Before the Coffee Gets Cold

Toshikazu Kawaguchi was born in Osaka in 1971. His father passed away when he was a child. While in high school, Kawaguchi developed an interest in manga and aspired to become a manga artist. Although one of his comics caught the eye of a publisher, his work was never published. At 22, Kawaguchi became involved in theater, and he went on to become a producer, playwright, and director. He has worked with the theatrical group Sonic Snail, and he now heads a group called Kawaguchi Productions. Around 2010, he wrote Before the Coffee Gets Cold as a stage play. It won the first prize at the 10th Suginami Theater Festival in 2013. In 2011, an editor who went to see the play convinced Kawaguchi to adapt it as a novel. The book was warmly received by Japanese audiences, and it was adapted into a film that premiered in 2018. In 2019, the novel was translated into English and published in the United Kingdom. By 2020, it was a major international success. Since then, Kawaguchi has authored four companion novels.

Many of the characters in Before the Coffee Gets Cold navigate a tricky grey area between following their dreams and putting others first. This speaks to the cultural difference between Japanese culture and Western cultures (which tend to be more individualistic). Traditionally, Japanese culture emphasizes the success of the group, placing value on consensus and community consciousness. In Before the Coffee Gets Cold, Kohtake tends to embody this way of thinking. As a nurse and as one of the older characters in the story, selflessness and propriety are at the forefront of her character, and it’s a little too easy for her to put what she believes are Fusagi’s needs before her own. Meanwhile, Hirai is often the opposite. Young, headstrong, flashy, and independent perhaps to a fault, she evokes the more Western values of personal liberty and self-expression. Japan saw increased Westernization most notably in the Meiji era (1868–1912), but also after the end of World War II in 1945.

Before the Coffee Gets Cold is part of a trend of cozy, life-affirming Japanese novels hitting the international book market. Other titles in this subgenre include Days at the Morisaki Bookshop (2010) by Satoshi Yagosawa, The Kamogawa Food Detectives (2013) by Hisashi Kashiwai, and What You are Looking for is in the Library (2020) by Michiko Aoyama. All of them celebrate the ordinary parts of life and feature a cast of characters finding happiness by processing their pasts. Convenience Store Woman (2016) by Sayaka Murata also uplifts “mundane” life, but from a more darkly comic and critical angle. Readers who enjoyed the time travel aspect of Before the Coffee Gets Cold might like Matt Haig’s The Midnight Library (2020) or Emma Straub’s This Time Tomorrow (2022). In both novels, characters’ encounters with the past give them a new lease on life in the future. Finally, the next installment in Toshikazu Kawaguchi’s Funiculi Funicula stories is Tales from the Café (2017).