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営繕かるかや怪異譚 #2
營繕師異譚之貳
暌違五年後，
小野不由美療癒系怪談──《營繕師異譚》回來了。
日本國民作家宮部美幸：
「讀完我恍然大悟，這才是真正的珍惜『因緣』啊！」
★從小野不由美有「民俗寶庫」之稱的故鄉中津發想，深切刻畫土地、建築與人之間的因緣。
「那是危險的東西，會要了你的命！」
本應只有自己的「家」，卻似乎潛藏著另一種存在？
歷史悠久的城下町，有著眾多古老樸實的町屋及蜿蜒如迷宮的巷弄，處處滿溢著都市人嚮往的古風與悠然步調，同時也存在讓人敬而遠之的陳舊與荒蕪。
陸陸續續有六組從都會區遷入的新住戶，渴望在此展開他們的新生活。然而，種種失控的異象打擾了他們的平靜……
牆壁另一端的女子、擋在前往神社小巷中的鬼、深夜悄悄潛入屋內的動物、
不斷地在夢中大聲咒罵的人影、蹲坐在起居室深處的孩童鬼魂、躲在閣樓裡形姿悽慘的幽靈……似有若無、卻又無法視而不見，日常和非日常的界線岌岌可危。
該怎麼辦？難道只能搬家了嗎？手足無措的住戶，輾轉認識了專司房屋修繕的青年－－尾端，
身為「營繕師」的他既沒有通靈體質、也不懂驅魔，他真能找到解方，讓一切恢復平靜？
明明是該守護我們的「家」，卻成為生存最大的威脅？
神出鬼沒&
小野不由美療癒系怪談──《營繕師異譚》回來了。
日本國民作家宮部美幸：
「讀完我恍然大悟，這才是真正的珍惜『因緣』啊！」
★從小野不由美有「民俗寶庫」之稱的故鄉中津發想，深切刻畫土地、建築與人之間的因緣。
「那是危險的東西，會要了你的命！」
本應只有自己的「家」，卻似乎潛藏著另一種存在？
歷史悠久的城下町，有著眾多古老樸實的町屋及蜿蜒如迷宮的巷弄，處處滿溢著都市人嚮往的古風與悠然步調，同時也存在讓人敬而遠之的陳舊與荒蕪。
陸陸續續有六組從都會區遷入的新住戶，渴望在此展開他們的新生活。然而，種種失控的異象打擾了他們的平靜……
牆壁另一端的女子、擋在前往神社小巷中的鬼、深夜悄悄潛入屋內的動物、
不斷地在夢中大聲咒罵的人影、蹲坐在起居室深處的孩童鬼魂、躲在閣樓裡形姿悽慘的幽靈……似有若無、卻又無法視而不見，日常和非日常的界線岌岌可危。
該怎麼辦？難道只能搬家了嗎？手足無措的住戶，輾轉認識了專司房屋修繕的青年－－尾端，
身為「營繕師」的他既沒有通靈體質、也不懂驅魔，他真能找到解方，讓一切恢復平靜？
明明是該守護我們的「家」，卻成為生存最大的威脅？
神出鬼沒&
221 pages, Kindle Edition
Published November 30, 2021
1 person is currently reading
7 people want to read
About the author
Fuyumi Ono
168 books329 followersKanji Name: 小野 不由美.
Fuyumi Ono (小野 不由美, Ono Fuyumi) is a Japanese novelist who is best known for writing the Twelve Kingdoms (十二国記, Juuni Kokuki) series, on which a popular anime is based. Her name after marriage is Fuyumi Uchida (内田不由美, Uchida Fuyumi), but she writes under her maiden name.
Ono was born in Nakatsu, Ōita, Kyūshū in 1960. She graduated from Ōtani University in Kyōto with a degree in Buddhist Studies, and in 1988 was employed by the publisher Kōdansha. Her debut story is titled Sleepless on Birthday Eve.
Ono is married to Naoyuki Uchida (内田直行, Uchida Naoyuki), a mystery novelist who writes under the pseudonym Yukito Ayatsuji (綾辻行人 , Ayatsuji Yukito).
Before she started work on Twelve Kingdoms, Fuyumi Ono wrote The Demonic Child (魔性の子), a horror novel about a boy from another world. She later worked certain events from this novel into the Twelve Kingdoms series. Short stories set in the various kingdoms include: Kasho, Toei, Shokan, Kizan and Jogetsu. In February, 2008, the first new Twelve Kingdoms short story, Hisho no Tori (丕緒の鳥) was published in Shinchosha's Yomyom magazine.
According to an interview at the Anime News Network, she is "currently rewriting a girls' horror series (she) wrote long ago."
- Wikipedia
Fuyumi Ono (小野 不由美, Ono Fuyumi) is a Japanese novelist who is best known for writing the Twelve Kingdoms (十二国記, Juuni Kokuki) series, on which a popular anime is based. Her name after marriage is Fuyumi Uchida (内田不由美, Uchida Fuyumi), but she writes under her maiden name.
Ono was born in Nakatsu, Ōita, Kyūshū in 1960. She graduated from Ōtani University in Kyōto with a degree in Buddhist Studies, and in 1988 was employed by the publisher Kōdansha. Her debut story is titled Sleepless on Birthday Eve.
Ono is married to Naoyuki Uchida (内田直行, Uchida Naoyuki), a mystery novelist who writes under the pseudonym Yukito Ayatsuji (綾辻行人 , Ayatsuji Yukito).
Before she started work on Twelve Kingdoms, Fuyumi Ono wrote The Demonic Child (魔性の子), a horror novel about a boy from another world. She later worked certain events from this novel into the Twelve Kingdoms series. Short stories set in the various kingdoms include: Kasho, Toei, Shokan, Kizan and Jogetsu. In February, 2008, the first new Twelve Kingdoms short story, Hisho no Tori (丕緒の鳥) was published in Shinchosha's Yomyom magazine.
According to an interview at the Anime News Network, she is "currently rewriting a girls' horror series (she) wrote long ago."
- Wikipedia
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
September 7, 2024
You know that perception that sequels are lackluster compared to the originals? For me it strikes in this second installment of the “Eizen Karukaya” series. General creepiness is around 2★, Ono’s writing around 3.5★, and the stories themselves, as a whole, around 2-3★.
It’s a mixed bag — Ono still brings the imagery to the table and there are some strong stories that I liked a lot, but collectively, I don’t think this book is better or as good as the original.
▬ 芙蓉忌: Takaki, the only living member of his family, returns to his home town on a mission: get his parents’ house cleaned up, sell it for whatever money can be had, move to a different place, get a new job. But when he begins to clean up his deceased brother’s room, he hears the sounds of shamisen, finds a crack in a wall, and through it sees a young woman playing the instrument.
Thoughts: The implications of the haunting are disturbing, with the ghost not willing to let Takaki go, “chasing” after him even after the renovations, this time via letters that mysteriously appear in his genkan. On one hand, he’s kind of a perv, having watched the ghost girl continuously to the exclusion of everything else, even normal everyday life; on the other hand, maybe the ghost had something to do with that unnatural attachment and now he is truly fucked until he does what she wants him to do.
What is it about the brothers that puts them in the ghost’s thrall?
Also, update in 2024: when I first read this I thought Takaki had encountered Obana and was confused, because Obana can’t see ghosty things. But after re-reading I realized — it’s not Obana, it’s Dōbaru!!! Takaki specifically mentions he 1) has (in Filipino parlance) a good morning towel and 2) is a 庭師, a gardener. And Dōbaru does have the sight, or the intuition.
Dōbaru even plucked up the courage to earnestly warn Takaki, who tried to heed his warning but was by then thoroughly enthralled by the apparition. At which point Dōbaru likely thought, “I’ve done all I can. Time to call in the big guns.” So now I’m like, yikes. What was it that Dōbaru saw, because he was absolutely terrified?
◩
▬ 関守: Sayo hates the song that plays when the pedestrian crossing sign turns green — she’s always found it creepy. But it’s not simply due to the lyrics, which she finds unsettling — as it turns out, an encounter she had in her childhood is the reason for her fear.
Thoughts: My second-favorite story in this anthology. The opening scene, again, so descriptive that I could imagine it, then Sayo’s discussion with her friends about the song and its lyrics, her take on it versus her friends’ and her husband’s take on it. For some reason I really liked that part. And then finally long-lost memories coming back to her … you kind of rediscover, with Sayo, the entirety of her encounter.
I also liked the little story within a story that her husband Masaaki tells her — a little paranormal encounter passed down within his family. The feel-good ending helps too: Sayo has been thinking of the being as an “oni” this entire time, but a little quizzing from Obana and the supposition turns out different: she may have met Lord Sarutahiko.
Obana has this to say about Sarutahiko-mikoto:
「猿田彦命は天孫降臨の際、邇邇芸命*を道案内したと言われる神様です。それで道の神ともされるんです」
*ににぎのみこと. What a crazy name
◩
▬ まつとし聞かば: Single dad Toshihiro has got a lot on his plate: raising his son Wataru; fighting off the fear of his mother never waking up, after her stroke; agonizing over how to tell Wataru that his beloved cat Koharu is dead; agonizing over whether to tell Wataru about his grandmother’s state or even how to tell him … and dealing with an unseen something that comes at night through Koharu’s cat door and sleeps on his son’s futon.
Thoughts: Ooh, mixed feelings about this one. But first let me share some info about the story that I learned while trying to figure out what “まつとし聞かば” meant.
The phrase comes from an old-timey poem (waka) written by the Japanese courtier Ariwara no Yukihira who lived from 818 ~ 893, and is his most famous poem which has a lot of wordplay. It was published in a classical anthology of 100 waka by one hundred poets: the 小倉百人一首.
You can see the whole poem on Wikipedia, where a truly knowledgeable person has translated it. Basically it’s a kind of love poem where the last few lines are just someone being like, ‘If I knew you were waiting for me bro, I would be like, there in 2 seconds, bro.’
まつとし聞かば、
今帰り来む
If I hear you pine for me
I’ll come straight home to you.
(From the wiki)
What’s interesting is that this poem is also apparently used as a sort of good-luck charm to bring home missing people or pets. According to ちょっと差がつく 百人一首講座:
Both the meaning of the poem itself, and the ~cultural or folkloric implication, I guess have weight in this story.
So, first of all, I enjoyed googling and finding out about the poem and finding a translation for it.
Characters: I loved my little son Wataru, who is the most innocent and basically the most injured party in this whole affair. The most frustrating character was Toshihiro, and I had to deal with him the entire story, and neither of us were very happy for a majority of it. Toshihiro’s childhood friend Matsubara tries to be reasonable, but Toshihiro doesn’t take his advice, so it’s all moot.
Story: Toshihiro hid things the entire time, reluctant to tell Wataru anything, and it was so frustrating. He wasn’t trying to spare Wataru the pain — he was trying to spare himself the pain of telling Wataru and dealing with his pain afterwards.
In the end, Wataru had a truly very bad no good afternoon where he found out that his grandma’s in a coma, his beloved cat Koharu is dead, the kitten he had yesterday night died, and it was because of some ghostly cat spirit monster.
What a day.
Oh, also, Toshihiro’s in-laws are awful.
◩
▬ 魂やどりて: Iku moved into an old, dingy house intending to reform it by herself … but things start going south when she starts dreaming of a woman with her back to Iku, sobbing and berating in a language Iku doesn’t understand. And each time she sees the dream, she wakes up tired and drained. Is it really all just a dream?
Thoughts: Oh man, if I thought I was frustrated with Toshihiro, YIKES, Iku is like … super annoying. This woman was at turns a bitchy customer, a condescending “friend” and an annoying neighbor. Iku getting her comeuppance was a joy to read, but her interactions with people were like … wow, how did you even get through life, you entitled person? The way she treated the second-hand shop owner and her neighbors was so annoying. Also the way she barged into Mitsuko’s house and started yelling at her because she thought she heard someone yelling the entire time she was sick… bruh.
My housemate has had that experience where our downstairs neighbor was like “have you been doing construction and banging away on the floor at strange hours of the morning!?” and then also claiming that he heard noises coming from our storage room where nobody lives, and I was totally rooting for Mitsuko. I was like, MITSUKO, CALL THE COPS ON THAT BITCH.
And in the end Iku’s first thought of how to fix the entire problem was to ask someone else to do it for her. Good thing Mitsuko’s like, uh, NO, I’m not going to fix your problem for you, but guess what, I’m nice so I’ll help. Mitsuko is the actual hero of this story. She would be a racist grandma to me, a dirty brown foreigner in Japan, but she’s a hero in this story for not taking any shit from Iku.
If you notice I’m not mentioning Obana, it’s because I think his appearance here is pretty weak and feels like a stretch. The source of the ghostliness hasn’t got anything to do with the house, but rather a kimono that Mikko has acquired. Obana (my autocorrect keeps trying to change his name to Obama, and while hilarious it would not be accurate) just gives her a long-ass lecture about the kimono’s provenance, and that’s how it’s solved. I’m like … oh. So he knows needlework as well as construction? Mmmmkay.
◩
▬ 水の声: Haruna proposes marriage to her boyfriend and is rejected by him in a strange way. He claims he’s not a good marriage candidate, as he is being haunted by the vengeful ghost of a childhood friend whose death he contributed to.
Thoughts: Probably THE best story in this collection. After two stories filled with frustrating characters, the reasonable people in this story — adults willing to explain their thinking or consulting with and taking the advice of friends — are a relief. Also, this story comes with a twist: a MURDEROUS twist. I did not really see that coming, so the source of the ghost was … creepy, mysterious and heartbreaking.
◩
▬ まさくに: Itsuki, desperate to find a way to be alone in his grandmother’s old house — away from his mother’s complaints and his parents’ fighting — finds a secret attic room. But … is he really alone in that room?
Thoughts: Awww yissss I love stories about sullen teens!! Just like I loved my sullen teen daughter Manaka’s story, Itsuki here is also in a bind — he wants to get away from his parents’ fighting (they’re fighting about the reason why they had to move here: grandma hurt herself) and just have some peace. At first the attic seems like a haven, but uh … then he starts seeing a dark shadow inside, one with dark holes for eyes, no legs, and blood dripping from a gaping wound in its stomach. In other words, yikes.
Still, his fam gets their act together, grandma and Itsuki connect — Itsuki is actually a pretty decent grandchild which I appreciate; and grandma listens to Itsuki earnestly and they have a nice talk about the ghost in the attic, altho jesus f. christ grandma was way too casual about the fucking ghost — and they figure out what’s really causing this ghost, ‘Masakuni-san’, to appear.
All in all a good finish to the collection, as it makes me feel good and hopeful about their future in the house.
It’s a mixed bag — Ono still brings the imagery to the table and there are some strong stories that I liked a lot, but collectively, I don’t think this book is better or as good as the original.
▬ 芙蓉忌: Takaki, the only living member of his family, returns to his home town on a mission: get his parents’ house cleaned up, sell it for whatever money can be had, move to a different place, get a new job. But when he begins to clean up his deceased brother’s room, he hears the sounds of shamisen, finds a crack in a wall, and through it sees a young woman playing the instrument.
Thoughts: The implications of the haunting are disturbing, with the ghost not willing to let Takaki go, “chasing” after him even after the renovations, this time via letters that mysteriously appear in his genkan. On one hand, he’s kind of a perv, having watched the ghost girl continuously to the exclusion of everything else, even normal everyday life; on the other hand, maybe the ghost had something to do with that unnatural attachment and now he is truly fucked until he does what she wants him to do.
What is it about the brothers that puts them in the ghost’s thrall?
Also, update in 2024: when I first read this I thought Takaki had encountered Obana and was confused, because Obana can’t see ghosty things. But after re-reading I realized — it’s not Obana, it’s Dōbaru!!! Takaki specifically mentions he 1) has (in Filipino parlance) a good morning towel and 2) is a 庭師, a gardener. And Dōbaru does have the sight, or the intuition.
Dōbaru even plucked up the courage to earnestly warn Takaki, who tried to heed his warning but was by then thoroughly enthralled by the apparition. At which point Dōbaru likely thought, “I’ve done all I can. Time to call in the big guns.” So now I’m like, yikes. What was it that Dōbaru saw, because he was absolutely terrified?
◩
▬ 関守: Sayo hates the song that plays when the pedestrian crossing sign turns green — she’s always found it creepy. But it’s not simply due to the lyrics, which she finds unsettling — as it turns out, an encounter she had in her childhood is the reason for her fear.
Thoughts: My second-favorite story in this anthology. The opening scene, again, so descriptive that I could imagine it, then Sayo’s discussion with her friends about the song and its lyrics, her take on it versus her friends’ and her husband’s take on it. For some reason I really liked that part. And then finally long-lost memories coming back to her … you kind of rediscover, with Sayo, the entirety of her encounter.
I also liked the little story within a story that her husband Masaaki tells her — a little paranormal encounter passed down within his family. The feel-good ending helps too: Sayo has been thinking of the being as an “oni” this entire time, but a little quizzing from Obana and the supposition turns out different: she may have met Lord Sarutahiko.
Obana has this to say about Sarutahiko-mikoto:
「猿田彦命は天孫降臨の際、邇邇芸命*を道案内したと言われる神様です。それで道の神ともされるんです」
*ににぎのみこと. What a crazy name
◩
▬ まつとし聞かば: Single dad Toshihiro has got a lot on his plate: raising his son Wataru; fighting off the fear of his mother never waking up, after her stroke; agonizing over how to tell Wataru that his beloved cat Koharu is dead; agonizing over whether to tell Wataru about his grandmother’s state or even how to tell him … and dealing with an unseen something that comes at night through Koharu’s cat door and sleeps on his son’s futon.
Thoughts: Ooh, mixed feelings about this one. But first let me share some info about the story that I learned while trying to figure out what “まつとし聞かば” meant.
The phrase comes from an old-timey poem (waka) written by the Japanese courtier Ariwara no Yukihira who lived from 818 ~ 893, and is his most famous poem which has a lot of wordplay. It was published in a classical anthology of 100 waka by one hundred poets: the 小倉百人一首.
You can see the whole poem on Wikipedia, where a truly knowledgeable person has translated it. Basically it’s a kind of love poem where the last few lines are just someone being like, ‘If I knew you were waiting for me bro, I would be like, there in 2 seconds, bro.’
まつとし聞かば、
今帰り来む
If I hear you pine for me
I’ll come straight home to you.
(From the wiki)
What’s interesting is that this poem is also apparently used as a sort of good-luck charm to bring home missing people or pets. According to ちょっと差がつく 百人一首講座:
たとえば、飼っていた猫が行方不明になった時、おばあさんなどが、この歌を短冊に書いて、猫の皿を伏せてその下に置いておくのを見たことがありませんか？この歌は、別れを惜しむ歌ですが、一方でいなくなった人や動物が戻ってくるように願う、おまじないの歌でもあります。
Both the meaning of the poem itself, and the ~cultural or folkloric implication, I guess have weight in this story.
So, first of all, I enjoyed googling and finding out about the poem and finding a translation for it.
Characters: I loved my little son Wataru, who is the most innocent and basically the most injured party in this whole affair. The most frustrating character was Toshihiro, and I had to deal with him the entire story, and neither of us were very happy for a majority of it. Toshihiro’s childhood friend Matsubara tries to be reasonable, but Toshihiro doesn’t take his advice, so it’s all moot.
Story: Toshihiro hid things the entire time, reluctant to tell Wataru anything, and it was so frustrating. He wasn’t trying to spare Wataru the pain — he was trying to spare himself the pain of telling Wataru and dealing with his pain afterwards.
In the end, Wataru had a truly very bad no good afternoon where he found out that his grandma’s in a coma, his beloved cat Koharu is dead, the kitten he had yesterday night died, and it was because of some ghostly cat spirit monster.
What a day.
Oh, also, Toshihiro’s in-laws are awful.
◩
▬ 魂やどりて: Iku moved into an old, dingy house intending to reform it by herself … but things start going south when she starts dreaming of a woman with her back to Iku, sobbing and berating in a language Iku doesn’t understand. And each time she sees the dream, she wakes up tired and drained. Is it really all just a dream?
Thoughts: Oh man, if I thought I was frustrated with Toshihiro, YIKES, Iku is like … super annoying. This woman was at turns a bitchy customer, a condescending “friend” and an annoying neighbor. Iku getting her comeuppance was a joy to read, but her interactions with people were like … wow, how did you even get through life, you entitled person? The way she treated the second-hand shop owner and her neighbors was so annoying. Also the way she barged into Mitsuko’s house and started yelling at her because she thought she heard someone yelling the entire time she was sick… bruh.
My housemate has had that experience where our downstairs neighbor was like “have you been doing construction and banging away on the floor at strange hours of the morning!?” and then also claiming that he heard noises coming from our storage room where nobody lives, and I was totally rooting for Mitsuko. I was like, MITSUKO, CALL THE COPS ON THAT BITCH.
And in the end Iku’s first thought of how to fix the entire problem was to ask someone else to do it for her. Good thing Mitsuko’s like, uh, NO, I’m not going to fix your problem for you, but guess what, I’m nice so I’ll help. Mitsuko is the actual hero of this story. She would be a racist grandma to me, a dirty brown foreigner in Japan, but she’s a hero in this story for not taking any shit from Iku.
If you notice I’m not mentioning Obana, it’s because I think his appearance here is pretty weak and feels like a stretch. The source of the ghostliness hasn’t got anything to do with the house, but rather a kimono that Mikko has acquired. Obana (my autocorrect keeps trying to change his name to Obama, and while hilarious it would not be accurate) just gives her a long-ass lecture about the kimono’s provenance, and that’s how it’s solved. I’m like … oh. So he knows needlework as well as construction? Mmmmkay.
◩
▬ 水の声: Haruna proposes marriage to her boyfriend and is rejected by him in a strange way. He claims he’s not a good marriage candidate, as he is being haunted by the vengeful ghost of a childhood friend whose death he contributed to.
Thoughts: Probably THE best story in this collection. After two stories filled with frustrating characters, the reasonable people in this story — adults willing to explain their thinking or consulting with and taking the advice of friends — are a relief. Also, this story comes with a twist: a MURDEROUS twist. I did not really see that coming, so the source of the ghost was … creepy, mysterious and heartbreaking.
◩
▬ まさくに: Itsuki, desperate to find a way to be alone in his grandmother’s old house — away from his mother’s complaints and his parents’ fighting — finds a secret attic room. But … is he really alone in that room?
Thoughts: Awww yissss I love stories about sullen teens!! Just like I loved my sullen teen daughter Manaka’s story, Itsuki here is also in a bind — he wants to get away from his parents’ fighting (they’re fighting about the reason why they had to move here: grandma hurt herself) and just have some peace. At first the attic seems like a haven, but uh … then he starts seeing a dark shadow inside, one with dark holes for eyes, no legs, and blood dripping from a gaping wound in its stomach. In other words, yikes.
Still, his fam gets their act together, grandma and Itsuki connect — Itsuki is actually a pretty decent grandchild which I appreciate; and grandma listens to Itsuki earnestly and they have a nice talk about the ghost in the attic, altho jesus f. christ grandma was way too casual about the fucking ghost — and they figure out what’s really causing this ghost, ‘Masakuni-san’, to appear.
All in all a good finish to the collection, as it makes me feel good and hopeful about their future in the house.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 29, 2020
書き方が相変わらず好きで、面白い話もあるだが、前作よりは味が薄い。
また、前作でも薄すぎたタイトルになっているはずの「営繕屋」の存在感が、今作では、最後の２話のぞいて、無いに均しい。
だから、なんだか物足りない、中途半端な感じが残る。
また、前作でも薄すぎたタイトルになっているはずの「営繕屋」の存在感が、今作では、最後の２話のぞいて、無いに均しい。
だから、なんだか物足りない、中途半端な感じが残る。
April 24, 2023
比第一本還好看。
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