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The World Sinks except Japan
A Black Comedy Written by Tsutsui Yasutaka
Date:27, Sep, 2014
Investigated and Written by Misaka Youhei
About our introductory articles


Tsutsui Yasutaka is one of the three top science fiction authors in Japan, along with Hoshi Shinichi and Komatsu Sakyo. His representative novel is “Toki o Kakeru Shojo (The Girl Who Leapt through Time),” you know. Most of Tsutsui’s novels are so surreal that some cannot keep reading. If your mind was immature, his works are not there for you.


In 1973, Tsutsui released “The World Sinks except Japan” as a parody of “Japan Sinks” written by Komatsu Sakyo. That 1973 story shows a kind of his surrealism.

All countries except Japan sink into the deep sea out of a cataclysm. Several alpine areas like the Andes get safe. But people cannot live there because there is no public peace there. Celebrities all over the earth desperately learn Japanese and try to move to Japan for their survival. To explain simply, that is the story.

Not a novel, but that’s a short story. To begin with, what made Tsutsui write “The World Sinks except Japan” was a party held for celebrating a hit of “Japan Sinks.” An author thought of only the title “The World Sinks except Japan” at the banquet. Tsutsui heard the words and fluently wrote the story at once. It was made by that spirit like drunken lads.

Tsutsui was not, however, a stuck up young man. He made up a great farce with an accurate satire upon the world community. Originally, Tsutsui selected Science Fiction because it is the best genre to express something surreal. Don't get straight to his stories. You’d better read them a sidelong glance.


about The World Sinks except Japan

・Written by Tsutsui Yasutaka
・Published by Bungeishunju (1973)






 

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