This episode is rated mature.

Horror and uncanny stories are fundamental elements of Japanese storytelling.

We’ll start with a note about genre in general and “horror” in particular.

We’ll continue with a discussion of horror in traditional Japanese storytelling, especially the kaidan popular in Edo Japan.

We’ll move on to the decline and rebirth of kaidan and uncanny fiction between the Meiji Restoration and the Pacific War before we discuss Japanese horror fiction of the last 70 years.

Then we’ll wrap up our conversation today with Ryu Murakami, especially his novel In the Miso Soup.

cw: fictional violence, fictional sexual assault

Transcript, notes and sources at the podcast episode website.

Buy your copy of In the Miso Soup on Bookshop to support the podcast.

Let RJL know what you think! (Contact us through the website if you want a response.)

Get in touch at www.readjapaneseliterature.com.
Support RJL on Patreon.com.
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All content © 2026 Read Japanese Literature.

For decades, writing by women was treated as its own separate genre in Japan, joryu bungaku. In today's episode, we’ll start with an explanation of why joryu bungaku became its own separate genre.

We’ll move on to the story of women’s writing between the Meiji Era and the Pacific War and then immediately after the Pacific War.

We’ll zoom in on three writers who really changed the narrative for women’s writing in Japan—Taeko Kono, Takako Takahashi, and Yumiko Kurahashi—and then talk very briefly about how women’s writing has changed since these women debuted in the 1960s.

And we’ll wrap up with a discussion of Taeko Kono’s story “Toddler Hunting”, translated by Lucy North.

cw: sadism/masochism, violence against women and children, rape as motifs and in fiction

Transcript, notes and sources at the podcast episode website.

Buy your copy of Toddler-Hunting and Other Stories on Bookshop to support the podcast.

Let RJL know what you think! (Contact us through the website if you want a response.)

Get in touch at www.readjapaneseliterature.com.
Support RJL on Patreon.com.
Buy your books from Bookshop.org.
All content © 2026 Read Japanese Literature.

In this episode, we examine the history of the Aum Affair and its lasting impact on Japanese fiction.

We'll start out with the history of new religions in Japan, including Aum Shinrikyo. We'll take a look at Haruki Murakami's non-fiction book, Underground: The Tokyo Gas Attack and the Japanese Psyche.

We'll move on to an examination of four novels that respond directly to Aum or the Aum attacks—Keiichiro Hirano's Eclipse, Kenzaburo Oe's Somersault, Banana Yoshimoto's The Lake, and Haruki Murakami's 1Q84.

And we'll end with a discussion of three novels that I'll argue show the new religion's continuing influence—Kikuo Tsumura's There's No Such Thing as an Easy Job, Sayaka Murata's Earthlings, and Erika Kobayashi's Trinity, Trinity, Trinity.

cw: terrorist attack resulting in injury and death, religions some people think of as cults, fictional cannibalism

Transcript, notes and sources at the podcast episode website.

Let RJL know what you think! (Contact us through the website if you want a response.)

Get in touch at www.readjapaneseliterature.com.
Support RJL on Patreon.com.
Buy your books from Bookshop.org.
All content © 2026 Read Japanese Literature.