After the Quake
On January 17, 1995, minutes before six in the morning, the Great Hansin earthquake occured. It measured 6.8 on the moment magnitude scale (USGS), which claimed 6,434 lives. About 4,600 of them were from Kobe, the sixth largest city in Japan. Haruki Murakami, whose works often touched on the subject of isolation, would pen six short stories, his response to the calamity.
"I have not come here on such petty business. I am fully aware that you are Assistant Chief of the lending division of the Shinjuku branch of the Tokyo Security Trust Bank. But my visit has nothing to do with the repayment of loans. I have come here to save Tokyo from destruction."
- "Super-Frog Saves Tokyo"
"After the Quake" was Murakami's collection of tales, which tapped into the ordinary Japanese people's consciousness - and subconsciousness - when the earthquake struck the island. It wasn't an uncommon occurrence, as Japan was along Pacific's Ring of Fire. A little research would reveal that in Shinto practice, a frog was believed to be a lucky charm. In this short story, which appeared in GQ Magazine on 2002, an amphibian predicted the next big quake and it was his mission to save the Japanese capital from the catastrophe. But he couldn't do it alone, frightened of the Worm, the culprit of these tremors. He needed courage to face such a foe, and he found an unlikely source of motivation from Katagiri.
Katagiri spent sixteen years of his adult life in the bank, contented with a thankless post. He didn't profit from it, didn't settle down either. This didn't make him bitter, not even his siblings who didn't show him gratitude after him financing their studies. In short, there was a purity in Katagiri's heart, goodness that the Frog would need when he faced the Worm. It wouldn't be difficult to figure out the spirituality underneath this odd story, told in good-versus-evil fashion. The theme of isolation, foremost in a Murakami tale, wasn't subtle. On the contrary, this man was looking at it during his subconscious state, even his unconscious, as his conscious self was focused on his job, making him dead tired at the end of the day. Readers who weren't perceptive of this need not worry, as this would become apparent in the end.
"Super-Frog Saves Tokyo", along with Murakami's other short stories, would come to mind today, as it had been three years since the Tōhoku earthquake, which caused severe structural damage in northeast Japan. It was of a magnitude 9.0, the duration of which lasted six minutes. It would be the most-powerful quake to hit this Asian country, the fifth most powerful earthquake in the world (since modern record-keeping began in 1900), resulting to a tsunami and nuclear accidents. Citizens have to deal with a thousand aftershocks, 80 of which registering over magnitude 6.0 and several over magnitude 7.0. But the Japanese populace were resilient, their faith not shaken easily. As the Frog puts it, the highest wisdom is to have no fear. (Words of Nietzsche, by the way.)
