Book review:

Offbeat and absurd yet entertaining in its incongruity. This is the story of a robotic turtle and his increasing difficulty in living a normal life when his amnesic past and a looming biological deadline conspire against him.

A basic description of this book is not too difficult. It is set some vague amount of time in Earth’s future and, excepting a few “anachronisms”, many aspects of this world remain quite familiar. Events take place nearly entirely within a quiet Japanese suburb. The neighbourhood features a park with a stream, a bathhouse, and a library (with physical books). Daily lifestyle habits still include the need to work in an office and rent an apartment. Laptop computers are still around. The only glaringly futuristic aspect of this book is its main character, Kame-kun (Mr. Turtle), who is literally a sentient, humanoid, robotic turtle.

The robotic turtle species seems to have been mass produced for a recent war in the space near Jupiter. They are known to the human population at large but uncommonly encountered enough to be viewed as mild novelties. Society, or at least the portion portrayed, treats them with an offhanded discrimination that ranges from outright prejudice to benevolent curiosity. In spite of this, Kame-kun’s new civilian life has an almost idyllic feel to it. The main shadows on his life are the sections of his own memory that have been encrypted, his somewhat dubious new “job” and that he has a “hibernation” date.

Author Yusaku Kitano, clearly knows his sci fi and kindred fans of Western 1980s science fiction and pop culture will likely find their enjoyment of this book is enhanced. Philip K Dick’s signature work Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? is even sought by the protagonist turtle from the in-story library. One of Kyoko Koizumi’s hits is sung. References to video are suspiciously suggestive of VHS tape. The hero is a turtle, yet not a ninja and not in a desert. Chapter titles are word plays on 80s sci fi movies. All of which are enigmatically distracting as the story becomes increasingly abstract.

Shelf 9th: 913.6 KIT
Mr. Turtle.
by Yusaku Kitano ; translated by Tyran Grillo.
Fukuoka, Japan : Kurodahan, Press.
2016 ix, 172 pages : illustration ; 21 cm.
Originally published in Japanese by Tokuma Shoten in 2001.
Translated into English from the Japanese.
ISBN: 978-4-902075-80-9

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