Full Moon Coffee Shop By Mai Mochizuki

Book Review by K.S.Loganathan.                     

Mai Mochizuki is a Japanese writer. She has drawn from artist Chihiro Sakurada’s illustrations of a mysterious ‘Full Moon Coffee Shop’ run by a cat, to tell a heartwarming story of redemption of a small group of characters who were once a walk- to- school group . Now  working  , they face many challenges, and are able to reset their goals through dreams involving star-reading sessions with the cats that run the Coffee Shop.

As the story unfolds, Mizuki Serikawa , their former teacher, and now a video game script writer living  in straitened circumstances in a Kyoto suburb, meets Akari Nakayama, a television channel director, who bluntly tells her that her script has been rejected by her network . Akari also fires an actress Satsuki Ayukawa from a show due to a public backlash of her affair with a married man . Akari herself has had a failed love affair. Takashi Mizumoto is a computer engineer who faces frequent communication breakdowns in appliances. Megumi detests parts of her job as a beautician.All of them are single ,lonely and miserable. 

The story is melded with magical realism involving a western music pianist/composer, a clowder of cats each named after a planet, real beverages and desserts served to uplift the mood while astrological insights are being conveyed to the participants in their reveries. ” Life is like one of those black- and- white spinning tops that turns into a beautiful whirl of color once it spins fast enough . It’s all about keeping things in balance” advises a cat. Knowing the stars that influence you helps you to know yourself and make your own way in life, is the theme of the book. The characters are ready to move forward with their lives as they accept past mistakes and rebalance their lives.

In my opinion , although astrological predictions are made in the book along the lines of traditional astrology for the effects of ruling planets , houses and dasas, the readings are not rigorous and are perhaps only illustrative, catering mainly  to a western readership. For that matter, there is hardly any mention of coffee,  although the full moon features prominently in the book. This is a short novel set in easy-to- read large size lettering and spacing . It has enough detail of the good life, and some of the ways to enjoy it.