Hokkaido Popsicle - Isaac Adamson

What do you do when you're a journalist for a youth magazine, a movie portraying you in a not-so-flattering light becomes the hottest movie in Japan, your editor forces you into taking a vacation in a hotel full of cats, and then the night porter at said hotel dies in your hotel room, unwittingly dragging you into a mess of a scandal that could threaten your life?

You hit the bars and the red light district, of course!

Well, at least you do if you're Billy Chaka.

This novel is deeply immersed in Japanese culture, and it might take a love for Japan for an understanding of it. Being myself, I had no trouble catching most of the inside jokes and cultural references. Most, if not all of the jokes revolve around aspects of Japan foreigners find odd. Engrish, for example, wish is simply cripple English. Japan is one of the few lovely countries you can find 'No Smorking' signs in. No, that is not a typo. No Smorking.

So, anyway, Billy Chaka is quite upset that the night porter died in his room, as one can imagine. On top of that, the eerie old man gave him a card with a bird insignia on it and a phone number, one which no one picks up when called. As he goes to break the news to hotel staff, he finds that hit rock star Yoshi [Yoshimura "Yoshi" Fukuzatsu] has just died of a drug overdose. Typical rock star death, right?

Then Billy gets charged with writing a report on Yoshi's death for the fans. That's typical too, since he's a journalist for a youth magazine after all. Grudgingly, he obeys and begins his research. All goes well until he finds a copy of Power Chord Japan, a guitar magazine, with Yoshi proudly displaying a tattoo that looks just like the bird insignia on the card the night porter gave him.

Under the dry humor that made me giggle and the sometimes absurd exaggeration of Japanese culture, there is a sense of understanding of youth. A quote comes to mind whenever I think of the story, taken out of the scene of Yoshi's funeral, spoken about the fans.

"They needed someone like Yoshi and, in their own way, they needed him to die."

I find a lot of truth in that, being very into Japanese rock music myself.

If Japan is your think, Hokkaido Popsicle is the book for you, otherwise you might just end up confused. Adamson does try to explain the cultural references from time to time, though, so it might be worth the read anyway.

Besides, any story that nods at Hideto "hide" Matsumoto is okay in my book.

Weishan Chin

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