This is Amiko, Do You Copy? Book Review

3.5/5 stars

Natsuko Imamura’s 2023 novelette This Is Amiko, Do You Copy? portrays Amiko, an unfiltered young 5th grade girl with good intentions yet badly executed actions. Her relationship with her family passes from mildly confusing to strained through a bleak turn of events.

Amiko is a cheerful girl who has a hard time making friends or getting people to understand her form of thinking. She’s boisterous and does not really understand boundaries or appropriate conversation yet she behaves out of happiness and wants others to be happy as well. Her brother is Kota, an older boy who is embarrassed by his sister at school and is bossy and sometimes playful at home. Her relationship with her parents is a bond that is layered and fluctuates often. The story begins with a laidback portrayal of domesticity through the childlike eyes of Amiko—her mother is a calligraphy teacher with an at-home classroom and Amiko spends her days peeking in through the sliding doors and eating her mother’s delicious homecooked food. She walks home from school every day accompanied by her brother and sometimes her brother’s friend Nori. Amiko is overenthusiastic about the attention lavished onto her by Nori and her mother’s students which leaves people embarrassed and bummed out by their interaction with her.

Although Amiko is presented through the gaze of secondary characters as unbearable and complicated, it is easy to emphasize with her. Her decisions are emotional and dramatic and the writing seems genuinely childlike. The story has a mild plot; it is mainly the thoughts and actions of Amiko which carry the writing forward other than a few key events.

The story starts in a mellow place yet gradually builds in intensity. The dissolution of the family is presented in a way that is both fast and slow, casual yet imminent. Amiko’s actions can be understood as both causal and consequential. The ebb and flow of the family’s life seems disheartening yet Amiko’s own life takes a better turn by the end of the book.

This book is a light read (and only 128 pages) yet it can also be tense. Natsuko Imamura’s writing is a good interpretation of a rambunctious child’s thoughts and her portrayal of an urban Japanese family life seems both placid and joyful. I recommend this book as a quick read with emotional investment.  

by Catalina Bonati