I was first drawn to check out Volume One of this series after reading this Unshelved.com review. I enjoyed it enough to keep reading, and got this latest volume from Barnes and Noble. It's a slice-of-life story about a young calligrapher who moves to a remote village to try and recharge his creative energies, and finds himself increasingly caught up in village life - for better or worse! (While there are advantages to reading the volumes in order, many of the storylines work well as stand-alone tales.)

This volume picks up after the events of Volume 16, with village favorite Hiroshi away in Tokyo for college - and with Handa taking the... interesting... step of dyeing his own hair blond so as to become a Hiroshi-substitute. As usual, the village does not respond to this as he expected, but much hilarity ensues, and it made a nice nod to one of my favorite characters.

There's a very funny chapter in which someone's stealing food from Handa's house; he imagines all sorts of things, but the truth is both funny and adorable.

Most of the rest of the book deals with the arrival of two college students with a videocamera, and the goal of filming the "friendly and hospitable villagers" for a TV show. Their gradual introduction to the wackiness of the village is very funny indeed, and the cameraman/producer's obvious crush on his wannabe-idol companion is quite charming.

There's also a chapter on competitive squid-fishing, with much posturing among several of the village men (and a hapless Handa, who's still not that great at typical village activities of this sort).

[There's a TV Tropes page on the series. And there's an anime, which I'd like to see.]

I left this book in the Little Free Library at Lincoln Park, near the entrance to Mine Falls Park; hope someone enjoys it!

[See other recent releases in NH here.]

*** Released for the 2019 One-Word Title release challenge. ***