Johan Gabrielsen

I think like a lot of books that I'm affronted with, there is almost no sentimentality.

And it's just another colour in their fiction that I get from Japanese.

And I thought about this, where does it all start from?

And I think it actually even started...

I got this feeling when I was a kid and I was reading Astro Boy, you know, because if you read Astro Boy and you compare it to reading Tintin and Asterix, there's no sentimentality in Tintin and Asterix.

But Astro Boy is full of sentimentality.

And I just love that kind of color.

And I think it's kind of give a richness to stories.

And now I do like the Nordic noir and there's very little sentimentality in Nordic noir.

But in Japanese, there is something there and they're not afraid to embrace it, I think.

And I think that's what's different about it.

I think there's so much sentimentality, and there's quite a lot in the anime as well, I mean in the version of cartoons, that is not in European cartoons.

So there is that sentimentality and acuteness.

Because cuteness is also very strong, I think, in Japanese culture.

You know how everything is kawaii.

And Hello Kitty, which my daughter, now she's a bit older, but she loves Hello Kitty, you know.

And it was so saccharine, it was almost too much a bit, I felt like.

Everything is so sweet and...

And that's why I kind of like this book, Breast and Eggs, because it was like Hello Kitty with unshaved armpits and a nose ring.

It was a kind of a Japanese culture or literature that I really haven't come across.