In an odd corner of Tokyo is a ramen restaurant that, for the right clientele, is actually a pawnshop. Walk inside and the shop owner will greet you warmly. You’ll apologize and say you are in the wrong place, that you were looking for a hot meal, you need to go, but the shop owner will stop you. And he’ll offer you the opportunity of a lifetime: the chance to pawn a regret, or to shed a choice that has been a burden.
All her life, Hana Ishikawa has anticipated and dreaded the day she will inherit her father’s magical pawnshop, a nook that rests between two worlds: bustling, modern Tokyo and Isekai, or the Other World. She understands it is necessary to collect human choices and to turn them over—in the form of glowing birds—to the Shiikuin, the mysterious, terrifying figures in “pale white Noh masks . . . [stinking of] rusting metal and decaying flesh” who guard Isekai. But on the morning of Hana’s first day as shop proprietor, she finds the place ransacked, her father missing and a choice stolen, presumably by him. To complicate matters, Keishin, a brilliant human physicist, stumbles into the shop on the morning of the disaster and insists on helping Hana find her father.
So unfurls a story that is equal parts adventure and romance, lighthearted and devastating, philosophical and emotionally resonant. Hana and Kei embark on a journey through Isekai, jumping into puddles and coming out in other realms, folding into paper, climbing ladders through clouds and witnessing the release of the stars. They run from the Shiikuin and chase after Hana’s father, who presumably holds answers to questions about Hana’s past; simultaneously, they circle each other, tentative but magnetic. It’s a Romeo and Juliet love story, after all. They’re from two different worlds: “She was the moon in the water,” Kei observes, “Close enough to touch, yet beyond reach.”
Author Samantha Sotto Yambao’s world building in Water Moon is marvelous and digestible, utilizing short chapters and precise, direct descriptions. And our protagonists, Hana and Kei, are refreshingly communicative and mature. Yambao has created a work of art that is atmospheric and, above all else, wondrous. Although there are stakes, Water Moon is a heartwarming, low-suspense read that reminds us to take hold of our lives and our choices.
