2024 March 15 | |
Milk Closet. | |
I finished reading Milk Closet by Tomizawa Hitoshi a few | |
days ago. The basic premise is that various universes in the | |
multiverse are under attack by an insectoid species called | |
the "ants." Universes are disappearing 1 by 1. In this | |
universe, elementary aged children start mysteriously | |
disappearing all around the world. A few of those children | |
form symobiotic relationships with alien "tail creatures," | |
and those kids are recruited by an older girl to be part of | |
the "Milk Squad." | |
The Milk Squad's main goal is to allegedly help retrieve the | |
missing children and fight the ants. But there is a deeper | |
plot, and the kids of the Milk Squad are in for a traumatic | |
ordeal. | |
Like the other works by Tomizawa I've read, its a bizarre | |
story and very hard to follow. The focus really is on the | |
plot, with many of the characters just being along for the | |
ride. The main appeal of Milk Closet is the horrific things | |
the main characters face and the anxiety generated while | |
reading it. Similar to Tomizawa's other works, all the main | |
characters are young children who view the world in a | |
simplistic way. Their motivations aren't complex, which | |
means it's very easy for them to end up in situations where | |
we know they're going to make the wrong decision, but as | |
readers we are powerless to stop them. I don't have kids and | |
even I felt dread reading this story. | |
The biggest flaw of Milk Closet is that it's occasionally | |
incomprehensible. This may be due to the translation, but it | |
seems to be a reucrring problem with Tomizawa's works. With | |
more straightforward narration and less shallow characters, | |
Milk Closet could be a fascinating work, but as-is, it's | |
mostly just a curiosity. |