I Had That Same Dream Again

Mata, Onaji Yume wo Miteita is the story of an elementary school girl, "Koyanagi Nanoka", finding the meaning of "happinness". Right at the beginning, she is assigned by her teacher to find the answer to that. While thinking about it, she visits 3 friends, a teenager, an adult and a granny, named "Minami", "Skank" and "Granny", and discusses with them about what happinness means. Each one of them has different views on life and what happinnes is, as it is expected from their age gap and they also face different struggles. There are many sensitive themes, which makes the story seems dark sometimes, contrasting withthe main character's innocent and optimistic perspective. The story has an interesting premise, good pace, variety of deep themes and good characters, as well as a twist to the three characters' connection with Nanoka and the name of the novel, which really surprised me. Regarding the main character's relationships, I think Nodoka and Kiriyuu's relationship was similar to Sakura and Haruki's one from Kimi no Suizou wo Tabetai, so you may like that part of the story if you liked the author's previous work, despite the romance not being a major theme here, since the characters are just children. Unfortunately, despite the gripping and sensitive themes, the way the story deals with them is rather simplistic and it never really goes deep into them. That has much to do with the main character being a kid and the story being narrated by her. The way she thinks, acts and even her humour is extremely childish and it gets boring quickly. There's nothing deep about her catchphrases "like is like..." and even her conclusions on "happiness" are obvious and ordinary. Another problem is that all the story becomes predictable due to a scene that makes everything crystal clear, which was a good moment but happened too early in the story. It was a good read overall, the storyline was engaging and solid, but I think it's slightly overrated, as there's nothing groundbreaking, the plot is simple and has some problems like I said. I would recommend it, especially if you like other works by Sumino Yoru, but you should read it without high expectations. I also think I would get a lot more from this book if I read it as a kid, maybe it wouldn't be so redundant for me.

How would you describe happiness? A question every person would likely answer differently to, some more so than others. I Had That Same Dream Again is a about a young girl, named Nanoka, looking for an answer to that question, combined with the aspect of growing as a person by coming to the understanding that not everyone is the same. The answer to the question of happiness, how emotions are experienced, and how we react to them. They all differ with each individual. Nanoka does not go through this journey alone, but is guided by various characters: a high school girl struggling to fit in,a young woman with a night job, and an elderly grandmother-like woman with a whole lifetime of experiences. These characters guide Nanoka in finding the answers to her questions and problems, allowing Nanoka to become a better person. In return, albeit not on purpose, she helps them by giving joy to their lives. The writing of the characters was very well done, with their emotions, actions, and answers all quite fitting for who they are. The primary example would be Nanoka, a young elementary schooler who is more mature than her peers, yet clearly still a child at heart. Her more simplistic answers, her naivety about the world around her, and her responses to the emotions she feels, all show that. This helps create a nice contrast that makes her feel quite realistic. Furthermore, she can be described as a righteous girl, but lacks the experience and understanding of other people's emotions to approach the issue at hand softly. This leads to frustration when her actions are not welcomed in the way she expected. The writing style is smooth to read, with transitions feeling smooth, words fluent, and emotions of the characters alive. It is written in a simple and easy to read manner, as commonly seen in light novels, but had plenty of descriptive words and sentences to clearly set the mood of the scenes. The conversations were also pleasant to read: not scripted, nor too much like a real conversation. They kept to the matter at hand, yet brought in enough uniqueness to make the characters feel alive. The pacing is definitely on the slower side, but as the main focus is the gradual discovery of answers to questions and behavior of other characters, it felt quite fitting. The smoothness of the writing definitely helped the slower pacing, allowing it to remain a pleasant read even when less was happening.