On Seeing the 100% Perfect Girl
One Beautiful April Morning
Sarah, Bonnie, Rose and Hannah F
Title
• Tells you the main event of the story and sets
up the story for the reader.
• ‘One beautiful April morning’ Descriptive,
makes it sound like a fairytale or fantasy,
which links to themes in the story.
• ‘100% perfect’ and ‘Beautiful’ adds to fairytale
effect and gets the reader thinking about what
the girl looks like.
Who is the single main character?
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Anonymous male
32 years old
Lusts after a nameless girl
Lives around the Harujuku neighbourhood
Coward-like; doesn’t introduce himself to her
Doubtful and insecure; thinks that if he does approach
her, she may reject him
• Regretful; knows what to say to her after she’s passed
and wishes he had stopped her
• Imaginative; creates a story of what could have been
between the two
Characterisation
•There is not much description of the boy apart from his
thoughts and feelings. The constant thought of him falling
head over heels in love.
•There is a lot of description about the girls characteristics. He
describes her as beautiful and repeatedly refers to her as
100% perfect. These strong thoughts are conveyed
throughout the whole story until the ending when his
thoughts suddenly turn negative and all description stops.
•There is little conversation in the real story. When the boy
imagines a fantasy story there is a small conversation which
he believes to be perfect.
Who tells the story
• The first part of the story is told in first person
from the point of the boy.
• The story within the story is written in third
person with the boy and girl being the focus of
the piece
Where does the primary action take
place
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A street corner in Tokyo, beside a flower shop
Within the main character’s imagination
The boy’s internal thoughts and feelings
Not very much description of setting to focus
the reader on the street corner and it’s
significance to the story
How much time does the story cover?
•The story unravels over a period of time over about 2 days
•The story that the boy imagines actually lasts for about 14
years.
•The imaginative story lasting longer shows that the boy
wishes he could know her for a very long time, maybe
forever? And that he’s in love.
How does the story get started?
• The story begins with the character
reminiscing in first person about a past event
where he believed he had seen the perfect girl
for him. The atmosphere he gives off is
emotionally evoking. He shares small details
of what he remembers, which links the reader
into his mind.
Rising action of the story
When the character begins to tell the mini-story
within the story, the overall tone becomes more
interesting and feels almost fast paced. He tells
the girl everything that he couldn’t say and she
appears to agree with his feelings. They separate
and decide that if they are to meet again, they
are perfect for one another. They both get a
disease, however, and end up on the verge of
death, however no one dies. Although, due to the
disease, neither could remember what their
perfect match looked like so they end up walking
past one another without knowing.
High point or climax of story
•After all build up of how the boy fantasises the
perfect story of meeting the girl and sat on the bench
talking, the climax is when they are walking towards
each other and the reader gets excited curious to
whether the two lovers will be re-united, you get disappointed as it ends with them just walking past each
other as their memories are too weak due to the
illness they both had.
•One of the last lines is “Disappearing into the crowd,
forever.” This ends the story and seems like there’s
not much point reading it anymore and that’s it, story
over.
Moods the story creates
• Reflective- remembering a past event which
was happy
• Disappointment- he doesn’t do as you
want/expect him to do
• Sympathetic- for the character because he
didn’t do as he wanted due to his anxiety
• Regretful- wishing he had gone to speak to the
girl
Is This Story Realistic Or True To
Life?
In the story, the idea of meeting your ‘100% perfect’
person is very unrealistic. However, many people believe
that it will one day happen to them. But, the idea of
meeting them is a ‘fairytale’ idea.
The fact he doesn’t have the courage to go up to this girl,
is slightly more true to reality, which make the story more
believable.
Also, the creation of the mini-story. Although the story
itself isn’t realistic, as it is too far-fetched and full of
coincidences. But the over-analysation of the event that
happened, and the creation and retrospect of the meeting
is more realistic and true to life.
Themes
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Fate and destiny
Reflective and anxious
Intimate
Lost love
Did you identify with any of the
characters
• I identified with the boy as we often have
chances in life where we think we should do
something but let it pass us by as he did with the
girl.
• We often dwell upon what we should have
done/said and imagine what could have
happened if we had taken the chance.
• The boy is worried she won’t like him and is
insecure about this. We all worry about what
people think of us and it stops us talking to them.
Was there a villain/hero in the story?
• The story lacks in both hero and villain.
• You could associate his cowardice as a villain
as that’s what stops him from approaching the
girl which is the whole purpose of the story.
Figurative Language.
The story doesn’t have that much figurative language in it,
especially in the beginning. In the ‘real’ part of the story, all he
is doing is describing the event, without saying much about it.
However, in the miniature story, he uses lots of figurative
language.
For example, the cold, indifferent waves of fate. Which is a
metaphor, blatantly. This makes their meeting and departure
seem unstoppable, and that the world doesn’t mind creating
such a travesty.
Also, when he says ‘heads as empty as young D.H.Lawrence’s
piggy bank.’ Clearly attempting to add humour to the story,
but unfortunately failing, as I have no idea who that is, and
cannot come up with the willpower to Google him.
Major personality traits
•Unnamed boy – Very wide and imaginative personality.
Possibly a bit naïve about love, don’t tend to walk down
street and see 100% perfect girl very often. Cowardly and shy.
Emotional.
•Girl – Laid back personality as she has a casual appearance.
In the imaginative story, she is bright and determined and is
just as naïve about love as he is.
•The author makes the reader conscious by always including
description and adjectives that suggest these traits E.g. “ I just
walked past her, I knew it was the 100% perfect girl for me”.
Suggests naïve.
Overall Opinion Of The Story
I think the story isn’t very amazingly well written. It’s not
very complex, or full of undertones and subplots.
But, the story itself is well written, because it’s quite concise
and to the point. He barely adds any unnecessary
information, and creates a good story without much good
skill imbedded into it, which makes it a good story.
Just the oxymoron of the story is good.
The fact he’s made a good story out of simple, unskilled
techniques, which in itself takes a lot of skill to pull of.
So. Yeh. I guess it’s a good story. In a bad way.
Oh, the plot’s not very good. But it is at the same time.
Because it’s a cliché, but in a non-cliché-y way.
How Effective Is The Ending In
The Story?
Near the ending, the writer added a huge, over-thought,
elaborate story. Then the last paragraph was just one line.
Those two pieces of the story worked very well in contrast.
Also, the ending sentence summed up all of the confusion in
the previous story, reminding the readers that it was, in fact,
just a story, made up by the man for missing his
opportunity.
It’s also quite a thought-provoking ending. Because the
writer managed to put a fairytale into a realistic story, which
makes the reader think things like ‘what would have
happened if…’