@otou-san: the structure is interesting. It doesn’t build up to a resolution; it hits a gory bit halfway through and then slips into the same groove again. Odd, but it has its own strange charm to it.

@Chris K: I wonder if the trouble with social problems in Japan is that they’re often bubbling under the surface so presumably don’t get the attention they deserve. On the surface it seems to be an even nicer place to live than the UK: unemployment doesn’t seem all that bad, the youngsters are polite and people seem to be fairly content. You see a fair few homeless people if you wander around at night but maybe that’s the issue that Ryu Murakami and people like him are trying to convey. There ARE issues and problems, but they’re not out in the open so are unlikely to get resolved.

But, this is nothing new, I remember that Hayao Miyazaki once commented that the reason why most Japanese animators don’t draw their Japanese characters to look like real Japanese people is that they hate their own faces. He also once commented that the trend of Moe in anime and manga was causing newer generations of men to be unable to deal with real women.