[Tsumidemic] Michi Ichiho | Finished Reading

Winner of the 171st Naoki Prize.

This work is a collection of six short stories depicting people whose lives gradually went off the rails and drifted toward crime amidst the unprecedented situation of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Even calling it a crime, there isn't necessarily great malice from the start.

Losing a job.
Becoming isolated.
Making a wrong judgment.
Harboring feelings one cannot tell anyone.
The footing of reality shifts just a little bit.

Beyond that lies a crime.

That is precisely why I could not view it as someone else's problem while reading.

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Not a distant crime, but a reality next door

What is depicted in this work is not an extremely unusual criminal. Nor are they people from some distant world.

People who lost their jobs.
People whose distance from their families changed.
People who made the wrong judgment in loneliness.
People who were driven into a corner little by little without even realizing it themselves.

These were stories of such people.

Even incidents seen on the news can look like events unrelated to oneself if one only reads the headlines.

However, there is a life before that.

There is impatience.
There is anxiety.
There is vanity.
There is guilt.
There is a weakness that cannot be told to anyone.

This work depicts that calmly.

This is not a story of a 'distant crime.' It can be read as a reality that might have been right next to me if the conditions were slightly different.

That closeness of distance had a gradual effect on me.

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Because it is calm, it leaves room for interpretation

The subject matter of the COVID-19 pandemic is heavy in itself.

Unemployment. Isolation. Anxiety.
Distance from people. Changes in daily life.

I think it could easily be turned into an excessive tragedy if one were to depict such things. However, this work does not have much of a preachy tone or a feeling of stirring up emotions more than necessary.
Rather, it is quite calm.

That is precisely why it leaves room for the reader.

This is terrible.
This person is bad.
They should have done this.

It cannot be judged so easily.

While reading, I end up thinking, 'What if it were me?'

Could I have held back?
Could I have made a different choice?
Can I say for sure that I would never make a mistake even if placed in the same situation?

That question remains quietly.

This calm sense of distance was a major appeal of this work.

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Depicting the COVID-19 pandemic as a novel, not a record

I think this work is strongly tied to the era.
The atmosphere of the COVID-19 pandemic is quite clearly in the story. However, it is not merely a record of the times.

It does not just line up realistic elements like masks, self-restraint, and unemployment, but depicts how people change within that situation.

That was good.

A major event like the COVID-19 pandemic enters people's lives, changes relationships, and dulls judgment.

But that change is not flashy.
It proceeds little by little, quietly.

When you notice it, you are standing in a different place than before. That sensation was very close to reality. While it is a story tied to the era, it is properly readable as a novel.

That balance was impressive.

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'Special Related Person'

What left a particularly strong impression was 'Special Related Person'.

There is a coldness to this term itself to begin with.

A term of the system.
A term of paperwork.
A term for classifying people.

But the human being placed there has emotions.

There are circumstances.
There is loneliness.
There is a relationship that is hard to put into words.

That temperature difference remained quietly in my heart.

I think the system is necessary to organize people. However, if that term is too cold, people's feelings can sometimes be left behind.

How many emotions are left behind without being able to fit into the term 'Special Related Person'?

While reading, I ended up thinking about that.

This story did not surprise with flashy developments, but was a story that lingered due to the difference between the coldness of the words and the warmth of the human.

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The atmosphere as a linked short story collection

Since this work is a linked short story collection, the protagonist and situation are different for each story. However, as I read on, the atmosphere connects little by little.

Each story is independent.

But common to every story is the sense of confinement of the COVID-19 pandemic and the feeling that reality is shifting little by little.

What initially looked like individual crimes rises up as the atmosphere of one era as I read on.

That was good.

I want to think, 'This is no one's story.'
But somewhere, it connects to reality.

The scenery I saw.
The anxiety I felt.
The atmosphere of that time.
The feeling that life was changing little by little.

The story quietly connects with such things.

That closeness was scary.

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What is scary is not just malice

What I thought after finishing it was that what is scary is not just malice.

Of course, I think a crime is a crime.

Hurting someone.
Making the wrong choice.
Proceeding to a point of no return.

That is not something that can be easily forgiven.
However, what this work depicts is not just people filled with malice from the start.

A slight fraying.
A shift in judgment.
Isolation.
Impatience.
Anxiety about life.
Feelings that cannot be told to anyone.

As a result of such things piling up, reality collapses onto this side. There was that fear.

People are not that strong.
When the situation changes, there is no place to escape, and one can no longer ask anyone for help, where can one hold back?

This work depicts that question without exaggeration.

I thought that was sincere.

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What remained after reading

'Tsumidemic' was not a work that kept you reading with flashy plot twists. However, there is something that remains strongly after finishing it.

That was the feeling that 'it was close to me.'

It is not a distant crime.
It is not the crime of someone special.
It is a story of people who were driven into a corner little by little and made mistakes little by little in the special situation of the COVID-19 pandemic.

That closeness is quietly scary.

It might be easy to judge incidents and crimes in an easy-to-understand way. However, thinking about what happened before that is not easy.

This work shows that difficulty without being pushy.

It is calm.
But it is not cold.
It is heavy.
But it does not stir things up excessively.

That sense of distance was very good.

What is scary is that reality collapses onto this side due to a slight fraying or shift in judgment, rather than malice.

Writing that out without exaggeration was the most sincere part of this work, and also where it was interesting.

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