Tomihiko Morimi is a Japanese novelist from Nara Prefecture who began writing novels in 2003 while still studying in Kyoto University. He primarily writes Magical Realism stories, several of which have been adapted into anime.
List of works with trope pages:
Morimi's works provide examples of the following:
- Author Appeal: Being set in Kyoto or even more specifically Kyoto University and talking up the various locales in Kyoto and cultural attractions, protagonists with No Name Given or No Full Name Given, Magic Realism, Boy Meets Girl, and coming of age stories are recurring elements in Morimi's stories.
- Creator's Oddball: Penguin Highway is very different from his most well-known works. It is not set in Kyoto but in a deliberately vague area of Japan, features an emphasis on sci-fi tropes rather than ones associated with Japanese folklore, and focuses on a prepubescent child and his peers rather than a young adult.
- Magic Realism: Humans can casually come into contact with the magical and fantastic in several novels set in contemporary Japan, but very rarely deign to ponder on it beyond how it personally affects their lives.
- Write What You Know: Morimi graduated from Kyoto University, hence the very specific recurring setting of Kyoto and the university in several of his novels.
