A long time ago, I first saw Nakatani Miki in the drama "Keizoku" where she played the somewhat eccentric and very smart Shibata Jun. Back then, I found that she was quite unlike the Japanese actresses who I had seen so far. I really enjoyed watching that drama which I attributed to the story as well as her brilliant chemistry with Watabe Atsuro. Subsequently, I came across more of her works and in no time, she became one of my all-time favourite actresses.
It is a bit difficult to pinpoint exactly what I like about her but I guess her elegant and learned image along with her versatile acting is a huge draw factor. However, this was the very first time I came across her written works despite the fact that she has already published a number of books to date. In fact, buying this book was not planned as I came across this on the shelves by chance and was curious about the content which is a compilation of her essays in "Shosetsu Gento" published between 2016 and 2023.
To begin with, the title "Fumi wa yaritashi" is part of a Japanese proverb "文はやりたし書く手は持たぬ" (Fumi wa yaritashi Kakute wa motanu" which means lamenting one's lack of written skills when trying to write a love letter but cannot ask someone to help with this task. As such, you can probably interpret this to mean that Nakatani had a lot of thoughts that she wanted to convey but didn't feel that her writing was good enough to do this well.
I personally felt that her writing was smooth and easy to read in contrary to what the title suggested. Moreover, it was very interesting to know her thoughts about various topics, insights about her acting work, her personal life before and after getting married as well as the differences and titbits about living in Japan and Austria especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. Even for topics such as the Ukraine war or her views about the stringent COVID measures in Japan vs. what she went through in Austria at the height of the pandemic, it was a surprise to see her being very candid about these things because most celebrities in Japan would try to steer clear of making their views known in case of courting unnecessary controversy or having their views misinterpreted.
If I have to pick out one thing in this book which I didn't enjoy that much, it would have to be the essays about classical music which were a tad challenging for me. While I do enjoy listening to classical music at times, I don't consider myself as an expert and often, I don't even know or remember the titles and composers unless the title is very short or it's a favourite piece of mine which I am very familiar with. As such, when such titles and the names of the composers kept popping up in her essays about classical music, I found myself "switching off" a bit and skipping some parts because I didn't even know which piece she was referring to. Nonetheless, her passion and knowledge about classical music was definitely unmistakable through her words so I think those who are in the know on this genre would enjoy reading about these parts.
For those who like Nakatani or would just like to know more about her, this book will be a good starting point for you to do so through her own words. Not only will you know about the behind-the-scenes preparations and hard work she had to do as an actress, you get to see how she lived outside the limelight as well. There is no lack of moments that will make you chuckle at times so her witty humour is bound to make the reading experience more enjoyable than you can imagine.
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