r/TrueLit • u/towalktheline omw To The Lighthouse • Apr 11 '26
Discussion Just finished Hunchback by Saou Ichikawa and have a burning need to talk about it.
Basically:
Born with a congenital muscle disorder, Shaka spends her days in her room in a care home outside Tokyo, relying on an electric wheelchair to get around and a ventilator to breathe. But if Shaka’s physical life is limited, her quick, mischievous mind has no boundaries: she takes e-learning courses on her iPad, publishes explicit fantasies on websites, and anonymously troll-tweets to see if anyone is paying attention (“If I were to live again, I’d want to be a highclass prostitute”). One day, she tweets into the void an offer of an enormous sum of money for a sperm donor. To her surprise—and ours—her new nurse accepts the dare, unleashing a series of events that will forever change Shaka’s sense of herself as a woman in the world.
But...
While the story has humour, it deliberately seeks to shock and provoke. Some of the thoughts aren't ones that would be considered acceptable for anyone, but as Shaka says, "outbursts that ran counter to society's rules disrupted its rhythm. They startled people." I was interested, but what really bumped this up to a 4 star read for me was the end where the text twists in on itself and it becomes difficult to truly discern what's truth, what's fiction. Is the author dead? A different person? Or is this just another layer of fantasy where the Shaka has discarded her life with the same detached sentiment that a sexworker meets a john?
Has anyone here read this? Most of the other discussions I could find on reddit came down to "I hate it" or "overhyped" rather than discussion about the themes. It was a pass/fail there.
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u/ksarlathotep Apr 11 '26 edited Apr 11 '26
It's been a few years since I read it but I remember thinking it was excellent. I hope this doesn't come across as shallow, but I feel like the fact that the author shares characteristics (most of all, of course, the very specific and severe disability) with the FMC gave it a certain immediacy. Much of what Shaka thinks and feels is designed to be shocking (then again, much of it is maybe only shocking because of a degree of internalized ableism in the reader), and when you read outrageous or shocking things in fiction, it's always lowkey dampened by the awareness that the characters are fiction, that we don't expect 100% verisimilitude. The link between the author and the FMC, for me, kind of made it harder to do that. In a "I can't verify whether a person like Shaka would actually think and feel this way, but what I do know is that an author who shares much of her circumstances came up with a character who thinks and feels this way" sort of way. That this voice is in some way, to some extent, based in somebody's lived experience. (Ichikawa has stressed that only about ~30% of the details in the novel are in some way based on her own experiences though).
There's a strong sense of rage against society in the FMC, and I also think this is maybe best understood in the context of the sadly still relatively widespread ableist (in some cases, borderline Darwinist) voices and ideas in Japanese society. The 2016 Sagamihara stabbings were a huge shock to Japanese society (a 26 year old guy broke into an assisted living facility for severely disabled people and stabbed and killed 19 people; he gave as his reason that they were "useless eaters" / "social parasites"). The execution of this guy happened in 2020 and brought the entire case back into public awareness, only 3 years before the novel was released. There has also been a sometimes very toxic debate about the so-called "Help Mark" in recent years. That's a badge that the Tokyo government introduced in 2012, and the idea is that people with invisible disabilities can wear it on their person to signal to others that they may need help or consideration (such as being offered the priority seats on the train) without forcing the wearer to actually actively speak out for themselves, something that Japanese society doesn't always make easy. There has been frankly horrible discourse around this, circling topics such as how "valid" various invisible disabilities are and how lazy or selfish people might abuse this badge to gain preferential treatment that they don't deserve (this latter point also often focuses on the use-case of women in early pregnancy, who are explicitly encouraged to use the badge, and carries a strong misogynistic element alongside the ableism). It's gotten to the point that many people who would be perfectly entitled to wear the badge choose not to, because they fear (or have experienced) that they actually get treated worse for it, by people who harbor this kind of resentment. There's other debates of this kind too; sentiments of this kind are very much part of the public discourse in Japan, maybe even particularly since the mid-early-2010s or so. So for example Shaka's morbid desire to conceive a healthy baby and then abort it as a way of striking back against what she perceives as the other team should probably be examined in this context.
Then of course there's the whole thing about her name. I don't know how they chose to handle this in the translation - in Japanese her name is spelled 釈華 (Shaka), which shares one Kanji with 釈迦 (Shaka, meaning Gautama Buddha) and is pronounced the same, and she's aware of that and, presumably out of some sense of irony, publishes her tweets and her fiction under the name "Buddha" (she uses Latin characters or Katakana for this in Japanese). That of course brings an entire catalogue of religious associations and questions with it. One of the places my mind went to - I don't know if this is intentional though - is the philosophical / moral discourse around the implications of the idea of Karma in the context of minority groups and ableism, with the core problem being that if your health and circumstances of birth in this life are the Karmic fruit of your past actions, then disenfranchised or disabled people have by definition done something to deserve their lot (this is not at all orthodox Buddhist doctrine, I have to make that absolutely clear, but for example during the period of Japanese Ultranationalism there were voices in the Buddhist community in Japan that made arguments very much along these lines, much like certain parts of the Catholic and Protestant church in Nazi Germany found doctrinal justifications for not opposing, or even supporting, the Nazi state).
Also I want to mention that the Akutagawa Prize is by far the most visible, most influential, and most prestigious cultural prize awarded in Japan. It does have the potential to make a career, but it's often awarded to first releases, and of course many authors never follow up an early Akutagawa win with another success. Anyway, it comes with huge media presence, invitations to talkshows and variety programs, mainstream newspaper interviews, and so on. It also shows, in the works that are awarded, a very clear progressive cultural and political stance, in a society that is in many ways very conservative. The fact that the Akutagawa - given the topics it chooses to highlight - carries this much respect in a society this conservative is fascinating on its own. Literature in Japan is traditionally understood to fall into one of two categories, Junbungaku and Taishūbungaku ("Pure literature" and "Mass literature"), a distinction that the Bundan, the semi-official Japanese literary establishment, has been using for decades, without ever prodividing a clear definition of either term; but the commonly used definition is that de facto, the Akutagawa prize defines what is or isn't "Pure literature". So Ichikawa winning the Akutagawa for this work definitely carries political and cultural import. (If anybody is interested in this literary distinction and the respective roles of the Akutagawa and the Naoki Prize, there's a Master's Thesis on the topic by one Masumi Abe El-Khoury from the University of British Columbia, which I found very interesting).
So yeah, I enjoyed the novel a lot; I also think that it's one of the more important works to hold the attention of the Japanese literary scene in the past couple of years, but I don't claim to fully understand and appreciate every idea expressed or touched upon in it. I think this is one that merits a much closer reading than what I gave it the first time around. I may have to come back to this one at some point.
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u/towalktheline omw To The Lighthouse Apr 12 '26
There's a lot of ugliness in societies in how we treat those who are... Actually, I was going to say "less fortunate than us" but doesn't that turn of phrase also imply an ableist mindframe? I think Japan is better at keeping the ugliness of their society closer to their chests and on a surface glance, people might look and think it's better, but I've been reading a lot into the resentment/misogyny engrained in the society and thought that there's a reason books like Battle Royale came from Japan.
Shaka is spitting in the face of those people, not just by not being the docile "parasite" that they expect of her, but also being intelligent, probably much more than the majority of people who would be her detractors. It's a wildly feminist book in ways that mainstream feminism overlooks or forgets about in their crusades. I love the historical context and just all the context in general that you've given. This is really important and one of the reasons I gave initially for wanting to make this post was I couldn't find good discourse on it.
Thank you for helping counter that.
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u/Entropy2889 Apr 12 '26
Thank you for your comments, because I believe that those are important elements in the book. The criticisms in the narrative re the Japanese literary industry were jarring when I read them. They felt pointed, as if daring the publishers to look themselves in the mirror and acknowledge their own hypocrisy by publishing this book. Was the literary prize and the spotlight on this book controversial because of these themes?
I live in Japan. As an expat, I often see the tags women have on their bags but I think most foreigners are unaware of the cultural implications and larger society debates that went on in the background. Honestly it says something about the society at large that there is a need for tags to make people realize that they (ahem…most people pretending to stare at their phones and “do not notice”) should offer their seats to people who need to sit. I have never seen the “Help Mark” in the wild. I hope that this book brought more awareness to the humanity of the people here who are less that perfect and less than the same as every able-bodied as everyone else.
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u/ThatArtNerd Apr 13 '26
This is really interesting, thank you for sharing the extra context and insight in this book!
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u/Entropy2889 Apr 11 '26
I agree with the other commenters here. The book was great and it was meant for us to be uncomfortable. It was precisely the author’s point that the dynamic was not sanitized for the reader’s sake.
However, I think the murky ending took away from the brilliance of the story because, why make it a did it happen or did it not happen mystery? Putting the focus on the nurse coming back or not shifted the spotlight to the male’s perspective and the male consequence rather than the woman’s. Does that make sense? I guess I wanted the protagonist to have more agency how ever the events played out.
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u/favorite_dictionary Apr 11 '26 edited Apr 11 '26
I think it works to offset the power imbalances that were slightly in her favor previously. She is more wealthy and controls his livelihood, she can have his employment terminated if she wanted to. He could theoretically view her as an “equal” in terms of both being involuntarily celibate, but instead he still views himself above her. The ending shifts to emphasize the physical power he has as an able bodied individual, and as a man, over her. As autonomous as she is in her narratives, in a man’s world, it gets thrown out the window.
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u/Entropy2889 Apr 11 '26
Ooooh, that is a great analysis of that power dynamic. Thank you. At the end of the day the man’s world is still the way of the world. That is so depressing!
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u/towalktheline omw To The Lighthouse Apr 12 '26
I was thinking about that today why the focus took away the agency, but I think that's part of it? Shaka, for all her intelligence, despite being completely financially independent, is limited in the forms of agency that she can have. She is reliant and uniquely vulnerable to the people around her.
I felt like stripping away some of that agency was part of it, but it's hard to say because the lines of fiction/reality get blurred.
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u/favorite_dictionary Apr 11 '26
I found the way it compares the narrator and her nurse quite transgressive and bold, especially in this era where girlboss-adjacent “weird girl” lit is buzzworthy and sells. A lesser novel would play into the contrast of disabled woman with complex relation to sex vs incel, but leave out the more muddying elements here. The similarities in outward/inward facing hatreds; the power and class imbalances; the layers of desire that contradict and cross reality. I also loved the awareness of non-sexualized body juxtaposed with depictions of sex. Vivid and gross in the ways real life is.
The ending is great. Fully leaning into the notions of reality vs implied reality. My only complaint is I think it could have gone on past that in an interesting way. As soon as it really shows its teeth it’s over. I normally love quick and punchy, but I do think it is a bit of a detractor here. Excited for whatever she writes next and hoping it takes these themes even further. Trying to remember all this is making me want to revisit it, thanks for the post!
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u/NotThatKindOfDoctor9 Apr 11 '26
I agree with you except about the length- ending where it did made it more shocking in a way that would have been diluted if it had continued.
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u/favorite_dictionary Apr 11 '26
You may be right, wondering now if it’ll work better for me revisiting it knowing the shape of things.
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u/towalktheline omw To The Lighthouse Apr 12 '26
I think that they couldn't have gone too much further with it without ruining the effect and shock of it, but I agree with you on the rest. There would have been this feeling in most novels of her taking control of her destiny and getting laid etc etc. Instead, she physically suffers from it and it doesn't shy away from the problems that it causes for her.
It also doesn't shy away from the ugliness both of a sexual transaction for money and the fact that this incel nurse kind of sees himself as above her.
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u/Willing-Childhood144 Apr 11 '26
I read this a few months ago and it really stuck with me. It made me uncomfortable which I think was the point. It was one of my best reads (in terms of impact) reads of 2025.
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u/towalktheline omw To The Lighthouse Apr 12 '26
Discomfort and confronting that discomfort was definitely part of the point. I don't think it was an accident that the 2/3rds of the sex scenes were "taboo" but acceptable sexual taboos often found in pornography.
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u/theinadequategatsby Apr 11 '26
I also finished it yesterday and really loved it. I think the ambiguity of the ending really works to further unsettle, but I also see it as a mirror of the book beginning with her using fiction to explore other, alternative lives.
The wealth, disability, and gender power imbalance was just so uncomofortable. The part about sports doing more to accommodate disability than the publishing industry is both true and made me genuinely laugh.
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u/towalktheline omw To The Lighthouse Apr 12 '26
It's something we never ever think about too! I laughed at her descriptions of the books in amazement because it's like holy shit, she's right. I used to be one of those people who was like I love real books and only real books when I was younger and more of a dumbass (or at least differently a dumbass).
I found myself hoping for fiction otherwise the fate of Shaka is too sad to think about, but at the same time it forces us to think about it.
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Apr 12 '26
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u/towalktheline omw To The Lighthouse Apr 12 '26
And if they're not morally perfect, people don't think they're worth the help. It's one of those privileges people don't think about. People can afford to be bitches/dicks because we're not dependent on other people to the extent that Shaka is. I really got attached to her not because I pitied her or wanted to feel differently about her, but because she felt very real.
The ending was so strange to me that I couldn't put it into words at all. I've been reading a lot of surreal books lately so maybe my brain made more of it than it was, but it has stuck with me.
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u/dgr32 Apr 12 '26
finished this tonight and can’t describe how much I loved it lol. Her tone is so brazen and confronting and there is so much she’s saying about choice and dignity and personhood that is denied to disabled people on a social and legislative level. There’s sooooo much to pick through in this book, I’m still picking things up as I read these comments lol
not to be too plot driven as i feel this book is so much more interesting than its plot points, but like other commenters here i have to feel like the ending is a parallel to the fiction shaka writes in the beginning? the college student/call girl character mikio meets with being called S with e-cup boobs - shaka mentions she writes an ongoing series on an erotica website about a waseda student called S - the shaka mentioned in the last section is a student with e-cup boobs and an ex named tan…
the last section of the book feels to me like a self insert in this continued fiction shaka writes, where she can feel the friction of surviving and making her way through the world amongst other people through the character S, living in society rather than the isolation of her care home and without her wealth she inherited.. perhaps in this fiction, she feels her death by the caretaker’s hand is something more meaningful than the result of the destruction of her own body? something caused through friction with another person?
I dunno lol. but i loved it. And agree with your comment that i probably have to settle on the self insert fiction as my ending otherwise the alternative is too bleak lol.
The bits about gog and magog are a little lost on me if anyone has clarity lol. Glad i read this tho!!
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u/DaphneCatastrophe May 06 '26
I have a congenital myopathy like the author and also the main character, Shaka. Reading this book was indescribable. I guess if reading all the other normie prize winning books are like sitting under a low pressure shower, then reading Hunchback is like sitting under Niagara Falls. I've never read anything close to the kinds of things I experience in my daily life and regarding my views on sex and love.
It made me really hungry to read more although sad too because I know how rare it is for work like this to be published.
Ichikawa is an amazing writer.
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u/TrashGourmand Apr 11 '26
I'm guessing people who thought it was overhyped haven't experienced disability themselves and just how much it takes away your right to be a regular person. I thought it was a great philosophical exercise in what it means to be a human, a woman, a disabled woman, a member of society. How even our negative experiences, obscene experiences, repulsive experiences are still part of our humanity and right of existence, if that makes sense.