Advance Review: "Our Transparent Lemons and Kisses" (Kaiseisha) by Haruma Kanbe, to be published May 15, 2026

This book put into words and saved the wounds I had been made transparent about, told that they were 'no big deal.'

I have experienced being molested in the past. At the time, I was too shocked to process the situation, so I told myself, 'Maybe I was mistaken,' or 'Maybe they just bumped into me,' and lived by keeping a lid on it. That is precisely why Minato's suffering, fear, and unspeakable inner conflict felt painfully real, and I could not help but empathize deeply.

There is a moment when a person who has been treated lightly by those around them—told 'It's not a big deal, is it?'—finally 'realizes' the depth of their own wounds. At that moment, the feeling that had been frozen in my heart for so long—'It was actually incredibly scary and I hated it'—was finally put into proper words and drawn out, and I felt my emotions being organized in a way that surprised me.

This is a book that helped me realize that I had been making myself transparent.