Japanese healing fiction seems to be a new niche in publishing. Offering cosy comfort for some, suggesting wanky woke woo woo in others, I’m sure.
Forget the labelling, the marketing, any initial adverse reaction to this advertising is averted and demolished by reading THE HEALING HIPPO OF HINODE PARK. Its simple, direct approach is charming and enchanting, linking a quintet of stories by a connection through community and kindness.
Nestled at the bottom of a new five story condo called Advance Hill is a children’s playground that precedes the new development by a generation. One of the fixtures of the park is a “seen better days” stationary ride-on hippopotamus, known locally as Kabahiko. The name derives from its phonetic similarity to hippo.
Legend has it that if you touch the area of his body that you want to make better on yours, he’ll provide a cure. The old lady who runs Sunrise Cleaning, a laundry and mending shop on part of the estate that houses the park and the condo, perpetuates the story to all her customers.
Visitors young and old are touched by the mythology and although there is nothing miraculous about encountering the hippo, a certain magic does emanate from the inanimate playground relic.
The book comprises a five stories from the five storied building in the proximity of the playground park, from the perspective of school kids to young adults and of considerably more mature figures, including the proprietress of Sunrise Cleaning and her son and daughter in law, using anatomy as analogy, achieving allegorical alchemy.
Cosy as a kotatsu, part parable, fully fable, The Healing Hippo of Hinode Park barges into the heart. It is by reading such books as this that we can develop the ability to differentiate between the shoddy and the genuine.
How author Michiko Aoyama manages so simply, so deftly to create such a beguiling book is much like asking the eggshells to explain the omelette.
Mention must also be made of Hannah Bailey’s illustrations that adorn every chapter heading. Gorgeous.
The Healing Hippo of Hinode Park by Michiko Aoyama translated from the Japanese by Takami Nieda is published by Doubleday.
