Tomihiko Morimi, the author of Penguin Highway, The Night is Short, Walk On Girl, The Tatami Galaxy, and more is back with a new collection of short stories!
Rather than back, English-speaking audiences will get to enjoy another of his masterpieces.
Namely, on September 5, 2022, Yen Press announced it has licensed Morimi’s short story collection Fox Tales (Kitsune no Hanashi), which was released in Japan in 2006.
The publisher also debuted the book cover (a detail pictured above), which you can check out here.
The book contains four stories and will be released in hardcover and in digital format. Though the cover doesn’t look spooky, Morimi is a genius at worldbuilding.
Hopefully, we’ll see this one animated and enjoy the rest of Morimi’s works.
Fox Tales at a glance
According to the synopsis by Yen Press, Fox Tales will center around Kyoto, much like many of Morimi’s works. The focus is on a mysterious curio shop, a wiggling basket, a masked man waiting in the dark, things that are lost, forgotten, and offered abound!
So, what do foxes have to do with all this? In Asian culture, foxes or kitsunes are arguably the most well-known spirits.
Especially nine-tailed foxes like Kurama in Naruto, two-tailed foxes like Kurama in Yu Yu Hakusho, the classic one-tailed fox like Shippo in Inuyasha, and much more! Foxes are seen as cunning and mischievous.
They are not always evil, but they’re known for playing tricks, using fox fire to lure or confuse people, transforming into beautiful women, and eating humans. So, could a fox be working at or own the curio shop?
Absolutely! However, we’ll have to wait and see if the fox is benevolent or not. The synopsis reminds me of an anime called Pet Shop of Horrors.
The proprietor sells all kinds of pets, but some are on the extreme side of exotic. For example, there is a rabbit that looks like the dead daughter of the first couple to enter the shop.
It somehow gives birth to multiple generations of flesh-eating rabbits after the woman gives the first rabbit a cookie. Worth watching if you enjoy spooky things!
Who is Tomihiko Morimi?
Morimi was born on January 6, 1979, and has written many books since he graduated from Kyoto University. Although some are still only available in Japan, Morimi has risen in popularity due to the success of several of his works being animated.
Notable examples include:
- The Tatami Galaxy
- The Night Is Short, Walk On Girl
- The Eccentric Family
- Penguin Highway
- The Eccentric Family: The Junior Returns
- Tatami Time Machine Blues
His other non-animated works include:
- Tower of the Sun
- New Edition of “Run Melos!” and four other stories
- Love Letter Techniques
- Gion Kalidoscope
- The Adventures of a Saintly Slacker
- Night Train
- Tropics
Fox Tales will go on sale on November 22, 2022, via Yen Press. The book is priced at $20. For a hardcover edition with 240 pages, that’s not a bad deal, but we encourage you to look around the internet and compare offers.