UFO in Kushiro
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The story begins with scenes of destruction, a great natural disaster has taken place (1995
Kobe Earthquake)
The unnamed woman sits hypnotically watching the carnage though the protagonist notes
that she has no discernable tie to the disaster.
Throughout this story Mirakumi contrasts the destruction of the earthquake and its
presence throughout Japan with the emotional breakdown of a marriage.
For Komura, the husband, the breakdown of his marriage is akin to that of a natural disaster.
Unexpected out of the blue and emotionally devastating.
The earthquake maintains a constant presence in this story, almost like a separate character.
The wife sifts silently staring at news report throughout the story.
Interestingly, the wife remains unnamed throughout the story; she is defined only by her
husband, family and the village that she longs for.
Komura likens her to “a stone wall of silence” which repeats the imagery of stones scattered
throughout the story and the collection.
She is dull, stolid in appearance in contrast to her husband. Nobody can quite understand
why he married her.
She makes him feel relaxed and safe/no desire to pursue other women.
She is originally from Yamagola, and misses her home.
See me for the rest or get the notes from others in your class!
Thailand
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This story is really interesting because it involves a Japanese ex-patriot. Satsuki
lived near Kobe and moved to America.
After the breakdown of her marriage and some incidences, she decides to return to
her native Japan but first holidays in Thailand.
She is menopausal, can no longer have children.
Fed up with life “something inside her had snapped.”
Her husband believed that she never wanted to have children.
After her father died “it was if a whole new story had started with a whole new
plot” which links in with Yoshiya who asks himself “Was I hoping to be woven
into some new plot, to be given some new and better-defined role to play?” (p.56)
News of the earthquake has made it to Thailand where Nimit asks her about it.
Like Miyuki, she claims to have no connection to Kobe; however, she keeps
mentioning a mysterious ‘he’ who lives in Kobe.
She dreams about a rabbit, feeling as though she was a “small animal that has
been trapped in a room with no way to escape”- similar to Miyuki’s
claustrophobic dreams.
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A spiritual healer looks into Satsuki and claims that she has a stone insider her,
that she has been carrying for years. This stone could represent her inner rage at
the abortion/child she lost/infection she had caused by the man in Kobe who now
has a family.
See me for the rest of the summaries!
Super-Frog saves Tokyo:
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This story, ostensibly doesn’t have a lot to do with the Kobe earthquake. There is
Mr. Frog, a giant frog who shows up at Katagiri’s apartment, warning him of an
earthquake that will strike Tokyo and be worse than the Kobe one, as well as
enlist his help in preventing it from happening.
“I have come to save Tokyo from destruction”
“I am the sum of all frogs”
Katagiri is a kind of man with, like many of the other characters in this collection,
has no real connection to anything.
He works as a debt collector at the bank, is kind and decent, but ultimately
overlooked for his entire life.
The frog describes the worm that causes earthquakes:
I don’t see him as an embodiment of evil. I just think that, as far as the world is
concerned, it is in a sense all right for a being like him to exist. The world is like a
great big overcoat and it needs pickets of various shapes and sizes (p.88)
Which links to Yoshiya’s thoughts about earthquakes.
See me for the rest of the summaries!