Abalone is a short novella from the Shadow Shinjuku world. It follows Ryu before the events of Shadow Shinjuku occur. He is eating his dinner and notices a woman with a young girl in distress. He races to save them from what they are facing.

This is a nice, sweet, and quick to read short story. I still got some sense of Japan, which was part of what I really enjoyed in the other novel, but not with quite the same depth. I liked being able to see a little deeper into the Shadow Shinjuku world. For a short story this packed in a lot of action, with a hint of mystical flare.

My only complaint is that there was a small section of the story that seemed irrelevant. It almost seemed like it was added as filler and I found my eyes glazing over a little. Other than that, I loved meeting some new and old characters in this book. I particularly enjoyed the ending, it left me with an incredibly light and happy heart. It was simple, but beautiful and really increased my enjoyment of the story as a whole. I find it difficult to enjoy short stories sometimes, because they can struggle to get the same depth as a novel. But in a short span of time I connected to the new characters and felt invested in what happened to them.

I would recommend this to any short story fans or anyone who enjoyed reading Shadow Shinjuku. I want to thank Ryu Takeshi for allowing me to read this book and give my personal thoughts.