Abstract

On Fushigi Island—a tiny island with a population of just 2,000—"exchange students" arrive from all over the country every year. Ryo Hoshino, a sixth grader, is one of them. Ryo is a known "bad boy" who constantly skips school and runs late. He was sent to this island to get his life back on track.
His new elementary school is incredibly small, with just over 30 students in the entire school! Here, the students decide together what they want to do for school events. If it’s someone’s birthday, cake is served with school lunch. If a student has an upset stomach, the kitchen makes them a special bowl of rice porridge. And some days, the teacher doesn’t even give out homework just because "it’s too much trouble today"?! Every day is a series of surprises, completely different from city life.
Amidst these unique days, small, mysterious events begin to happen around the exchange students. Ryo, along with his best friend Saitsu—a local island boy—starts solving these mysteries one by one.
With each mystery solved, the children begin to shine. And Ryo, too, starts to confront his own "problems" head-on. This island gently reaches out to those carrying worries and pain that they couldn't share with anyone else...
Written by the highly acclaimed author of “Kyo Mimei” (Early This Morning), this is a "mystery-solving story for children" that warmly portrays kids living their lives to the fullest.

【Table of Contents】
Welcome to Fushigi Island!
I Don't Want to "Experience" Anything
Lights Out is at 9:00 PM
The Teacher is Covered in Soy Sauce
Where Did the Great Detective Go?
Back-to-Back Worries
That's Why I'm Here

Author’s Information

Born in 1992 in Kanagawa Prefecture. Graduated from the Faculty of Law at the University of Tokyo. In 2014, while still a student at the University of Tokyo, they won the Excellence Award at the 13th "Kono Mystery ga Sugoi!" (This Mystery is Excellent!) Awards for “Yume no Tobira wa Izumi no Naka ni” (The Door of Dreams is in the Spring), sharing the honor with Masanari Kamiya's “Miyama no Sakura.” The following year in 2015, the award-winning work was retitled “Iku nattatta Watashi e” (To the Me Who Is Gone) for publication, marking their official debut as a novelist.

In 2021, “Ju no Wa wo Kuguru” (Passing Through the Ten Rings) was nominated for the 42nd Yoshikawa Eiji Prize for New Writers. In 2022, they won the 24th Oyabu Haruhiko Award for “Torikago” (Birdcage), which was also nominated for the 75th Mystery Writers of Japan Award in the Best Novel and Novella Collection category.