僕が七不思議になったわけ

by Haruo Ogawa

石橋を叩いても渡らない心配性の高校生・中崎夕也はある夜、七不思議を司る精霊・テンコと出会う。深夜の校庭に桜が舞い散る中、宙に浮かぶ袴姿の彼女は、高らかに不吉な言葉を彼に投げかけるのだった。「おめでとう、お主はこの学校の新しい七不思議に選ばれた」なんと彼は七不思議の引き継ぎに、仮登録されてしまったのだ!生きながらも七不思議の一つとなった少年の日々を綴った、思わずもう一度読み返したくなるミステリアス・ファンタジー。第20回電撃小説大賞金賞受賞作。

274 pages, Paperback

First published February 25, 2014

Reviews

[Chung Yih Chuan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Congratulation! You have become one of the Seven Wonders of the School!

Yes, this book is centered a high school boy named Nakazaki getting involved in the Seven Wonders.

The British Ministry of Information once spread this message: Keep Calm and Carry On - which this book is emphasise on. It would be better to letting go of the past and face the future in a meaningful way.

This is the overall story, do not open if you don't want to be spoiled:

Nakazaki, who is always worrywart is being chosen as the Seven Wonders by Noriko (also one of the wonders as well) as a temporary substitute as one of them has retired. After being chosen, he also gained the ability to use the rest of the wonder as well.

During his year, with the help of the Seven Wonders he used his ability to assist Asakura, who was being harassed by a violent bully in Spring until he was expelled by the school for framing Nakazaki and posed violence on Asakura during the School Festival in Autumn.

They have a relationship and they are couple after the School Festival incident. A month later, their relationship ended as a freak accident caused Asakura died on the spot but Nakazaki survived. But after learning the death of Asakura, he has lost the will to live and begged Noriko to let him become a permanent member of the Seven Wonder by taking his soul, resulting him to enter comatose state.

Four years later, he met Kaho, which has a similar appearance like her deceased sister, Asakura. He acted like a normal student and help her on a theft case during Summer and Kaho trying to be close to him but he trying to distance from her.

Until the release of entrance examination, he told Kaho about everything after telling her to come to a secret location. He told her his past, Asakura, and his involvement of the Seven Wonders, also, like the last three years, all of the member of the school will eventually forget about his existence. But she does not believe it, but she decided to investigate the case by herself.

Until the night of the graduation ceremony, she came to see Nakazaki and talk about Asakura and encourage him on facing the unknown future by letting go the painful past. And Noriko, who know his pain, decided to told him to go and live on. He finally awake from comatose state and decided to moving on with his life.

The story structure itself is very interesting as it has the ability to switch perspective of the character as mostly mention 'Asakura' until this ‘Asakura' in certain chapter is actually 'Kaho', which it will be revealed in the final chapter, which in short, tricking the readers. By the way, the creator of Kino's Journey, Keiichi Sigsawa has putting a summary review by saying: "I WAS TRICKED!". Also this book was won Gold Prize under Dengeki Novel Prize in 2013.

Overall, this novel is quite short, straightforward and brings the message which I have mentioned above. Highly recommended for the novel readers who prefer simplicity.

*The book I read was translated and published by Kadokawa Taiwan Corporation.