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Himawari House, written and illustrated by Harmony Becker, follows the story of Nao, Hyejung, and Tina during Nao’s one-year stay in a Tokyo sharehouse.

What I liked:

• I’ve watched many readers of color express delight at finally seeing themselves in books, but I have not felt such a deep connection to a nikkei-authored book until now. Although my life trajectory is a bit different from Nao’s, there were so many points at which Nao did or thought or felt something that I could relate to exactly. I am so appreciative of this book and of Harmony Becker for creating it.
• The reading experience of this book is fascinating. Out of context (i.e. if I did not know Becker was Japanese, writing about Japanese topics), Becker’s art style feels more ‘USian graphic novel’ or maybe ‘Asian American graphic novel’ than manga, especially the appearance of human characters, but the settings and mannerisms felt distinctly ‘Asian in Asia’ if not exactly the same sort of ‘Japanese’ that I experience when I read manga. Becker’s use of Japanese to denote sounds is likely a nod to manga/’Japanese in Japan-ness’ and, though initially startling to see alongside the English dialogue, feels more appropriate to me than using English sounds. It would probably have been extremely visually disruptive to see ‘THUD!’ or ‘BLAM!’ or ‘BANG!’ scrawled across the page.
• When I first started reading this book, I tried to read both the Japanese and English dialogue in situations where the English merely served as a translation for words originally spoken in Japanese, but I quickly found this to be hindering to my reading speed and switched to reading only the Japanese for those bits of dialogue. This meant the Korean dialogue was the only part of the book I could not read, but it makes me wonder about how the reading experience would be immediately different for people based on their language ability, in addition to differences caused by personal background and interests. I personally enjoyed seeing multiple languages on the page and based on Becker’s note about accents at the end of the book, it seems this environment felt as natural for her as it does for me. My mother still has traces of an accent in spite of having lived in the US for multiple decades, but I have never ‘heard’ it because it was simply the way she spoke English for as long as I could remember.
• On the back cover (I read the paperback edition), George Takei describes the book as, “a tantalizing peek into the future of our global society.” Although I’m not sure in what context he intended his comment, it made me (re)consider the times I have wanted to write bilingually, leaving the untranslated Japanese on the page for my presumably majority-non-Japanese-reading audience. As Nao herself comes to realize, being nikkei does not mean being ‘not enough’ of anything, but rather defining for ourselves how much of anything we want to be. There will always be naysayers, but this is true of anything in life, and it does not change who we are. With this in mind, part of my personal definition/feeling of being nikkei is existing, by default, in a multi-cultural, -lingual, -ethnic, -racial, -geographical, -etc. space, not rejected by, but rather already a part of, all of the identities and communities we claim. The future of ‘nikkei literature’ likely lies in works that are multi-something by default. In fact, nikkei poets are way ahead of the curve with their language-work, and I hope to see nikkei authors of all forms and genres follow suit. I also hope mainstream US publishing can keep up with us!
• Becker is spot-on in the depiction of cultural/social/behavioral differences between nihonjin and nikkeijin. Obviously, ‘not all…’ and so on, but I recognized so many moments between Nao, Masaki, and Shinichi, because I’ve experienced similar things with nihonjin family and friends. I can ‘pass’ as nihonjin if I behave the right way (my personality is probably also more naturally aligned with nihonjin behaviors and values than Nao’s seems to be), but sometimes it’s more fun to be the amerikajin in the crowd. To be clear, I do feel the choice to ‘be the amerikajin’ is distinct from being ostracized as a foreigner by nihonjin, which is a valid and often hurtful experience for many nikkei.
• One last aspect of this book that I appreciated, which I was a bit apprehensive about prior to reading it, is that none of the non-Japanese residents of the sharehouse are weebs, or appear to have any unhealthy attachment to or delusions about Japanese culture. Hyejung and Tina both remind me of the Asian-from-Asia students I befriended in college, who seemed generally indifferent to my background, in the sense that they never asked pointed questions about Japan or Japanese-ness and never appeared to have any expectations of me in that regard. It’s true that these friends, like Hyejung and Tina, would probably not have understood the baggage attached to being Japanese outside Japan, especially in a western country (and maybe especially in the US), as Nao discovers. Another big thanks to Becker for giving weight to this sensitive topic, which I often feel is not really understood by anyone except fellow nikkei.

What I learned:

• I suppose I always assumed sharehouses open to foreigners were primarily for university students, or maybe professionals looking for cheap housing, but I had not thought about using a sharehouse like Nao does, as a place to stay during a gap year. Part of me wishes this had occurred to me when I graduated high school; I wonder if my life would have followed a different path if I had gone straight to Japan.

Questions I had:

• How did fellow nikkei readers feel about this book? Which nikkei readers, if any, did Becker envision as a target audience for her book?
• At times, Becker includes romanized Japanese at the beginning of English dialogue, when a character starts (possibly/probably by reflex) with a Japanese expression, but then continues with a language more familiar to them. I am curious about these instances because I wonder if they occur with that character’s specific accent in Japanese. Since there are other instances where non-native Japanese speakers are shown speaking in Japanese, including Japanese expressions, this is the only explanation I was able to come up with for the romanizations. For example, if Nao’s English dialogue starts with romanized Japanese, such as, ‘are,’ is ‘are’ spoken with an American accent, or with a natural Japanese intonation? I realize this question assumes the characters’ accents change, but since this is also discussed by the characters themselves, I feel it to be a fair assumption. In my case, I speak Japanese with native intonations (meaning, I can ‘pass’ as nihonjin by my speech), but I also know how to pronounce Japanese words with an American accent, and I assume Nao’s Japanese language ability begins or progresses to this point as well.

Follow-up:

• I am incredibly excited to read more of Becker’s work, especially if it concerns nikkei experiences.