On Seeing the 100% Perfect G irl O ne B eautiful April Morning

1. On Seeing the 100% Perfect Girl One Beautiful April Morning Sarah, Bonnie, Rose and Hannah F

2. Title • Tells you the main event of the story and sets up the story for the reader. • ‘One beautiful April morning’ Descriptive, makes it sound like a fairytale or fantasy, which links to themes in the story. • ‘100% perfect’ and ‘Beautiful’ adds to fairytale effect and gets the reader thinking about what the girl looks like.

3. Who is the single main character? • Anonymous male • 32 years old • Lusts after a nameless girl • Lives around the Harujuku neighbourhood • Coward-like; doesn’t introduce himself to her • Doubtful and insecure; thinks that if he does approach her, she may reject him • Regretful; knows what to say to her after she’s passed and wishes he had stopped her • Imaginative; creates a story of what could have been between the two

4. Characterisation • There is not much description of the boy apart from his thoughts and feelings. The constant thought of him falling head over heels in love. • There is a lot of description about the girls characteristics. He describes her as beautiful and repeatedly refers to her as 100% perfect. These strong thoughts are conveyed throughout the whole story until the ending when his thoughts suddenly turn negative and all description stops. • There is little conversation in the real story. When the boy imagines a fantasy story there is a small conversation which he believes to be perfect.

5. Who tells the story • The first part of the story is told in first person from the point of the boy. • The story within the story is written in third person with the boy and girl being the focus of the piece

6. Where does the primary action take place • A street corner in Tokyo, beside a flower shop • Within the main character’s imagination • The boy’s internal thoughts and feelings • Not very much description of setting to focus the reader on the street corner and it’s significance to the story

7. How much time does the story cover? • The story unravels over a period of time over about 2 days • The story that the boy imagines actually lasts for about 14 years. • The imaginative story lasting longer shows that the boy wishes he could know her for a very long time, maybe forever? And that he’s in love.

8. How does the story get started? • The story begins with the character reminiscing in first person about a past event where he believed he had seen the perfect girl for him. The atmosphere he gives off is emotionally evoking. He shares small details of what he remembers, which links the reader into his mind.

9. Rising action of the story When the character begins to tell the mini-story within the story, the overall tone becomes more interesting and feels almost fast paced. He tells the girl everything that he couldn’t say and she appears to agree with his feelings. They separate and decide that if they are to meet again, they are perfect for one another. They both get a disease, however, and end up on the verge of death, however no one dies. Although, due to the disease, neither could remember what their perfect match looked like so they end up walking past one another without knowing.

10. High point or climax of story • After all build up of how the boy fantasises the perfect story of meeting the girl and sat on the bench talking, the climax is when they are walking towards each other and the reader gets excited curious to whether the two lovers will be re-united, you get dis-appointed as it ends with them just walking past each other as their memories are too weak due to the illness they both had. • One of the last lines is “Disappearing into the crowd, forever.” This ends the story and seems like there’s not much point reading it anymore and that’s it, story over.

11. Moods the story creates • Reflective- remembering a past event which was happy • Disappointment- he doesn’t do as you want/expect him to do • Sympathetic- for the character because he didn’t do as he wanted due to his anxiety • Regretful- wishing he had gone to speak to the girl

12. In the story, the idea of meeting your ‘100% perfect’ person is very unrealistic. However, many people believe that it will one day happen to them. But, the idea of meeting them is a ‘fairytale’ idea. The fact he doesn’t have the courage to go up to this girl, is slightly more true to reality, which make the story more believable. Also, the creation of the mini-story. Although the story itself isn’t realistic, as it is too far-fetched and full of coincidences. But the over-analysation of the event that happened, and the creation and retrospect of the meeting is more realistic and true to life. Is This Story Realistic Or True To Life?

13. Themes • Fate and destiny • Reflective and anxious • Intimate • Lost love

14. Did you identify with any of the characters • I identified with the boy as we often have chances in life where we think we should do something but let it pass us by as he did with the girl. • We often dwell upon what we should have done/said and imagine what could have happened if we had taken the chance. • The boy is worried she won’t like him and is insecure about this. We all worry about what people think of us and it stops us talking to them.

15. Was there a villain/hero in the story? • The story lacks in both hero and villain. • You could associate his cowardice as a villain as that’s what stops him from approaching the girl which is the whole purpose of the story.

16. The story doesn’t have that much figurative language in it, especially in the beginning. In the ‘real’ part of the story, all he is doing is describing the event, without saying much about it. However, in the miniature story, he uses lots of figurative language. For example, the cold, indifferent waves of fate. Which is a metaphor, blatantly. This makes their meeting and departure seem unstoppable, and that the world doesn’t mind creating such a travesty. Also, when he says ‘heads as empty as young D.H.Lawrence’s piggy bank.’ Clearly attempting to add humour to the story, but unfortunately failing, as I have no idea who that is, and cannot come up with the willpower to Google him. Figurative Language.

17. Major personality traits • Unnamed boy – Very wide and imaginative personality. Possibly a bit naïve about love, don’t tend to walk down street and see 100% perfect girl very often. Cowardly and shy. Emotional. • Girl – Laid back personality as she has a casual appearance. In the imaginative story, she is bright and determined and is just as naïve about love as he is. • The author makes the reader conscious by always including description and adjectives that suggest these traits E.g. “ I just walked past her, I knew it was the 100% perfect girl for me”. Suggests naïve.

18. I think the story isn’t very amazingly well written. It’s not very complex, or full of undertones and subplots. But, the story itself is well written, because it’s quite concise and to the point. He barely adds any unnecessary information, and creates a good story without much good skill imbedded into it, which makes it a good story. Just the oxymoron of the story is good. The fact he’s made a good story out of simple, unskilled techniques, which in itself takes a lot of skill to pull of. So.Yeh. I guess it’s a good story. In a bad way. Oh, the plot’s not very good. But it is at the same time. Because it’s a cliché, but in a non-cliché-y way. Overall Opinion Of The Story

19. Near the ending, the writer added a huge, over-thought, elaborate story. Then the last paragraph was just one line. Those two pieces of the story worked very well in contrast. Also, the ending sentence summed up all of the confusion in the previous story, reminding the readers that it was, in fact, just a story, made up by the man for missing his opportunity. It’s also quite a thought-provoking ending. Because the writer managed to put a fairytale into a realistic story, which makes the reader think things like ‘what would have happened if…’ How Effective Is The Ending In The Story?