Hideki Tahara’s company, where he was happily newly married, received a visitor. He is horrified by the message from a junior colleague who intercedes. It was the name of his daughter Chisa, who was about to be born. The junior employee, who had suffered an unidentified bite wound, became exhausted at the hospital. Afterwards, Hideki receives suspicious phone calls and emails around him. Could the series of strange occurrences be the work of a monster called “Bogiwan”, which his late grandfather had feared? In order to protect his beloved family, Hideki follows a trail and meets a female medium named Higa Makoto. Makoto begins to visit the Tahara family, but discovers that the looming presence is extremely ferocious. Can she escape the clutches of the “bogiwan”? … Ghost stories, urban legends, folklore - an unprecedented non-stop horror story filled with various elements! The winner of the 22nd Japan Horror Novel Award (Grand Prize), praised not only by the finalists but also by all the preliminary selection committee members.
(Translated with DeepL)
This is the debut work of 澤村伊智. It won the 22nd Japan Horror Novel Award (日本ホラー小説大賞 and became the start of a series. In 2018 it was made into a movie, titled 来る. There’s now also a manga series based on the novels. This is the same author who wrote 予言の島 | L37 (learnnatively.com), which we’ve read with the Wanikani Spooky Summer Club last summer.
Note that the ebook is currently on sale for only 75 yen on both Bookwalker and Amazon until Feb 22.
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Are you planning to read ぼぎわんが、来る with the book club?
Not very much available reading time this weekend, but I started and read up to chapter 1.5. I was surprised at the beginning, I was expecting a slower build-up
For now all I can say is that it keeps my interest very well, I’d happily keep reading if I could. And that there’s a lot of Kansai ben in dialogue.
Same here! I also haven’t had much time but managed to read up to chapter 4 and am appreciating how much action there is so far. I’m enjoying the author’s writing style and feel very drawn in already!
Before I get into spoilers, I just wanted to say that I knew ぼぎわん sounded suspiciously close to bogeyman!
Spoilers for all of chapter 1:
So, wait what? Are we out of narrator now? I wasn’t expecting that this early at all!
It looks to me like we’ve been dealing with an unreliable narrator. For most of the chapter I was thinking how refreshing it is to finally see a good husband and father in a Japanese book, but is he really? Between his abusive grandfather, his crying grandmother stressing that he needs to take care of his wife, Makoto telling him he needs to be kind to his family and what we heard on the phone, I’m starting to think he’s not been telling us (or maybe even himself) the entire truth).
I think I’ll pause here to catch up with my other books (so many!), but I’m very much looking forward to see how the story continues.
I haven’t had a lot of time to sit down and read lately, so I’ve been reading a few pages of this on my phone here and there when I have some silence and can concentrate. It probably has not been the best way to enjoy a fast-paced suspense story like this one, but it’s still enjoyable to read! I’ve finally completed chapter 1, though. My thoughts:
What happened to the main character at the end?! Is he…gone?! He seems to be a little suspicious himself, with little hints dropped here and there that he isn’t such a great husband or father. I’m wondering if the POV is going to change in the next chapter and it will be about how he’s a total jerk or something? Or maybe about why the ぼぎわん is chasing his family?? Poor 逢坂さん though, coming to help and then she gets attacked like that.
It’s also funny/interesting how the ぼぎわん came from the west and is derived from boogie man, but also seems like a typically Japanese evil spirit taking the form of a woman and wanting to bring victims to the mountain. East meets west. It makes for a pretty scary enemy, though. Who wants to get bitten and end up like the main character’s 部下？ Not me…
Really wondering what’s going to happen next! Onwards to chapter 2.
My guess that the pov would change was correct! I’m actually enjoying the story even more now that it’s from the pov of Kana. It doesn’t feel like horror as much anymore (well, being married to that guy qualifies for horror), but it’s really interesting seeing all the events once more from her pov. I wonder if there is no ぼぎわん at all now, since Kana was the one who destroyed all the charms and protective things around their place? Or if it exists, maybe it’s a monster that preys on awful husbands (the grandma talked about 我慢 and such and gave marital advice in chapter 1, so I feel like that could make sense). In any case, Hideki’s behavior is a big yikes.
This is my guess as well. I feel that Kana didnt invite bogiwan by destroying the charms, but by finally snapping at her awful husband. (That said, I expected him even worse than that, he seems to have been a self-deluding narcissist rather than abusive on purpose. Who knows, maybe his grandfather also thought he was a model husband.)
I finished all of chapter 2 today, and I did not see the end coming at all there. Now both Hideki and Chisa are dead?!
I was beginning to doubt the existence of the ぼぎわん、or wondering if it would leave Kana and Chisa alone, but no… Based on the ending, it also seemed like Kana has gone insane, so I have no good guesses of who will be the narrator in chapter 3. The chapter is titled 部外者、so maybe it’s Hideki’s professor friend? Nozaki did mention something about how he set them up…all I can say is that this book is impossible to predict so far.
I am curious about your thoughts on the end of chapter 2 when you get there!
Finished chapter 2 too.
If this was a movie, I’d probably be scared silly by now. I’m doing fine with it in book form though
I truly thought that when Kana suddenly realized that there was some good in her husband, and that despite everything he had been frantically trying to protect them, that the “gap” would close and the monster would leave, but no. Having it come out of the toilet was…something. Things coming out of the toilet to get me has been my irrational fear since childhood (mostly over it now), so this hit somewhat hard. And things coming out of the toilet to get your daughter… well, that’s hard to beat.
What happened to Makoto? All the blood made it look like she’s definitely dead, but it would be so strange. We hardly know anything about her, and as far as I know, the series is about her and her sister, so maybe she was miraculously saved somehow?
I also wonder who the narrator is going to be next. I suspect that we may need to explore Hideki’s family past a bit more. How did the monster begin to target this family? Why? Do they have a long history of dysfunctional relationships? Maybe so, but they surely aren’t the only ones. I’m also wondering whether the people eaten up by the monster are indeed somewhere in the “mountain”. It feels so strange that Chisa would be killed and gone - I was sure we’d be seeing things from her point of view soon.
I must say I’m impressed that we got a male perspective on the societal pressure to have kids. I’ve been coming across this issue in nearly all the books I’ve read from a woman’s perspective in one way or another, but seeing a man struggle with his inability to have children and all his peers “being normal” when he can’t was very refreshing. This is the second book by 澤村伊智 I’m reading, and he keeps surprising me with deeper insights amid all the suspense and horror.
Edit: I just wanted to add that I was very happy to come across a reference to a yokai (and way of protection against it) that I had already read about in 怪しくゆかいな妖怪穴 | L30 (learnnatively.com)
Ahh this chapter is Nozaki’s pov and his + Makoto’s backstory. That makes sense. Again the onsen for people who want to have children made an appearance — it seems like this will perhaps be a key to explaining the ぼぎわん? So many mysteries to solve!
The book definitely seems to be centered around children. The desire to have them, the inability to have them, the obsession with their upbringing, all the complex attitudes adults have towards them that have nothing to do with the children themselves, but rather their own child-bearing and -rearing hopes and abilities. I still wonder if Chisa may somehow be alive, or at least still in this world in some form - she’s the only actual child in the story, after all. Maybe the mountain is something like Neverland, a paradise for children away from adults?
Various things are finally coming to light! We are on the verge of solving the mystery of the onsen and where Chisa is. Kotoko is also a nice addition to the cast, even though she seems a bit overpowered. And sheesh, I can’t believe that paper sword charm from Karakusa was a curse - isn’t that a bit far to take your frustration? Just because you’re sick of hearing about children or other men talking about the women they sleep with doesn’t mean you should curse their family. I hope he has some form of consequences for his harmful actions!
Finished! It was very hard to stop towards the end.
I actually found section 13 (spoilers up to there) the most chilling of all. The whole idea of 口減らし is just too horrible to contemplate, even if it was (or was thought to be) a necessity. Nothing is more horrifying than the human mind after all. In the same vein, a frustrated “academic” putting a curse on a freshly widowed woman just because he could, basically, is another, very different, example of the casual evilness of people. Not to mention Hideki’s lovely family history.
Now on the rest of the book, I found the final battle scene dragged on a little too long, but it may be just me. I always tend to lose concentration during long battles, whatever the language or medium. The sisters seem to have some interesting history though. I wonder what happened to all the other siblings, and what happened between them as they grew up. I can understand why the series revolves around them, and I’m impressed that the author seemed to write this story with a series already in mind, even though it was a debut.
All in all, this book had some nicely creepy scenes, and would definitely be scary as a movie, although I can’t say I had any trouble reading it at night as a book. I’m still looking for the book that will scare me. There was quite a lot of darkness though, I can’t complain. After two books by this author, I’m definitely interested in reading more by him.
I agree that 口減らし is horrible… Times were probably unimaginably tough back then, but still. It was an interesting historical tidbit though. I think the folk customs element of this book was the most interesting part for me for sure, and wished it had gone even deeper into that, but I am quite satisfied with the entire reading experience.
As for the actual climax and “fight scene”, I was not really scared at all. Another horror book that wasn’t scary, oh dear. It was still an interesting book, but I think from the horror club books so far (ok, we only have 2 so far, but…) I preferred リング more. This one somehow lacked a sense of tension and urgency in some parts, even though people were actually dying?! I have to say, though - I’ve read hundreds of books and this may be the first one where a protagonist just straight up dies like Hideki did at the end of chapter 1, so applause to the author for that.
I’m not sure if I’d seek out the other books in the series just yet, though. Maybe if I happed across book two for free, but I think I will stop here for now.
Very much agree with this. In fact, if they had gone into the woods or the onsen and somehow found remains of children or all 口減らし children still “alive” it would have been so much better for me. Even during the fight I kept expecting more children to appear, not just Chisa. Maybe the defeated monster would dissolve into all the children that, combined, fed its existence? I did want something much darker than this. I’m a bad person. In reviews people seemed to like the final fight, it’s just that I never like watching or reading fights of any kind, and it was anyway obvious bogiwan would be defeated by the end of it.
Not continuing with the series now either (I said elsewhere I don’t generally like reading series, give me something completely new and exciting every time), but I’m also not averse to reading another volume in the future. In fact I think I’m more likely to read the next volume of this series than the next volume in the リング series at some point.
I’ve finally completed chapter 1, though. My thoughts:
It makes for a pretty scary enemy, though. Who wants to get bitten and end up like the main character’s 部下？ Not me…
Now both Hideki and Chisa are dead?! 
So many mysteries to solve! 
