What would you do, and who would you see, if you could visit the past—just long enough to finish a cup of coffee?
In Toshikazu Kawaguchi’s internationally acclaimed Before the Coffee Gets Cold series (HarperCollins Publishers), readers are transported to a quaint, small, dimly-lit Tokyo café called Funiculi Funicula, which offers patrons this exact opportunity. There is a critical caveat, however: they can visit the past, but nothing they do will alter the present.
So the time travel Kawaguchi explores in the series is concerned not with larger historical changes but with intimate, emotional moments. His characters exploit the premise to resolve lingering regrets, express unspoken words, and find closure. “What is really important to me when I’m writing,” Kawaguchi explains (during an interview in which he responded in Japanese), “is relatability. So readers are able to think, ‘That’s happened to me! I totally get that!’”
Born in Osaka, Japan, Kawaguchi initially worked in theatre, producing, directing and writing for the theatrical group Sonic Snail. When Kawaguchi transitioned from drama to fiction, he brought with him a deep sensitivity to character and setting. The Before the Coffee Gets Cold series, which started life as a play, has now expanded to five books, with the latest, Before You Forget Kindness, embracing the theme of “innate kindness.” This theme holds special significance for Kawaguchi, who explains, “the first story of the book is this boy who displays immense kindness. It’s not forced on him. It’s not taught to him. It’s just innate, inside of him. And I hope we can all realize that we have that inside us: this innate kindness in our humanity. That is the thought that I am bringing into this book. I really want people to read story one, because I put so much of myself into it.”
The setting of Funiculi Funicula, which plays a pivotal role in the series’ intimate tone, is inspired by a traditional Japanese Jun kissa café. This is “a very old school, traditional kind of café. It’s really an old kind of place: maybe a little dim and gloomy, maybe dusty”. Kawaguchi envisions Funiculi Funicula as a closed-off space that is reflective of his characters’ internal worlds. “One reason for the name of the cafe… is it’s the name of a song that Japanese people are quite familiar with. So when you hear it, you feel a little nostalgic,” he explains.
In addition to the café’s unique ambiance, recurring characters like Kazu – the quiet, diligent waitress who guides patrons through the time-travel ritual — and Fusagi, an “awkward guy” whose story of unspoken love resonates deeply, bring consistency and warmth to each book, much like the comforting atmosphere of the café itself. Kawaguchi has purposefully filled Funiculi Funicula with these familiar figures to provide a comforting, yet introspective backdrop to each character’s journey: “You’re huddling inside this very limited space… I wanted to give the café that sort of feeling—sort of like being inside the human mind or your own heart”.
For Kawaguchi, the concept of time travel in the café evolved from a “flash of inspiration”, rather than a specific story idea. “The title came to me first. And I thought, ‘Before the coffee gets cold’—that’s a very short period of time. So what can you do in that short period of time? What’s interesting?” From there, he was struck by the idea of time travel, along with the critical rule. And his goal became to prompt readers to reflect on their own choice: “I wanted to bring that kind of reality into the fiction… to make you think about what you have to do now, if you have all of these kinds of really annoying rules about the inability to change the past.”
Kawaguchi’s background in the performing arts has strongly influenced his literary voice: “As a creator, I didn’t start with novels. I started working with theatre, and thinking about manga as well.” This blend of theatrical and fictional sensibility allows Kawaguchi to connect deeply with readers by approaching each story as an open-ended question: “Do you think the same thing?” Rather than pushing his own ideas onto his readers, Kawaguchi uses his stories as an “exploration of the self” that, like a playwright, invites others to share in and experience his reflections on love, memory, and time: “Oh, I think this is about love. Or I think this is about regret. Or about the flow of time. How about you? What do you think of this?” In the end, he explains, “I feel like I was looking for that . . . acceptance or understanding from people, and so I’m using that in my work.”
For Kawaguchi, the personal connection to his work goes beyond emotions and ideas. He shares a special bond with his character Fusagi, who will express his feelings through a letter, rather than words: “I like how he can’t really put into words what’s going on with him… I feel like that’s really similar to my own self,” Kawaguchi says. “The things that I can’t say or I can’t put into words, I might put into a novel, and express them in that way.”
When asked why he chose coffee as the vehicle for time travel, Kawaguchi touches back to that foundational “flash of inspiration.” The phrase “Before the coffee gets cold” sparked the idea – “in Japanese, it sounds really good, and it . . . has a Haiku sort of rhythm…. We could have had ‘hot sake’ in there, but Japanese sake just doesn’t have the same ring to it. It doesn’t hit the ear in the same way.”
When asked if he himself would choose to travel in time, Kawaguchi’s answer is both tender and revealing. Yes, he would travel in time. Specifically, he would visit his father, who passed away when Kawaguchi was a child. “Right now, I’m 53 years old, so I’m older than he was when he died. And I’m a novelist, and I’m in a situation that he probably never imagined me being in. So I’d like to go back and just kind of report to him, and show him where I am. I think he’d be really happy.” He pauses, “Actually, I think before he would be happy for me, he would be super-surprised.”
Through his Before the Coffee Gets Cold series, Kawaguchi has achieved the rare feat of crafting stories that are culturally specific and universally relatable. Each tale in Funiculi Funicula invites readers to reflect on the moments and relationships that shape their own lives – and reminds them that sometimes, a single conversation can make all the difference.
In a world bound by time, each story gently urges us to embrace the present, cherish our connections, and seize those precious opportunities…before the coffee gets cold.
© Arpita Ghosal, Sesaya Arts Magazine, 2024
