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言ノ葉シリーズ #3
言ノ葉ノ使い
生まれつき人の“心の声”が聞こえるカンナは、ずっと誰かの役に立ちたいと思っていた。ある町で心の中まで寡黙な男・ガクタと出会う。大怪我を負っていた彼が洩らす『痛い』という心の声を放っておけず、世話を焼くカンナ。最初は鬱陶しそうだったガクタもそれを受け入れ始める。だが彼がヤクザだと知っても変わらないカンナの態度に、下心があると誤解したガクタが手を伸ばしてきて…?
大人気シリーズ第3弾!!
大人気シリーズ第3弾!!
- GenresJapanese Literature
293 pages, Paperback
First published August 9, 2014
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
March 12, 2015
I'm going to put my thoughts for the whole series here.
I had high expectations for this series, but ultimately the books didn’t really live up to them, with the exception of the third.
The basic premise for each book the is the same: the main character is, for some reason, able to hear the voice of people’s “hearts”.Depending on the character, this leads to different results: Yomura, the main character of “Koto no ha no hana”, gains that power suddenly one Christmas morning, and he ends up shutting himself off from the people around him because he is so disappointed by the gap between what people say and what they really think. When he finally meets Hasebe, a man whose real thoughts aren’t negative as other people’s, but kind and full of love and admiration for Yomura, he begins to lose his fear of his power somewhat, but when it suddenly disappears again he once again loses his footing and doesn’t know what to do.
The main character of the second volume “Koto no ha no sekai”, Karihara, couldn’t be more different from Yomura if he tried. Unlike Yomura, Karihara has had his power since he was born, and experience has taught him to use it to his benefit: it lets him cheat people at Mahjong and trick old people of their money (although it remains questionable whether he actually did the latter). One day he meets Fujino,a man who seems to “sing” a canon in Karihara’s ears, because Fujino always says exactly what he is thinking. And a kind man like Fujino could even change someone like Karihara.
The third volume, “Koto no ha no tsukai”, was by far my favourite, because unlike the first two volumes the main character was neither constantly whining nor was he an asshole. Kanna, like Karihara, has had his power since birth, as had his mother. After her death, Kanna had been passed from relative to relative until his twentieth birthday. All grown up, he moves into the big city, and his mission, as was passed on from his mother, is to use his power to help people. The first person to benefit from that is to be his neighbour, the silent, grim-looking Gakuta. When Gakuta returns one night with a severe injury, Kanna takes care of him and begins to cook dinner for Gakuta. After a misunderstanding that is extended to Kanna taking care of Gakuta in other ways, too, until the misunderstanding is resolved. By then, Kanna has learned that Gakuta is the bodyguard of a yakuza boss. When Gakuta is ordered to kill someone, Kanna is resolved to stop him no matter what.
Actually, I did wonder whether I would have liked the first two books more if I hadn’t listened to the drama cds first. “Koto no ha no hana” is a great drama cd with great seiyuu, and I really enjoyed it. It could be that thanks to that Yomura’s constant whining seemed a lot less annoying. I did like the slow progression of their relationship though. But I just couldn’t bring myself to genuinely like Yomura.
With “Koto no ha no sekai” it was actually the other way round - Karihara was a lot more likeable to me than in the drama cd (it could be because my listening comprehension skills back then weren’t that great - that and the fact that even as you read it you get that he is putting on a tough guy act most of the time). Still, he behaved like a dick most of the time, and I couldn’t bring myself to care about him very much either.
There’s no drama cd for the third volume yet, so I could read it without any expectations except, “It can’t be worse than the other two.” And since Kanna is really sweet and Gakuta, too, I was happy to accompany the two of them until their happy ending. The only thing I didn’t like and which makes it a four star rather than a five star book is that even though Kanna is 20, the drawings make him look much younger and that really wasn’t necessary.
The second and the third volume are actually both set in the same universe - a universe where a parallel Yomura and Hasebe *didn’t* end up together (at first) - and they’re tied together by that unlucky couple. I liked that fact a lot, and I would have liked to get a clearer story of that couple as well except in all honesty I found parallel! Yomura as annoying as the real thing..
The thing is, this series had a lot potential and used a lot of it quite well. There were plenty of heart-wrenching scenes in all volumes. But since I had difficulties to connect to most of the characters I couldn’t love these books as much as I wanted.
I had high expectations for this series, but ultimately the books didn’t really live up to them, with the exception of the third.
The basic premise for each book the is the same: the main character is, for some reason, able to hear the voice of people’s “hearts”.Depending on the character, this leads to different results: Yomura, the main character of “Koto no ha no hana”, gains that power suddenly one Christmas morning, and he ends up shutting himself off from the people around him because he is so disappointed by the gap between what people say and what they really think. When he finally meets Hasebe, a man whose real thoughts aren’t negative as other people’s, but kind and full of love and admiration for Yomura, he begins to lose his fear of his power somewhat, but when it suddenly disappears again he once again loses his footing and doesn’t know what to do.
The main character of the second volume “Koto no ha no sekai”, Karihara, couldn’t be more different from Yomura if he tried. Unlike Yomura, Karihara has had his power since he was born, and experience has taught him to use it to his benefit: it lets him cheat people at Mahjong and trick old people of their money (although it remains questionable whether he actually did the latter). One day he meets Fujino,a man who seems to “sing” a canon in Karihara’s ears, because Fujino always says exactly what he is thinking. And a kind man like Fujino could even change someone like Karihara.
The third volume, “Koto no ha no tsukai”, was by far my favourite, because unlike the first two volumes the main character was neither constantly whining nor was he an asshole. Kanna, like Karihara, has had his power since birth, as had his mother. After her death, Kanna had been passed from relative to relative until his twentieth birthday. All grown up, he moves into the big city, and his mission, as was passed on from his mother, is to use his power to help people. The first person to benefit from that is to be his neighbour, the silent, grim-looking Gakuta. When Gakuta returns one night with a severe injury, Kanna takes care of him and begins to cook dinner for Gakuta. After a misunderstanding that is extended to Kanna taking care of Gakuta in other ways, too, until the misunderstanding is resolved. By then, Kanna has learned that Gakuta is the bodyguard of a yakuza boss. When Gakuta is ordered to kill someone, Kanna is resolved to stop him no matter what.
Actually, I did wonder whether I would have liked the first two books more if I hadn’t listened to the drama cds first. “Koto no ha no hana” is a great drama cd with great seiyuu, and I really enjoyed it. It could be that thanks to that Yomura’s constant whining seemed a lot less annoying. I did like the slow progression of their relationship though. But I just couldn’t bring myself to genuinely like Yomura.
With “Koto no ha no sekai” it was actually the other way round - Karihara was a lot more likeable to me than in the drama cd (it could be because my listening comprehension skills back then weren’t that great - that and the fact that even as you read it you get that he is putting on a tough guy act most of the time). Still, he behaved like a dick most of the time, and I couldn’t bring myself to care about him very much either.
There’s no drama cd for the third volume yet, so I could read it without any expectations except, “It can’t be worse than the other two.” And since Kanna is really sweet and Gakuta, too, I was happy to accompany the two of them until their happy ending. The only thing I didn’t like and which makes it a four star rather than a five star book is that even though Kanna is 20, the drawings make him look much younger and that really wasn’t necessary.
The second and the third volume are actually both set in the same universe - a universe where a parallel Yomura and Hasebe *didn’t* end up together (at first) - and they’re tied together by that unlucky couple. I liked that fact a lot, and I would have liked to get a clearer story of that couple as well except in all honesty I found parallel! Yomura as annoying as the real thing..
The thing is, this series had a lot potential and used a lot of it quite well. There were plenty of heart-wrenching scenes in all volumes. But since I had difficulties to connect to most of the characters I couldn’t love these books as much as I wanted.
Displaying 1 of 1 review