Island Nation: Shachun's Simulator

It's 1993 in Kanagawa, and Mu Chunye has just taken over a small general store by the sea. To everyone around him, he's just a gentle, simple-minded fool—yet his days are anything but ordinary. From forbidden romances and diving ama women to parasitic flowers and a child-faced shrine maiden, Chunye finds himself relentlessly pulled into one absurd, surreal situation after another. Whether he's steering his lovestruck stepsister away from a disastrous "Route A," helping penniless ama divers earn a living over the summer, coaxing a Tokyo University graduate and recluse neighbor back into the workforce, or assisting a youthful shrine maiden in breaking an ancient family curse, he shoulders it all behind a placid, dimwitted smile. "Later on... pretending to be this stupid was exhausting!" "If only they knew how much I worried about every single one of them!" This is not a face-slapping power fantasy, nor a cut-rate commercial rip-off. The author genuinely is an idiot—and no, that is not an excuse for lazy writing.