I loved Hard-Boiled Wonderland

Everything I love about Murakami was there. The magical elements and the appreciation of the mundane. In one scene you hear the character talk about his love for sofas, whiskey, music and old movies, and in the next you see him confronting INKlings, unicorns and giant mythical fish. For me this former realism really anchors the fantasy elements to reality. It doesn't feel like I'm escaping to a fantasy realm. It feels like I'm learning things about the strange world that I inhabit. This particular book also had some amazing tech-noir elements with the protagonist being a cryptographer and semiotecs trying to steal the secrets of the System. It reminded me a lot of Yoshitoshi Abe's works too like Technolyze and Serial Experiments Lain. I subconsciously visualized the town from the End of the World as the town from Haibane Renmei (with the wall and everything).

Also I had to get to the end of the book to notice that none of the characters were given names (the "chubby girl in pink" is referred to as the chubby girl in pink until the end basically).

Now that I finished it I'll definitely pick up the Wind-up Bird Chronicle