Okay, things to know. My brother, who is pretty good at Japanese (not just saying, he passed the top JLPT, so it’s kinda hard to test him further) read the first volume of this, has the second, and watched the anime of this (I think it’s under the title “Beast Player Erin”), so he knows the basic plot when I discussed it with him. This, as sites say, is a compilation of the first two volumes.

I’m shelving this as Young Adult, because I agree with Pushkin Press that it is. However, it’s sort of weird in tone for a Young Adult tone. Maybe “New Adult” would be a better term. It’s very obsessed with biology, and it sort of sticks out in my mind compared to the typical English YA book I read. Elin doesn’t really deal with love triangles for example. Romance is there and it does drive the plot, but not in the traditional YA sense.

The plot takes place over, roughly ten years (I may be off by a few). It’s a bit slow-moving, especially for the majority of the first half/book, so if you’re looking for something fast, this may not be for you.

The names are really interesting. They’re Romanized in a way that’s not difficult to say (though I’d personally write them with dashes or something for syllable breaks, but that’s preference, don’t mind me), but gives them a fantasy-feel. I would love to pick Nahoko Uehashi’s brains about the naming scheme in the book, not just for the characters, but for the terminology. I know she has an anthropology degree (excellent choice, but I’m biased), but I don’t know if she has any linguistics or foreign language background. Part of why I want to pick the author's brains is that the back cover I have has the protagonist's name romanized as "Erin". In the books, it's "Elin". I'm like 90% sure that it originally was Erin in the translation, and author approval changed it to Elin. I find this interesting, as while I don't know the Japanese terms for much, there's stuff like a character being born in spring called "Halumiya" and Elin being a name that derives from a specific Apple. Basically I'm saying I really don't believe Cathy Hirano put in all those l's in the prospective translation draft.

Let’s talk about Romanization of Japanese terms for a bit. I am by no means an expert (se habla español ), but this is basically why it’s not a perfect 5 for me, because when I dug into this book, I could not understand why the decisions were made that were. You have two main beasts (the kanji may be wrong; my brother wrote them from memory). 闘蛇 Tohda, 王獣 Oujuu. The first translates as “War Serpent” if you want a poetic name (Battle Snake would probably be more accurate but that’s kinda… ) The Latter IS translated in the book as Royal Beast. The former is left as “Toda”. I can’t figure out why both aren’t translated. It seems inconsistent to me. I assume this is the author's request, but I really want to know more!

To end with: Pushkin Press puts this in their children line. I think that’s that’s up for debate, but anymore I don’t think there’s any shame in reading Young Adult books as long as that’s not all you’re doing, like how literally no one cares if you watch anime except the people who also watch anime. READ THE BOOK.