed an accident where a girl was hit by a truck while walking from school. The stranger thing for him, however, was the other girl she was walking with, who made sure to save her game before running up to her brutalized friend.
After that, he gets kidnapped by the same girl because she didn't want the world to know her true nature.
The rest of the story is about how the MC develops Stockholm syndrome and investigates why the actions of U are so strange. Inevitably leading him to save her life.
How difficult was it to read this novel in Japanese?:
Amazingly it is the easiest novel of Nisio I've read so far, most of the story are monologues from the MC and it uses Japanese that you would use every day. (with some exceptions). I understood 100% of it.
If you want to read this book in Japanese:
I made a PDF containing a vocabulary list with pronunciation, the meaning of the kanji, and definitions of the of the most "difficult/strange" words I found while reading it. https://drive.google.com/file/d/12mkQ...
Enjoyment:
The book was not much at first so for a good part of it I was reading it very slowly.
But then when the MC starts discovering the reasons behind the actions of U and actually starts helping her it gets very good very fast.
It was a very incredible development and for a very dark novel to have such a bright ending it definitely is the most enjoyable novel I've read so far this year.
(spoiler)
And at the end when they are reunited 10 years after it made me very happy.
(End of spoiler)
My favorite scene of the book:
Near the end, U asks the MC to tell her some stories so she can go to bed. The MC starts telling her stories he is coming up right in the spot, and those stories are actually novels that Nisio published later in his life.
During that scene some of the references to other of his works are:
Brilliant blue haired girl - Zaregoto
Magical girl - Mahou Shoujo Risuka
Murderer than prizes familial love - Ningen
Emotionless giant on a remote island - Katanagatari
Hypocrite and a vampire - Monogatari
Contractor who fails no matter what - Saikyou
Female ninja - Maniwagatari
Girl who can't stand ambiguity - Sekai
Popular author - Nanmin Tantei
Movie theater - Ningyou ga ningyou
How the manga compares to it:
The manga covered all of the important points of the story, the biggest difference is that (for obvious reasons) it had cut a lot of inner dialogue of the MC.
How the manga compares to it pt2:
The manga also shows some scenes absent in the novel, showing U in school. These do not appear in the novel because the novel is strictly first person from the point of view of the MC.
a pro of the manga is that the art is very good.
As you can tell it took me a lot of text to talk about a single book and if you haven't noticed it by now I really loved this book, it was incredible from start to finish and legit it made me realize how much I missed reading Nisio. This book is a solid 10/10
my sources:
Thanks to AstralBread on MAL for telling all the references to other of Nisio's works during that one scene.
Thanks to the NisiOisiN Wiki for the extract of how the books starts.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews