The Twilight Samurai
The 8 Short Stories Written by Fujisawa Shuhei

Date：28, Apr, 2022
Investigated and Written by Misaka Youhei
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I know it! The Twilight Samurai is the Japanese film whose main actor is Mr. Sanada! you may say. It is not wrong, but I am not inclined to mention about the movie version here. The Twilight Samurai is originally the Japanese short stories written by the Japanese late author Fujisawa Shuhei (1927-1997). They picked up some of Fujisawa's short stories, adjusted them into one story and made the film in 2002 (after the author passed away). Then we can say the film is like Short Cuts (the 1993 movie directed by Robert Altman) in a sense.

The book consists of 8 short ones intermittently released on the Monthly Novel Shincho from 1983 to 1988. Each story describes Japanese human life before modern times. Fujisawa is well-known as one of the Japanese historical story masters, still has his big fans all over Japan. What does that mean? You don't need to be anxious about its quality. You could read them in your language or not? I don't know.

The movie version must be more popular overseas than original stories. I have not watched the film, can't talk about anything comparing them. But I suppose you can enjoy the short stories if you could the movie.