Loneliness is not lost in translation — but character development is

By Libby D’Orvilliers

I feel that nearly every day is the perfect day to be alone. I just do not want to be alone forever. Chizu, the main character of the book “A Perfect Day to Be Alone” seems to feel the same way.

The book is award-winning Japanese fiction author Nanae Aoyama’s first book publication to be translated into English. The Akutagawa Prize-winning novella was originally published in Japanese in 2007. The English translation by Jesse Kirkwood, was released for sale in the United States by Other Press on Feb. 11, 2025. 

The story follows 21-year-old Chizu Mita as she moves to Tokyo in hopes of finding herself — and a job. Having no other family to move in with, Mita takes up residence with her 71-year-old distant relative, Ginko Ogino and her menagerie of cat photos.

This short coming-of-age novel depicts Mita experiencing a sort of holding pattern in her life and her overall apathy towards her future. While Mita seems to be described in the novel as a “slacker” in comparison to the fast-paced, driven culture of Tokyo around her, in North American culture, while college-age students are also arguably under stress to “make something” of themselves, it is almost anticipated that a young adult will experience these feelings of affectlessness in a sort of quarter-life crisis.

This contrast in cultural expectations is part of why I found this read so immersive. I learned about Japanese culture without leaving my dorm room here at Rider. While I am positive that reading about the culture is drastically different from actually experiencing it, this is what I can easily get my hands on and it is nice to get a small taste to inspire me to delve deeper into different cultures.

If you are looking to dip your toes into Japanese literary fiction, I highly recommend you start with a short slice-of-life novella such as this one.

A major complaint I have is that for a coming-of-age story, there is little to no character development in the main character. She seems stagnant; perhaps this is purposeful and is meant to represent what one’s early 20s feel like — idle. 

Even if this lack of character development was meant to be a purposeful literary technique, the novella, while short in pages, does sprawl across four seasons so I would expect to see at least some changes in Mita, her thought process and patterns. 

The final few pages of the story seemed extremely abrupt to me. It was almost as if Aoyama realized there was no growth and tried to explicitly state each way the character grew instead of showing us. The conclusion — if you could call it that if no conflict was even resolved — fell extremely flat for me and left me feeling disappointed and almost regretful that I had spent the past two hours with the unchanging Mita.

Overall, the relatable angsty feelings of loneliness are pervasive throughout the book, but perhaps some of the character development of this book was lost in translation.

Thank you Other Press for providing this book for review consideration. All opinions are my own.

Libby D’Orvilliers is a junior psychology major