It may just be that I've become inured to Murakami's characteristic craziness, but the stories collected here seemed much more 'normal' than is usual for this most subtle fabulist (with the notable exception of "Super-Frog Saves Tokyo", which is exactly what its title promises). Perhaps that relative normality is a function of their all dealing, directly or elliptically, with the Kobe earthquake of 1995 (leading their author to be more straightforward in bringing the human concerns of his writing, and the characters' arcs, to the fore); it could also be partly attributable to the shorter form of the writing, with Murakami compelled by that brevity to be a bit more explicit and concise in developing his 'themes'.
Although I'm normally a fan of short stories, I didn't find these as satisfying as Murakami's novels. They have a tendency to be a bit parable-like, with quirks present only in the details rather than underlying the narratives as wholes, and while the clarity and cleanness of the writing is there, something of the sense of meanings and ideas teeming between the lines is lost. That said, I still enjoyed these six stories very much - "Super-Frog Saves Tokyo" is my favourite, but the opening story, "UFO in Kushiro", is also particularly good (that latter invokes The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle in some respects, with its mysteriously departed wife and pair of faintly inscrutable women who appear shortly after, and also plays elegantly with the ideas of beginning/ending and inside/outside being enfolded upon each other...at which I, after this semester, naturally think of Derrida on/and Blanchot).
