While I’ve never been to Japan, checked out the JET program, or lived outside the country I was born in, I identified with some of the themes presented in “Tonoharu.” It is a fairly bleak look at the aimless feeling of some aspects of post college life in the era of the “quarter life crisis” and the self-loathing loneliness and lack of ambition of the main character, Daniel Wells, is something I’ve seen in myself as well as my peers at various low points of our lives between college and career. While Daniel certainly does not appear to be adapting well to the challenges and opportunities of his life in a rural Japanese village, I’m not sure he’d be any better in his American hometown and his life seems to be at a low ebb during the course of the story. It is not a happy tale, though the art is beautiful and the Japanese landscape invites further introspection and makes me want to visit. The various festivals and other cultural events mentioned in passing provide a great background for the low key story of personal failure and I particularly liked the author self insert character framing his predecessors sad departure. This is the first segment of a prospected trilogy and I am greatly curious how it ends; if Daniel’s life does not improve or reach some sort of point of personal crisis and transformation, the tale just might be too plodding and depressing to warrant recommendation, despite great promise.