Review of Lonely Hearts Killer

Jenn Olmstead
5/2/06
Hurley
39J:144:001

We have read a lot of short fiction in our Modern Japanese Fiction class, but one of the few that I really enjoyed was “Chino” by Hoshino Tomoyuki. Because I enjoyed the themes of that story, and what we learned at the New Nationalisms Symposium, made me want to read more by Hoshino-san. “Lonely Hearts Killer” is Hoshino-san’s first full length novel that has been translated into English. While this book was originally written Japanese, I believe that this story, like any great work of art can cross all borders.

“Lonely Hearts Killer” takes place in the near future of Japan. While it is based in the future, it’s more of an “alternate future”. The underlying plot of this story is that the Emperor dies at a relativity young age, leaving behind no heir. The late Emperor’s sister ascends the throne; she is not married, nor does she have an heir. The story continues to question “what happens next.” This work of fiction also runs a close parallel with what is going on in the political climate of Japan at this time. The best question that this story asks is what would happen if a female ascended the throne?

This book centers around two main characters, Shoji and Iroha, who are both have their time in the spotlight. There are two secondary main characters, Mikoto and Mokuren. It is through this group of four that we are drawn into this world of “Lonely Hearts Killer.” We are told this story through the eyes of first Shoji, then Iroha, and finally we learn more about Mokuren, each of their stories lends a back story to the others. They all are all in their early twenties, but not of diverse background. This story spans about ten years, leaving the character in their early thirties at the end. Shoji and Iroha are both filmographers, Mikoto seems to be just a common worker, and Mokuren is a “job placer”. Shoji and Iroha are the “disaffected youths”; they feel that they have nothing to worry about in society. They are just floating in a world that was created for them. I think a lot of young people can relate to that. None of these people, except for Mokuren seem to have found a place for themselves.

While reading this I was trying to decide if it could be considered a “purely Japanese” story. While “Lonely Hearts Killer” does talk about the Imperial System and that makes it Japanese, there are a lot of other universal themes running throughout the book. One is authority. Where does authority come from, how does it get enforced? If something happens in the “political structure” that everyone is used to, what happens next? Another question is how does society affect authority? There are other themes as well, but a main overarching theme is, the search for individualism in society. In this search are the questions that everyone has: who am I; where do I fit in; do I even belong? While these questions are not answered, they are touched upon. Like many Japanese writers, Hoshino-san likes to keep his stories ambiguous, to let the reader draw their own conclusions.

We are brought to thinking about authority right away in the story. The first sentence of the story is “Even when His Majesty died, I wasn’t phased, not even un poquito” (p. 1). The Emperor is considered the most authorative state figure in Japan. What makes this Emperor different than other Emperors who have died is that this one had no successor. We in America have a “succession” of the Presidency if ours happens to be assassinated; this “succession” goes down three levels. What would happen if all those “successors” were not available? That would be the best way to think of this from an “American” perspective. Would we be lost with out a leader, would we even care?

In “Lonely Hearts Killer” the people become lost with out their leader. Even the people that didn’t care about the Emperor while he was alive become lost. Is this merely a reaction to the fact that the “symbolic” leader that was younger died, and therefore making everyone feel their own mortality? Or does this stem from the fact that their political leader died? Either way we have a lot of people in Japan that become “spirited away” (p. 24), or they fall into a depression so bad that they cannot do anything for themselves. So then authority comes from people who need to take care of them, wives become the authority over their “spirited away” husbands. These “spirited away” people are not exactly alive, but they are not dead either. Where does the authority of life get transferred to? Should the wives continue to fulfill their filial duty and care for their husbands, or should they take control of their own lives?

In this story media and society play a huge role in authority. When the Emperor dies, the societal system of authority becomes off balance. In the place of societal authority, comes the more overarching form of media authority. After people come back from being “spirited away” (no we don’t see how they come back), we are brought into the time of “love suicides”, “indiscriminate love suicides”, and finally “justifiable self-defense.” All of these, except the “justifiable self-defense” are what we would call here in America “murder suicides,” the “justifiable self-defense” is the whole ideal of “I have to get them before they get me.” The media, in using its authority, made the world seem like a safer place during this time of unrest. I think what Hoshino-san is trying to do during this, is trying to get us to think about how the media frames what it reports. To me the media reporting on a “love suicide” – indiscriminate or otherwise – makes me think that the people that did it knew, if not loved each other. Sure it would make me question my friends, or people that I talked to on a regular basis (co-workers), but I would not be worried about walking out on the street, getting killed by someone I didn’t know. When the media talks about “justifiable self-defense,” now that’s when I would get worried. Then again you have the “justifiable” which leads one to think that I will get killed only if I provoke someone. This shows us just how much authority the media has over us and the way we think. This is true no matter what country you live in.

As we’ve seen, this story asks a lot about authority, but where does individual identity come in. All we’ve looked at so far in my analysis is the role of authority in society. What about the role of a single individual identity in that same society? Do they just get swallowed up by society, or do they come out strong. In this book Hoshino-san gives an overall dim view of the “individual identity in society.” Yet he makes a point about what that “individual” is trying to do. Hence we have Shoji’s journey to “find himself”.

We create identities with those around us. We all become a part of something bigger by our identities – individual or societal - but sometimes you feel your identity changing. For this to happen, it usually takes something drastic. In “Lonely Hearts Killer” we have that drastic event take place; with “his young Majesty” dying, it pushes everyone in society to find their own identity. This causes some of the people to become “spirited away”, their sense of identity has been taken away from them. In this story we have two people searching for their new identity (Shoji, and Iroha) and their choices to either accept that new identity or reject it.

Shoji is a filmographer and has made a deal with his parents that if he can’t make “real money” with his job in three years, then he will move out and live on his own. Shoji films everything, because that is the way he sees his life. The world goes on around him, he participates, but just enough. He doesn’t go out of the way to be active in society. To him everything happens on a screen, and nothing you can do is going to change it. However once the Emperor dies, something changes in Shoji. He becomes aware of what he does, but he can’t change it. He still continues to film, and shows those films up on his website. He still continues to feel like he’s just participating. Maybe through his website he was trying to change society. Maybe instead of “I’m just participating”, he was trying to show people what they were doing and how they could change it. However the flaw with that kind of thinking is you just can’t put something out there and expect it to be interpreted the way you wanted it to be interpreted. People have their own ideas and identities that help them interpret the message you were trying to create. If you want something to be interpreted a certain way, you need to precede the message with something, like a statement about what you were doing. Shoji does that for his final “internet film.”

Shoji meets Mitoko, who is Iroha’s boyfriend. Mikoto, like a lot of other people was “spirited away.” It is really him that opens up Shoji’s eyes as to what he is doing. This basically turns Shoji’s life upside down. He was so used to “just participating,” now he feels he has exposed the holes in society. He needs a way to let people know, he posts his last film on his website with a statement. Then he and Mikoto meet to discuss the new turn that his identity has taken. They are the ones who start the “love suicide” era. Shoji and Mikoto had to kill themselves to make a statement. To keep this new statement of identity and individualism under control, the authorities shut down Shoji’s website and charged him of crimes that entice people to murder. He was found guilty, even though he was dead.

Shoji found his new individual identity through his work and a new friend; the meeting of Mikoto, who Shoji could bounce his new ideas off of. Iroha on the other hand ran away from her would be new identity, even though she was not that much different from Shoji. Where Shoji was stubborn to a point, he finally accepted his new identity; Iroha was so stubborn that she ran away from hers.

Iroha seems to be a very confused woman; it seems as if she is lost without Shoji or Mikoto. She seems independent, but way down deep she needs someone to care for her. She won’t let anyone know that though and if anyone gets to close to that, she gets angry. She has lost both Shoji and Mikoto and Japan is going through an “identity crisis” so now she doesn’t know what to do. Iroha tries to keep her tough façade, but the pressures of the media and her new job make it hard for her. Even though she has isolated herself from the population of Japan, she still gets the news on a radio and still tries to make sense of the crisis of the Japanese people. I think the pressure finally makes her see what Shoji was trying to do. Through this, however I do think that she ends up feeling lost and a little off balance.

For her isolation Iroha went to stay at Mokuren’s mountain home. I think this was for two reasons: one she was afraid of all the “love suicides” that were happening and two because she didn’t want to accept the new reality. She was Shoji’s friend, but she couldn’t accept that Shoji and Mokoto were accepting of the fact that the late Emperor’s passing was ushering in a new era. Shoji and Mikoto were ready for a change while, Iroha on the other hand was afraid of change. Like a lot of people they want to keep everything constant. That shows up a lot, the people being “spirited away” due to the “young Majesty’s” death, people accusing others on the “outside” of being different. Iroha tried to keep her identity the same as everyone else’s for as long as she could. When she couldn’t do that anymore, she turned herself in for committing a “crime”. She released Shoji’s document and final film to the public again. Even though it seems that she is running from everything, she does eventually see what Shoji was trying to do. She finally accepts the new identity set out before her, but it may be too late.

Have these “disaffected youths” finally gotten their point across. Perhaps the fact that they thought that they were “living on a screen” was not that far from the truth? If we were to take a look at history, all cultures had rights of passages for their children to become adults. We have lost those rights of passage. Perhaps Hoshino-san was commenting that people don’t “grow up” until it’s too late. People do not want to become adults. There are a few places where I thought this came out very clear: “none of us can die even if we want to” (p.5), “It’s an island of children, where children just produce more children” (p.58). I believe that what Shoji and Iroha did, was their rite of passage. They are no longer seen as children in their own eyes now. Hoshino-san’s thought into such issues are very thought provoking.

Hoshino-san does a good job with his writing between genders. Both women in this story are very independent. This could be his way of critiquing the way gender roles are played in Japan at this time. As with the filmographers in this work of fiction, he as an author could be “exposing the holes in society.” Authors, especially in the fiction genre can do a lot of critiquing and not have to worry about a lot of repercussions. Fiction can be sensationalized, and not necessarily have to be based in fact. One has to wonder though, as much as Hoshino-san hates the “I-novel” genre, how much of this could be considered an “I novel.”

What makes “Lonely Hearts Killer” so interesting, is like Hoshino-san’s other works (“Chino”), it revolves around identity, but not the identity of just one person. This work could be understood to encompass, not only the identity of the main characters, but also the identities of the people of Japan. When an Emperor dies, there has always been the next one ready to be put on the throne, however this time there wasn’t. While the Emperor seems to be more of a symbolic power figure, such a drastic loss would affect everybody. The book “Lonely Hearts Killer” is what could happen. Overall this entire book has a grim about how society react to that issue. An Emperor dies and everybody is affected in different ways. It seems that once the Emperor is gone a world of anarchy envelops Japan. It seems that the authorities become just as lost as the “regular people” of Japan. There seems to be no silver lining. When the Empress makes her first speech, it does nothing for the people. To them it was a “pre-written” piece of garbage. This to me made the women in the story more upset than the men. Shoji’s mother was excited to hear the new Empress, but after that she accepted the fact that nothing would change for women in Japan, even though a woman is in the highest political position. Hoshino is known to be against the Imperial system in Japan. However, the way this book is written, the Emperor dying would affect every person, not just the right wing nationals that want to keep the Imperial system in tact, but those that want to abolish it was well. If this work of fiction was ever to become reality, there would be a lot of unrest, and resistance to change. Could the effect of changing the Imperial system be as drastic as Hoshino thinks? I don’t know; one would hope that people would be able to make better decisions.

Hoshino invokes the sense of loss and unease in a people deeply affected by the drastic change in their political structure; perhaps the fact that people feel let down by the new Empress, makes this story more real. As with most Japanese stories a lot of things are left ambiguous, Hoshino used the terms “lifestyle”, and he talks about people who are “married just for looks”. These terms are the most ambiguous, and let you the reader decide what they mean. Also like most Japanese writers the ending may not be that satisfactory to American readers. Most American’s like a “nice and tidy” ending to a story they read and when they don’t get that, the feel disappointed. It all goes back to “what happens next?” At the end of the story that is for the reader to decide.