I love this book, but this is not just a review of *this* book. It's also a review of the related novel, Just East of Eden, which I can't review because Honeyfeed decided to only allow reviews on finished novels.

*You* might not love this novel. Your tastes might be very different than mine. Even though Honeyfeed caters to a niche audience, I've often been disappointed to find that my tastes are too old-fashioned to resonate with other Honeyfeeders. I'm a niche within a niche.

Let me be clear about what I mean: I like anime.

I know, I know, it's a controversial and out-of-touch thing to say on Honeyfeed. If you're reading this review, you might be skeptical, given how much shit I give to otaku in my stories, but it's true. I like anime, all of it.

And that's why I love Letter From Yokohama and Just East of Eden.

And I might not have read either were it not for the MAL x HF contest in 2022.

Since I'm baring my soul and sharing my most secret love of anime, I might as well spill it all. After the 2022 contest, I read all the finalists, trying to figure out exactly what Honeyfeed was looking for in their contests, and three or four of them just left me baffled. One of those was Pope Evaristus's novel, The Web Novel Club. I read the first few chapters, and it just felt so vapid.

No, I need to go deeper. Much deeper.

I was resentful that I hadn't made finals. There were definitely finalists I read that I could recognize as legitimately being leaps and bounds better writers than me, but others, I couldn't see the difference. I didn't realize at the time just how closely Honeyfeed wanted authors to adhere to the prompt. The Web Novel club was one of the books I, in my hubris, felt superior to, and after reading a few chapters, I couldn't stand it anymore.

But oh, was I wrong.

I'm an old man, and I should have known better than to fall into such immature emotional traps, but I eventually realized my foolishness and gave it another read. The later chapters were truly fantastic and told a story more human than any of the other finalists. There is still a finalist that I think was better written, but the Web Novel Club became my favorite.

And so when Letter From Yokohama was posted, I eagerly devoured it and found that I liked it even better. Because the characters in this book are simultaneously *characters*, but they're also touching and human.

And they love anime. Well, Lucille does, at least.

When I say they're *characters*, what I mean is that they are exaggerated personifications of some of our biggest flaws. They are pinatas that we can verbally beat in our minds because they are imaginary and we imagine them to be worse than us.

Just like I imagined The Web Novel Club to be worse than my entry.

But in the back of our minds, we know that they also *are* us. We are flawed in all the same ways.

And Pope Evaristus does a great job breathing life into these exaggerated puppets, making them feel like real, complicated, vulnerable, idiotic, lovable people.

And not just because they love anime.

But also a little because they love anime, and Lucille loves anime too much in the same way that I do.

Because here's the thing. I got into writing in the first place because I wanted to explore those feelings of being an otaku: of feeling out of place in your own society, of obsessing way too much over the trivialities of another country's pop culture, of showing the harm it can do when you try to stick your head in a fictional world and block out the real society you live in, and the real people in your lives. But also of the positives: being forced to search through this lonely world for the people who understand you, cultivating a rich imagination, and breaking yourself out of rigid social rules.

Lucille and Regina's adventures depict this so well. And yet, at the same time, they depict something more and something different. At first, I thought Pope Evaristus was speaking my soul into these pages better than I could ever communicate, but then I started noticing the differences. This may sounds obvious, but we're different people. I don't align 100% with what Pope Evaristus is going for, but that's OK, because I felt they were truly leaving a part of themselves on the page, and I'm happy someone out there is interested in writing about many of the same things.

You might have noticed that this review is somewhat personal and not limited to one book. That's because Just East of Eden comes off as very personal, and also a reflection by the author on their other books. And it's unfinished. And that's OK. Sometimes life is like that. I'd love to see a conclusion some day, but even if I don't, I'm happy with what's here, and happy if Pope Evaristus is enjoying the life I feel I got a peek into by reading this.

If you love anime, and you love reading about characters who love anime too much, you'll love these books.