A bestseller shortly after publication, the novel was controversial among contemporary critics for its apparent glorification of luxury consumption and its use of extensive annotations to identify desirable real-world products, brands, services, and locations encountered by the book's fictional characters.

While her boyfriend Jun'ichi is out of town, college student and part-time model Yuri passes the time in Tokyo by shopping for luxury products, visiting affluent neighborhoods, eating expensive food, and seeking new kinds of entertainment.

[9] Comparing the book to a series of television commercials, literary scholar Masao Miyoshi wrote that Somehow, Crystal "tries to look ironic and sophisticated, but barely manages to conceal its crude apologia for affluence".

[12] Christopher Smith, a literary scholar and translator of Tanaka's work, instead interprets the main text and notes as expressions of two aspects of Yuri's identity, which she manipulates in order to navigate different social situations and relationships.

[18] Historian Eiko Maruko Siniawer has observed that the book was a phenomenon of public culture, in which it was often cited as an example of Japanese consumerism, but also provided a useful guide for young people who were interested in pursuing the lifestyle portrayed in the story.

[24] In Masao Miyoshi's reading, Somehow, Crystal is the "most typical" example of postmodern Japanese novels that, through the "disintegration of narrative art", also remove the possibility of cultural resistance to commercial dominance.

[26] Written in the first person, the sequel takes the perspective of a married politician who meets up with ex-girlfriends, discusses the state of Japanese politics and society, and catches up with Yuri, the main character from the first novel, who has become a 54-year old businessperson working in public relations.

[27] In a 2021 essay for Bungei Shunjū, Tanaka reflected that people largely had not responded to the concerns about population trends he expressed in the notes of Somehow, Crystal, and acknowledged that his original prediction that fertility rates could turn around had not been borne out in practice.

[29] The novel was adapted into a 1981 Shochiku film titled Nantonaku, Kurisutaru, starring Kazuko Katō as Yuri, Toshio Kamei as Jun'ichi, and Zenzō Shimizu as Masataka.