Whoever Steals This Book

With an animated film adaptation released in Japan in December and on the way to the West via Crunchyroll, my curiosity was peaked for Whoever Steals This Book. I decided to check out the manga adaptation of Nowaki Fukamidori's light novel to see what all the fuss was about.

Mifuyu Mikura belongs to a family of bibliophiles that own a huge library of rare books that are the envy of collectors around the world. Originally opened as a museum, eventually it was closed to the public due to theft and damages, becoming a place of intriguing mystery for most - but Mifuyu wishes she'd never read a book, feeling more like a slave to her families legacy than a benefactor of it. With  her father in hospital, she has to take on the duties of the hall, including looking after her strange Aunt.

Due to the public's interest in the collection, the entire town became a bastion for the book-obsessed, with many book shops opening to specialise in certain subjects or genres. 

When a thief steals a book from Mikura Hall, it triggers a curse that turns the entire town into the world of the stolen volume, the residents taking on characteristics of the fictional inhabitants of the story. Upon entering this new reality, Mifuyu encounters a mysterious dog-eared girl named Mashiro who helps her track down the thief and return the town to  normal.

It's a terrific setup - though not the first reluctant inheritance in manga or anime, there's a rich vein to tap for fantasy stories set in the world of books, and the first volume of the manga showcases this neatly with two worlds - the first a folktale about powerful beings that can turn the rain to pearls, and the second a classic crime-noir, which necessitates a complete change of artistic style. 

I have to say I much preferred the second of these worlds, but I like my novels to have some grit in them. The artwork by Kakeri Sora is beautiful, with lots of detail with which to create expressive worlds within the pages and it feels like the artist had a lot of fun bringing them to life.

There were however a few instances where I felt a bit lost, the fantastical action becoming a touch confusing and requiring a bit of a re-read to fully understand the flow of things, but otherwise I was able to enjoy the stories thanks to Mifuyu's grounded nature in the face of such strangeness. She's quick and clever, which makes her easy to root for.

I can heartily recommend the book if you want to get ahead of the feature-film release, and with a total of three volumes in the run, it's not going to break the bank to get the whole story. I'll be picking up the rest to complete the set, so I may return and give a full impression of the full saga, but for now this is a terrific read with a lot of imagination, and fittingly enough arrived on World Book Day, for which  this story would be a wonderful ambassador.