ABSTRACT
World Apartment Horror (Japanese title: “Waarudo Apaatomento Horaa”) by Kon Satoshi, with Otomo Katsuhiro and Nobumoto Keiko, is a work of fiction that raises important issues and problems of nationalism, immigration, identity and gender in Japan today. It concerns Japan’s recent experiences with illegal immigration: the Chinese, Filipinos, South-east Asians, Indians, Pakistanis and others who, attracted by the promise of a better quality standard of living in Japan, arrive only to find themselves in the clutches of yakuza (gangsters) who are organized to prey on them. This experience has proved so traumatic and unthinkable that Horror’s detailed examination of it seems unique in literature, art or film. Its treatment of the important subjects of war, memory, history, myth, and gender, offers an equally unique glimpse into questions of how other nationalities are treated in Japan today, questions that have scarcely even begun to be asked, let alone responded to.
