Super-Frog Saves Tokyo
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By Haruki Murakami and Jay Rubin
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A lavishly illustrated edition of Murakami’s classic story.
Katagiri found a giant frog waiting for him in his apartment. It was powerfully built, standing over six feet tall on its hind legs. A skinny little man no more than five foot three, Katagiri was overwhelmed by the frog’s imposing bulk.
‘Call me “Frog,”’ said the frog in a clear, strong voice.
Fully illustrated and beautifully designed, this special edition of Murakami’s celebrated short story sees the bewildered Katagiri find meaning in his humdrum life through joining forces with Frog in an effort to save Tokyo from an existential threat.
‘No other author mixes domestic, fantastic and esoteric elements into such weirdly bewitching shades’ Financial Times
‘A master storyteller’ Sunday Times
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Super Frog Saves Tokyo is a bizarre story written by Haruki Murakami in 2000. It is a short piece about a man called Katagiri who is asked to prevent a massive earthquake from happening by intervening a war between a frog and a worm.
The frog tells him that an earthquake that is going to destroy Tokyo will happen right under the bank that he’s working in. Katagiri’s conversation with a talking frog in his everyday life is obviously a fictional element. No one can see the frog except the narrator himself. The use of magical realism in the piece explores the identity of an ordinary man who did nothing big in his life but dreams of doing something great for the city that he lives in. Random use of philosophical quote in the conversation shapes Katagiri as a pretentious man rather than an intelligent nor sophisticated person. The story has an existential theme and the personal struggle that Katagiri has is no different from that of millions living in Tokyo - what is the meaning of life in a contemporary urban Japanese society?
The story exposes the tension between the identity in real life and the wish to be a more important person doing more important things in every occurrence. The wish is subconscious and itself is an existential dilemma. The mysterious death of the frog symbolises real human experience in the waking world in the end of the story.
Stories are always about human experience. And this one is no exception – it illuminates a collective experience in search of self-identity in a hurried city where individuality is lost, neglected or missing. Katagir’s inner exploration of meaning is an existential theme, which resonates globally through a Japanese lens. The uniqueness of Japanese culture in the setting, the absurdity nature of the story, and the dreamlike storytelling makes Haruki Murakami a globally acclaimed writer.
The book has stunning visual aesthetic. It is a delightful read.
