Apple Age

The Distant Dawn

A collection of sixteen short stories by Yukinobu Hoshino, spanning genres from science fiction and fantasy to psychological drama and romance. The tales explore a wide range of themes, including adventure, mystery, and the supernatural, often set in imaginative and thought-provoking scenarios. From a distant dawn and a steel queen to escape from wastelands and a funeral convoy, each story presents a unique conflict. Characters face challenges such as a call from afar, a whiteout, amazons of the river, and the Carneades plan, navigating through algae, lightning strikes, and the emperor of winter.

Emanon Wanderer

Emanon wanders through late-1960s Japan, moving from one small country town to another with no clear destination. She carries three billion years of memories, and every encounter she has leaves a mark on the people she meets. Since the beginning of time, her life has followed the same cycle: travel the world as a teenager, meet a man, and give birth to a daughter who will inherit her memories and her very being. But this cycle is broken when love leads to pregnancy and, for the first time, she gives birth to twins—one of them a boy. Soon after, Emanon is confronted with someone who should not exist: her long-lost twin brother. The confessions and secrets that surface force her to question t

Tegami Bachi

Amberground is a land divided by light. An artificial sun shines only over the capital, Akatsuki, while the outer regions of Yuusari and Yodaka sink into perpetual twilight and darkness. In these dangerous outskirts, giant armored insects called Gaichuu prey on people's hearts. The only ones who brave these routes are the Letter Bees, elite couriers who risk their lives to deliver mail across the land. Lag Seeing is a young boy whose mother was abducted when he was very young. He is entrusted to Gauche Suede, a Letter Bee on his last delivery before a promotion, who must transport Lag to his aunt in the darkest reaches of Yodaka. During their perilous journey through Gaichuu-infested territ

The Works of Ichikawa Haruko

This collection brings together the early short stories of Haruko Ichikawa. Across two volumes, characters navigate surreal and intimate realities: a boy discovers his uncle has a mysterious 'daughter,' a youth awakens in a strange land guided by an ethereal companion, and an injured athlete finds solace with a robotic sibling. Other tales delve into quiet mysteries, from a marine biologist's reunion with her brother that masks a deeper scientific pursuit, to a delinquent's encounter with a peculiar transfer student at a college on a moon of Saturn. Each story explores themes of isolation, connection, and the subtle, often supernatural, boundaries of the human experience.

Kino's Journey: The Beautiful World

Kino travels the world astride Hermes, a talking motorrad who supplies the speed while Kino supplies the balance. The two are inseparable, moving from one country to the next along a road that keeps stretching ahead of them. By their own rule, they never stay anywhere longer than three days — just enough time to learn a place's customs and meet its people before moving on. Some of what they find is gentle and some of it is cruel: happiness and grief, violence and decay, beauty and hard-won wisdom, all of it waiting behind the next border. Because the world is imperfect, Kino and Hermes keep going, unwilling to trade the freedom of the road for a place to settle, and curious about whatever

Afterschool Time of the Earth

Humanity has been wiped out by mysterious dark monsters known as Phantoms. Four survivors have found one another and share a quiet, peaceful existence: Masashi, a kind and dependable teenage boy; Sanae, who is shy; her bolder friend Yaeko; and Anna, a little girl. Their days pass in a perpetual "after school" state, as though the rest of the human race might still come home. But strange things begin to appear around them, and it becomes clear that the monsters have not left the Earth. As they spend their days together, the four of them must face what really happened to their planet, and whether they are truly the last of the human race.