Kuma no Basho
熊の場所
Short story collection.
- Kuma no Basho (Where the Bears Are)
An 11-year-old boy discovers a cat tail in a classmate's bag. Inspiried by a story his father told him about a bear, he decides to face his fear, and forms an unusual friendship with the cat killer. Disappearing dogs, a missing child, and the way his friend strokes his neck lovingly at night when he sleeps over...freaked me the fuck out.
The Bat Man in question is not some Gotham avenger, but a local crazy man, who always screams abuse at people while waving a bat around. But he's an immense coward, and always ends up being beaten with his own bat. This character becomes a metaphor for vicious cycles of violence -- just as Bat Man can never fight back, the abusive relationship between a couple the narrator is friends with can never work itself out, no matter how much they honestly love each other.
A fallen genius makes a deal with her biker boyfriend -- in exchange for one thousand blow jobs, he will stop fighting, take his job seriously, and let her go to university. But when he turns up dead, she is pissed, and tracks down the killer herself. Easily the best story of the three, and makes the whole volume worth it.
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