Although Yen Press are of course best known for publishing manga and light novels, occasionally they also publish more traditional Japanese novels. Today, I’m here to review one such example, The God of Nishi-Yuigahama Station by author Takeshi Murase.

This book opens at the beginning of spring, when a major incident has occurred in Kamakura. A train derailed shortly after leaving Nishi-Yuigahama Station, resulting in the death of sixty-eight of the one hundred and twenty-seven passengers who had been onboard at the time. Two months later, a rumour begins to spread that there’s a ghost at the station with the power to send people back to the day of the incident. This offers those left behind the chance to say their last goodbyes, but they must follow four rules if they want this opportunity:

• You may board the train only from the station where the doomed rider first boarded.
• You mustn’t tell the doomed rider that they are soon to die.
• You must get off the train at or before passing Nishi-Yuigahama Station. Otherwise, you, too, shall die in the accident.
• Meeting the doomed rider will not change their fate. No matter what you do, those who died in the accident will not come back to life. If you attempt to get people off the train before it derails, you will be returned to the present day.

From there, The God of Nishi-Yuigahama Station is divided into four short stories, all following a character who lost someone important to them in the incident, be it a long-term partner, a parent or their first love. Each story starts with a background showing the relationship between our main character and their loved one, before reaching the day of the incident and then showing us the choices they make after meeting the ghost at the station.

While each of the stories is disconnected from the others, author Takeshi Murase does do a good job of threading them together. As the book goes on, we see the characters we met in the earlier stories pop up in surprising places. And the fourth and final tale is about the train conductor who was onboard the service that day, which felt like a good way to round off the story.

The first of the four stories is the best as it’s given the most time to develop the lead, a woman who lost her fiancé, who was her childhood sweetheart. All of the chapters are relatively short, but they certainly get shorter as they go, which doesn’t leave a lot of wiggle room when this is only a 170-page book as it is. Still, they’re all well written, even if it feels like the later ones may not have the same emotional depth as the first.

Of course, the common theme here is grief. How we individually deal with the loss of a loved one, and how we move forward from that. Despite the rather depressing premise, this is a book that’s fairly optimistic about humanity and their ability to bounce back from even the most painful of things. And while the ghost train is a whimsical way of getting people to deal with those bottled-up emotions, I did enjoy its usage here and how it helped each of the four characters come to terms with the passing of their loved one.

A chance to say goodbye is something we’d all wish for in a situation like that, so to see that opportunity arise is quite a happy thing in its own way. This won’t be a novel for everyone due to the subject matter, but if you are okay reading about such a tragic accident and the aftermath, then I think there is both comfort and enjoyment to be found in reading it.

As mentioned, The God of Nishi-Yuigahama Station has been brought to the West thanks to Yen Press under their Yen ON imprint. The novel has been translated by Giuseppe di Martino, and it reads well on the whole with nothing in the way of issues.

This is Murase’s only novel to be translated into English so far, but researching the author, I discovered that they have several other works under their belt, one of which has a similar theme where there’s a god who helps people with their problems. I hope Yen Press will also bring that over to the West, as well as their award-winning debut about a Rakugo storyteller, in the future.

Overall, The God of Nishi-Yuigahama Station is an interesting novel tackling a difficult subject with a lot of respect. It leaves the reader with a sense of optimism for the future and the belief that there’s always a way forward. It won’t be for everyone, but for those who do connect with it, there’s a lot to like here.

Our review copy from Yen Press was supplied by Diamond Book Distributors UK.