Sarah Hozumi

The Reservation

After battling online reservation systems from Tokyo Disneyland, The Pokemon Cafe, and the Sunrise Seto, I feel like at this point in my life I’m a veteran of dealing with reservation systems under fire. That is, reservation systems that handle everyone on earth seemingly trying to reserve one of only a few spots available.

(Tokyo Disneyland, I’d just like to note, is usually really good with their systems, but there was a point two years ago I think it was where kids were half off for the summer, and the reservation system for that was absolutely bonkers.)

Reserving four spots at the Kirby Cafe at Tokyo Skytree’s Solamachi shopping center has been my white whale of reservations. I’ve been trying for the past four months to get one.

Reservations open online at 6 p.m. (Japan time) every 10th day of the month for reservations that would be for the following month, and spots fill up literally within the first minute of them becoming available.

I looked around online for any tips and tricks and read the recommendation of refreshing the page for the next half hour in case of cancellations, but I think maybe it was because I was going for four seats that nothing budged even an hour after.

Then, last month, fates smiled on me. Or maybe it was because I nearly slammed my finger through my phone tapping on the exact date and time I wanted, but I managed to finally get the reservation.

Make sure you bring I.D. with you when you finally get to this cafe because they will check it against the name you wrote when you made the reservation (it looks like people selling or giving away their reservations has become a problem.)

I think the reason this cafe is so hard to get into is for three reasons.

1. The food was amazing. It was cute, and it was delicious.
2. Kirby is popular right now for some reason for being cute. I don’t know – I got the feeling a lot of the patrons didn’t love Kirby for the video games so much as because Kirby is cute. That was just my impression.
3. The cafe is much smaller than I thought it’d be. There’s room for maybe 20 people at a time, and you’re given about 90 minutes to eat, I think it was.

The Food

The food is expensive, so just prepare yourself if you do get in and plan on going.

Another thing to note is you need to order everything you plan on eating all at once. You’re not allowed to call the server back to your table to order again. One time, then you’re done.

For four of us to have a main course, a special drink, and a dessert, it was about 20,000 yen (or only about $134 for people lucky enough to be converting from the American dollar). A lot of the menu items included souvenir plates and cups, but of course for an extra fee.

The nice thing is at least the food also tastes amazing, rather than it just looks cute. I think considering how fast the food came out, too, it was really impressive.

Can’t get a reservation?

For anyone who wants some Kirby Cafe gifts but can’t get a reservation, there are two Kirby Cafe gift shops in Solamachi to choose from.

There’s a relatively small one you can access inside Solamachi on the fourth floor just behind the actual cafe, and there’s another, bigger, one on the opposite end of the fourth floor across from The Pokemon Center store.

The Kirby Cafe shop opposite the Pokemon Center also offers desserts and some drinks that are also on the menu at the Kirby Cafe, but they sell out really quickly so you’d need to get there first thing in the morning to get one.

Takeout from the cafe is also available without needing a reservation. You just talk to the staff at the Kirby Cafe (or manning the cash register at the shop just behind the actual cafe) and ask for takeout. Just be prepared to go back to that gift shop an hour or so later to get the food.

It was a great experience, though I think considering the price and how difficult the reservation was to get, I won’t be going back for a while. I think this was something I’m going to mark down as a once-in-a-lifetime experience and leave it at that.

While I’ve only ever seen rugby tests in stadiums in Japan, and only about four at that, I’ve heard that there’s a drinking culture to rugby fans in other countries that I don’t see here.

The rugby tests I’ve seen involve spectators who are almost silent, like they’re watching golf, with the ocassional shouts here and there, followed by collective gasps, cheers and applause if something exceptionally exciting happens. Otherwise, it’s quiet enough that I can usually hear the players shouting at each other.

I’m a supremely casual fan of rugby, by the way, but watching the tests in Japan has been a complete pleasure.

I love seeing people out with their kids, waving flags and enjoying snacks while watching. I don’t go to these tests worried about supremely drunk people bothering me, and for me, that’s a nice feature to Japan’s culture of rugby.

While there are plenty of places in Japan where you can run into extremely drunk people, I’m personally glad I haven’t had to deal with any at the stadiums. It’s just nice, to be honest, and I’m not sure if that holds true in other countries.

I’m looking forward to attending more rugby tests in Japan in the future.

I’m a fan of the actor Takeru Satoh. While knowing nothing about him beyond his acting career and whatever he puts on Youtube, I can’t help but try to watch anything he’s been in.

I’m also a casual fan of Jin Akanishi – I was more a fan of his in my 20s than I am now, I think mostly because I don’t really have the time or energy to be a fan of too many people at once. The hobbies he posts about on his Youtube channel also don’t really align with mine. That being said, sometimes he posts things I like.

A few years back, especially during the pandemic, I was stunned to see Takeru Satoh and Jin Akanishi actually know one another as their two Youtube channels did a collaboration involving a game called “Werewolf” in English, apprently, and called “Jinro (werewolf) Game” in Japanese.

I started watching because I’m a fan of both celebrities, and seeing them together was altogether intriguing, but as I watched the game unfold, I fell madly in love with it not only for being so maddeningly simple in terms of preparation but also because it seemed like an amazing game to flex your acting skills, not to mention your memory. Jin Akanishi and Takeru Satoh also played with a group of other famous Japanese celebrities, which made the game all the more fun for me just to watch.

Knowing nothing about this game beyond what I’ve seen on their Youtube channels, I do know that it’s now become one of my dearest ambitions to play it someday.

The rules are (basically, and only from what I’ve gleaned from watching the Youtube game): You need a group of at least 9 people. One person is the moderator, the other 8 play the game.

Of the 8, there are two werewolves. The remaining are villagers or a fortune teller. It is the job of the villagers and fortune teller to figure out who the werewolves are walking among them, and it is the job of the werewolves to stay hidden and try to get other innocent people accused of being a werewolf. Each round is about 6 minutes long, at the end of which everyone accuses one person of being a werewolf.

Jin Akanishi’s Youtube channel suddenly posted a few days ago what is turning into a marathon of “Jinro Game” spread across a plethora of Youtube channels that features Takeru Satoh alongside a host of famous people in Japan (though I still have no idea who Jimmy Martin is).

In this version, a knight, shaman and a hunter have been added into the group, each with their own tricks they can pull to sweeten the game. Also, after six minutes, the person with the most accusations gets “killed”, then night falls, and another player might get killed if a werewolf is still among the group. This continues for two rounds, sometimes three.

If the villagers and non-werewolf players successfully boot out the two werewolves, then they win. If even one werewolf remains after about three rounds, however, the werewolves win.

I think in terms of preparation, you just need 8 playing cards that have the identities written on one side. That’s it. Ridiculously simple.

The fun and complications comesin trying to guess who’s lying about who they are and who isn’t. Werewolves happily declare they’re actually a villager or sit back and let the accusations fly around them while looking innocently confused.

Some people have a natural talent for this game, and Takeru Satoh is one of them. He is the teacher for the game in the videos even in this newer installment to the “Jinro Game” series for them, but all the while he’s pulling out all kinds of tricks and devious schemes as he eyes each person the way I think a lot of detectives might. While most of the other celebrities are fumbling around trying to grasp their way through the nuances, Takeru Satoh is in his element.

Just once, I wish I could try to play this game against him just to see if I could beat him at his own game. I think I’m going to add it to my bucket list the same way a lot of people might write “Win the lottery.”

The 2024 game is currently up to volume 4, and unfortunately it’s only in Japanese, but for those of you interested, the first volume is here:

This entertains me to no end

I’ll keep this brief since it’s Christmas (at least in Japan) and we’re heading into the great New Year’s holidays (which is Japan’s version of Christmas in that all of Japan seems to shut down for a few days).

As someone who has, in the past, received rejections on holidays, I’d like to take this moment to ask anyone in the publishing world reading this right now to do us poor writers a favor and wait at least one day or two after a major national holiday before sending a rejection of some kind.

For this time of the year, with its various holidays, I think it would be kindest to stop sending rejections on around December 15th and put them off until maybe around January 10th.

Perhaps you could have a nice roughly one-month break to maybe close submissions while you sift through everything, then just send out those rejections on the 10th, a day which we writers could dub “The Great Dump.”

Thank you for your time and consideration, and happy holidays to everyone reading this!

I’m what’s considered to be a casual gamer, in that I don’t play for hours at a time every day. That said, I love video games, especially RPGs like Kingdom Hearts and the Legend of Zelda series. For me, it’s like the ultimate interactive form of reading a book, making it endlessly fun.

Since I was in middle school, one of my favorite series has been Pokemon. As I grow older, I’m more and more disturbed by the idea of capturing animals and forcing them to fight one another, but at least it’s not real life. As a side note: I do find it interesting how a lot of Pokemon captures in the anime are just the trainer saying “Do you want to fight with me?” and the Pokemon agreeing, something I’ve never seen in the games.

When I first came to Japan, I basically shunned video games, thinking they were a waste of time as I focused on work, writing and life in general. However, I’ve recently realized how much I missed playing them. They helped me enjoy life more and relax at the end of a crazy day at school when I was younger. Thus, I started playing again in earnest, though still as a casual gamer.

I just bought a Nintendo Switch last year, meaning I’m still wrapping my head around the idea of the Switch’s “bonus content” (downloadable content, or DLC for some reason) you have to pay for to enjoy, on top of the money you already spent on the basic game.

I have a love-hate relationship with DLC because on the one hand, I hate having to pay even more money for a game. However, if it’s a game I really like such as Pokemon, it’s nice knowing that even if I finish the game, there’s still more to do. It feels like finishing reading a book only to find a bonus book at the bookstore (which there should be more of, let’s face it).

The Pokemon Company just released Part Two of their DLC for Pokemon Scarlet and Violet, called The Indigo Disk, and I have to admit time contraints have meant I’m still muddling my way through Part One, the Teal Mask.

I love the Teal Mask for how brilliantly it portrays what feels like, to me, a small town in Japan during the summer. For years during the pandemic, there weren’t summer festivals like the one portrayed in it, and this year’s summer festivals were jam-packed with people like me who sorely missed them, making them difficult to enjoy. Thus, it was nice being able to really take my time at the one in the game and enjoy it.

I would’ve loved some side games, though, besides the “Ogre Ousting” one. Classic summer festival games include using a hook attached to swiftly dissolving paper to try and fish a balloon half full of water out of a kiddie pool or using a paddle covered in that swiftly dissolving paper to try and scoop out bouncy balls or little plastic toys from a kiddie pool (there’s a lot of water at these festivals). I would’ve loved to have seen that kind of side game, but oh well.

With the second part out, I’m going to try to push my way through the Teal Mask a bit more, strictly because I’m a sucker for even over-the-top adorable Pokemon like Terapagos, which looks to be the main focus of the Indigo Disk. I want one, so I’m going to have to bid farewell to the summer festival and, from the looks of things, head underwater for that turtle.

Ah games are fun.

I had a short story published in an anthology by Wicked Shadow Press called “Apocalyptales: The End is Nigh.” You can read the story below from page 96 if you’d like.

Imagining the end of the world is a popular pastime for many writers, and it never feels that hard to do. I think we as a species are all too quick to write off the planet or ourselves as doomed whenever it seems like things aren’t going well enough or too many bad things are happening at once.

I appreciate people who, when faced with such bleak outlooks, persist nontheless rather than just throw in the towel and call it the end. It’s not easy in the slightest, and sometimes it doesn’t even pay off, but I personally think it’s brave, and I admire them.

The main character in this story, for me, is one such person. Even when faced with an altogether bleak outlook, when it seems they have days to live at the most, they still find ways to fight back.

This is the song I listened to while writing this story, and sometimes I have no idea why, as was the case with this song. I think maybe it was just the mood of it that helped me write.

I’m happy to report I have a short story called “Willing” included in a digital anthology for the Kaidankai Podcast. They’re using the anthology to help raise money to support the podcast.

The story came to me when I was camping out in Gunma Prefecture last year. Most of the time I like camping where the car is right next to where you set up your tent (which should tell you I’m not properly camping in any sense of the word), but this particular campsite had a parking lot down a slope away from where the campsite was. They offered little wagons to shuttle stuff back and forth, at least, and I guess it helped give a more secluded feeling to be away from the car. Still, the feel of that campsite was eerie, at best. It was way too quiet, way too still, while I camped there.

And like in the story I wrote, there was a rundown building standing off to the side where the bathrooms were. I used the bathroom in the middle of the night, and just the vibes coming off the building made me regret that decision.

I left the campsite the next day feeling like I’d escaped a horror movie, though nothing had happened.

I couldn’t help but put my favorite guide, Celea, into the story, though she’s not named. I love her random adventures saving people from the supernatural.

For anyone following along, this is the fourth time she’s appeared in one of my stories. You can read the other stories featuring her below:

“The Bucket Fountain”

“The Guide”

“The Anchor”

One final note: I actually wrote down this time what song I listened to while writing this story. I have it below if you’d like to listen to it while reading.

I’m almost done watching Season 2 of Loki on Disney Plus (I know I’m behind. I hate waiting every week for a new episode so I’m in the camp that waits until every episode is out before beginning to watch), and episode 5 struck a nerve with me.

There aren’t any spoilers, so don’t worry.

One of the characters in episode 5 is at a bookstore trying to buy a book that won’t scan. The cashier insists she has to be able to scan the book for inventory control while the character says he could just pay for the book with cash, without need for a receipt. The cashier then checks the book jacket and sees the character is the author of the book, and another person working at the store chases him out of the store, saying, “You again? Stop coming here! No one wants to buy your books!”

There is horror, and there are traumatic scenes in movies. Sometimes they can be both, too, which this scene was for me.

Because I could see myself doing something like that all too well. I finally get one of my books published, only for everyone to unanimously agree they never want to read them. I’m, thus, stuck wandering from bookstore to bookstore (or the book sections of Big Box stores) surreptitiously dropping my books off onto the shelves and praying.

The greatest fear for me, anyway, as an author is not that people won’t like what I write. I don’t care if someone reads my books and says, “Give me my time and money back. This was the worst thing I’ve read since that counting book I read to my kid last night.” I don’t care if reviewers say absolutely horrible things about me as a writer. None of that would matter, because at least it meant they’d read even some of my book.

No, the worst fear for me is no one wanting to read the books in the first place. I don’t know if every author shares this fear, but I would have to imagine they do. What author wants to pour their heart and soul into a book, only to be met by a world that won’t even read it?

I’m going to continue plodding along, writing and trying to get these books I can’t stop writing published, all while praying there is at least one person on earth who wants to read them.

This is the last in a sudden string of publications, I think, but I had a short story called “Marella” published in issue 3 of Lit Shark on Halloween as well. I wanted to give the two stories published on Halloween a little space in between, which is why I’m posting about this one now. You can read the story here.

I know I wrote earlier that at some point I would like to remember what songs I was obsessively listening to while writing each story, and I finally wrote down the song for this one. It was Placebo’s cover of “Running up that Hill.”

I’ve loved this song for years for the mood it gives while writing dark stories, and I honestly didn’t even know it was a cover until Stranger Things fans went nuts about the original a little while back to the point where I, who has never seen Stranger Things, knew about it. The lyrics for the song make me think Placebo’s chilling rendition is better than the original, but that’s just my humble opinion.

Anyway, if you feel so inclined, please listen to the cover song while reading the story.

I decided to write “Marella” because I feel like pop culture has moved mermaids firmly into the realm of being good creatures (I’m looking at you, my beloved “The Little Mermaid” movie). My understanding is they were actually feared creatures when tales of them first spread, I’m sure by sailors who wanted to have something to blame when things went wrong at sea. I thought it’d be nice to add another dark story about them to their lore.

I had fun writing this from the perspective of the mermaid, too, who doesn’t see what she’s doing as being necessarily wrong. For her, the drowning is a means to an end, and I’m not sure if that makes her a pure evil villain or not.

Marella, in case you’re interested, comes from Latin and means “star of the sea.” More often than not, I’m extremely careful about the names I choose for my characters.

I’m excited to share I had a short story published on the Coffin Bell literary website just in time for Halloween (in America, anyway). You can read the story here.

I’ve noticed a pattern among some of my short stories where they’re villain-origin stories more than anything else. I don’t know what it is, but I’ve always found it a fascinating study to determine what makes someone decide to throw their moral compass away.

For this story, I also took the superstition I’ve learned since living in Japan about how mirrors can be evil. The only magical concept I had about mirrors prior to living here came from Alice in Wonderland, and The Matrix. However, I noticed one day while visiting my friend’s apartment that she kept a cloth over her full-length mirror tucked in the corner of her bedroom. When I asked why she covered it, she said something along the lines of how the cloth helped keep out evil spirits at night. Until that point, I’d never thought of mirrors in such a dark light before.

I thought it was an intriguing idea, and I wanted to do something with it in a story. Hence, “The Remaining Ashes.”

This is also my second interpretation of an “oni,” or demon, in a short story (the other was in “The Chains“). For this story, I thought of this particular oni as one who had lost its physical form and needed someone with the potential to do dark magic to help it.

After writing this story, I toyed with the idea of making it Chapter One of a longer book, but I’ve since gotten distracted writing other books. Maybe someday I’ll revisit it, but until then, I hope you enjoy it!