Title: The Guardian of Kasuga Hot Springs
Subtitle: A Novel of Magical Realism and Transformation
Series: Japanesque
Author: Yulia Yu. Sakurazawa
Hello everyone, and welcome. Today, I want to share a little about the journey behind my latest Japanesque novel, The Guardian of Kasuga Hot Springs. Like many stories, it started not with a lightning bolt idea, but with a quiet question, whispered on the steam rising from a real Japanese hot spring.
I’ve always been fascinated by onsen – these places where people go to heal, to reflect, to simply be. During a visit to the actual Kasuga Hot Springs in Nagano (yes, it’s a real place, and the waters truly are wonderful!), soaking in the quiet rotenburo, I found myself pondering second chances. We all wish for them sometimes, don’t we? A chance to undo a regret, recapture lost youth, perhaps mend a broken heart. But what if that second chance wasn’t a gentle correction, but a seismic shift? What if the cost of youth was… everything else?
That question became the seed for Toshiro Suzuki’s story. I pictured this man, honorable and successful, but hollowed out by the loss of his wife, Mitsuko. He arrives at Kasuga seeking nothing more than quiet comfort. But the mountains hold secrets. He stumbles upon a hidden spring, a place of potent, primal magic, where the usual rules of time and biology don’t apply. He enters, seeking escape from grief, and emerges twenty years old. A miracle, perhaps. But the spring has its own price: he is reborn not as a young man, but as a young woman, Naomi.
This transformation became the core challenge of the novel. How does one cope with such a fundamental change? Your memories, your experiences, your deepest sense of self – all housed within a vessel that feels utterly alien, yet undeniably yours. Naomi’s journey isn’t just about adapting physically; it’s about forging a new identity while wrestling with the ghost of the man she used to be. She becomes the yumori, the guardian, bound to the spring, her life a strange blend of service and solitude.
But solitude rarely lasts forever in stories, does it? Fate brings Naomi Shibasaki – the great lost love of Toshiro’s youth – to Kasuga. She carries her own burdens of time and illness, drawn by the same whispers of miraculous waters. Their reunion is the heart of the book. It’s not a simple romance; it’s a deep exploration of connection across seemingly insurmountable barriers. Can love recognize a soul when the body is different? Can forgiveness bridge forty years and a change of form?
Writing The Guardian was an exercise in blending the mundane details of life – work, loneliness, the search for connection – with the extraordinary possibilities of Magical Realism. It touches on themes close to my heart: the persistence of love, the weight of memory, the fluidity of identity, and the profound beauty and sorrow intertwined with the passage of time. It’s Literary Fantasy, perhaps, but rooted in deep human emotions.
I hope that as you read Naomi and Toshiro’s story, you find yourself reflecting on these themes too. What makes us who we are? What truly endures? Thank you for joining me on this journey to the heart of Kasuga’s secret waters.