Sora Katsumi (or Katsumi Sora if you’re Japanese, where family name precedes one’s given name) is introduced a few chapters into the book as she meets the Yakuza boss, Hokusai, at a Tokyo coffee shop in the Shinagawa neighborhood. Sora is challenged with a serious heart condition, limiting her in a number of ways. She also is forced to face uncomfortable facts about her family’s past. Sora’s name, as is later revealed in the book, means “the heavens.” She loves looking at the crystal clear nighttime sky in the Sierra Nevada mountains. She also inherits her love of art from her mother, Shinobu. She talks about the Hokone Open Air Museum and a work called Babel by the artist Cildo Meireles. The book uses some fictional license to indicate that Babel is on display at the Tokyo Museum of Modern Art (MOMAT). Babel’s home at the time of this writing is actually Tate Modern in London. James makes Sora blush by comparing her to the acclaimed Japanese film star Erika Karata (altered photo seen above). With her boundless enthusisasm, even with the health challenges she has, Sora inspires James and shows him how to be much more than he thinks he is.