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共喰い
女を殴る父と、同じ目をした、俺。
川辺の町で暮らす17歳の少年。セックスの時に暴力を振るうという父親の習性を受け継いでいることを自覚し、懼れ、おののく…。逃げ場のない、濃密な血と性の物語。第146回芥川賞受賞作。
川辺の町で暮らす17歳の少年。セックスの時に暴力を振るうという父親の習性を受け継いでいることを自覚し、懼れ、おののく…。逃げ場のない、濃密な血と性の物語。第146回芥川賞受賞作。
205 pages, Paperback
First published October 1, 2011
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March 25, 2024Cannibals is an undeniably difficult novella. Though it won the Akutagawa Prize and was adapted to film, it remains a harsh and triggering story of abuse that many readers will, understandably, be unable to struggle through. Our protagonist, Toma, was raised by his father—a serial abuser of women—and Toma's great fear is becoming like his father; being swallowed up by an inescapable fate. It's a raw novel that explores cycles of masculine abuse.
My full thoughts: https://booksandbao.com/japanese-lite...
My full thoughts: https://booksandbao.com/japanese-lite...
July 3, 2024
Nie spodziewałam się tego, co dostałam w tej książce, ale ostatecznie jestem mocno zaintrygowana.
December 26, 2024
A lazy, meandering summer break between school years, except if that summer was unspeakably evil and also directed by Masaaki Yuasa
February 2, 2024
The fever had not chilled completely, and a heat still lingered in Toma's body. He splashed himself with cold water in the bath, but the unagi tangled in transparent fishing line would not vanish from his mind. He felt the filth seeping from the gashes in its head flowing into his body.
Cannibals (2024) is translated from Japanese by Kalau Almony, from Tanaka Shinya’s Akutagawa Prize-winning novel 共喰い (2011) sold over 200,000 copies in Japan and was adapted into a movie in 2013 by Cannes Film Festival-winner Shinji Aoyama (similarly titled in Japanese but marketed in the UK as The Backwater (link to trailer).
The production of the novel, as with all of Honford Star’s book makes the physical object a work of art in its own right, here the cover designed by Jun Kawana.
The story itself is a brutal coming-of-age story, told in unsparing, if at times rather awkwardly translated prose (see https://x.com/jacqbetula/status/17577...)
It is narrated from the close third person perspective of Shinogaki Toma and opens:
IN JULY OF 1989, the sixty-third year of the Showa era, on the day he turned seventeen, Shinogaki Toma did not go home at the end of the day's lessons. Instead, he headed straight to Aida Chigusa's house. Chigusa was a year older than him and went to a different high school. They both, however, lived in the same area, the riverside, and their homes were less than a three-minute walk apart.
Toma got off the bus on the freeway and walked down a narrow road bordered by old homes and buildings filled with rented shops and offices until he reached the river, which he then walked along, following its current. The river was about ten meters across. It was low tide and the yellow earth of the riverbed was visible through the shallow water. Stones of all shapes and sizes; a broken bicycle that looked as though even if someone tried to ride it, it could do nothing but turn right for eternity; a black umbrella whose broken frame thrust out of the water like the mast of a ship; a tinplated bucket which, except for the bright crimson handle, was rusted into a shapeless heap; wooden fencing; plastic bags swollen with sand these and other pieces of trash filled the river. Schools of young mullet swam through the water. The mud of the river bankwas covered in birds' footprints that looked like swarms of giant spiders and pocked with piles of black slime in the spots where the birds had been digging for food with their beaks. Green algae clung to both the garbage in the river and the riverbank itself. The algae were evidence of the tide, proof that this was not fresh water. All of these things mingled with the rising sea, and what was left by the receding tide gave the river shape as they waited for the sea to come again.
Then came the smell. The riverside's sewage system had not yet been completed. Houses did have indoor plumbing and flush toilets; however, the sewage was carried directly to the river. It had been decided that homeowners would shoulder some part of the cost of connecting each house's sewage system to the main line, and construction was slated for next spring, so the intense stench of summer would also end this year.
The smell was awful, and, what was worse, it meant home and his father.
Toma’s birth mother Jinko-san, aged almost 60, lives near but separately from Toma and his father, and runs a modest fishmongers. Her right arm was severed from the wrist down during a bombing raid in WW2 and she sometimes uses a prosthetic arm, specially adapted to be useful in her work, including when she guts an unagi (eel) Toma captures in the muddy river.
She left his father, Madoka, a year after Toma was born, because of Madoka’s violence towards her, including, indeed especially, while having sex, aborting the 2nd baby with which she was pregnant and leaving the very young Toma in the care of his father.
Her reason for doing that - “You’re that man’s seed, aren’t you?” is the same issue that haunts Toma. He witnesses his father being similarly violent to the younger woman Kotoko-San he now lives with, and hears that this is true of the many other women he pursues, including a prostitute who Toma also sleeps with and hits during the act.
And when he finds himself succumbing to violence when with his girlfriend, Chigusa, he realised that something needs to change.
His fever had not chilled completely, and a heat still lingered in Toma's body. He splashed himself with cold water in the bath, but the unagi tangled in transparent fishing line would not vanish from his mind. He felt the filth seeping from the gashes in its head flowing into his body. He gripped his penis. He used his fingers, pretending he was shoving himself into the wound on the unagi's head. Suddenly he was hard, and now his penis was the unagi, and the unagi was swimming into its own wounds and flailing, and the crushed head of the unagi and Chigusa and Kotoko-san all appeared in frighteningly rapid succession one after the other then all blurred to-gether, and the blood rushing to fill him spread like a net trying to catch everything, including Toma himself, and Toma tried to break through his own net of blood, and when he thought he had broken it, he was again wrapped in blood, and when he pressed down on the rising rage with his fingers, he saw clearly Kotoko-san being strangled by his father and it was all over.
3.5 stars
Cannibals (2024) is translated from Japanese by Kalau Almony, from Tanaka Shinya’s Akutagawa Prize-winning novel 共喰い (2011) sold over 200,000 copies in Japan and was adapted into a movie in 2013 by Cannes Film Festival-winner Shinji Aoyama (similarly titled in Japanese but marketed in the UK as The Backwater (link to trailer).
The production of the novel, as with all of Honford Star’s book makes the physical object a work of art in its own right, here the cover designed by Jun Kawana.
The story itself is a brutal coming-of-age story, told in unsparing, if at times rather awkwardly translated prose (see https://x.com/jacqbetula/status/17577...)
It is narrated from the close third person perspective of Shinogaki Toma and opens:
IN JULY OF 1989, the sixty-third year of the Showa era, on the day he turned seventeen, Shinogaki Toma did not go home at the end of the day's lessons. Instead, he headed straight to Aida Chigusa's house. Chigusa was a year older than him and went to a different high school. They both, however, lived in the same area, the riverside, and their homes were less than a three-minute walk apart.
Toma got off the bus on the freeway and walked down a narrow road bordered by old homes and buildings filled with rented shops and offices until he reached the river, which he then walked along, following its current. The river was about ten meters across. It was low tide and the yellow earth of the riverbed was visible through the shallow water. Stones of all shapes and sizes; a broken bicycle that looked as though even if someone tried to ride it, it could do nothing but turn right for eternity; a black umbrella whose broken frame thrust out of the water like the mast of a ship; a tinplated bucket which, except for the bright crimson handle, was rusted into a shapeless heap; wooden fencing; plastic bags swollen with sand these and other pieces of trash filled the river. Schools of young mullet swam through the water. The mud of the river bankwas covered in birds' footprints that looked like swarms of giant spiders and pocked with piles of black slime in the spots where the birds had been digging for food with their beaks. Green algae clung to both the garbage in the river and the riverbank itself. The algae were evidence of the tide, proof that this was not fresh water. All of these things mingled with the rising sea, and what was left by the receding tide gave the river shape as they waited for the sea to come again.
Then came the smell. The riverside's sewage system had not yet been completed. Houses did have indoor plumbing and flush toilets; however, the sewage was carried directly to the river. It had been decided that homeowners would shoulder some part of the cost of connecting each house's sewage system to the main line, and construction was slated for next spring, so the intense stench of summer would also end this year.
The smell was awful, and, what was worse, it meant home and his father.
Toma’s birth mother Jinko-san, aged almost 60, lives near but separately from Toma and his father, and runs a modest fishmongers. Her right arm was severed from the wrist down during a bombing raid in WW2 and she sometimes uses a prosthetic arm, specially adapted to be useful in her work, including when she guts an unagi (eel) Toma captures in the muddy river.
She left his father, Madoka, a year after Toma was born, because of Madoka’s violence towards her, including, indeed especially, while having sex, aborting the 2nd baby with which she was pregnant and leaving the very young Toma in the care of his father.
Her reason for doing that - “You’re that man’s seed, aren’t you?” is the same issue that haunts Toma. He witnesses his father being similarly violent to the younger woman Kotoko-San he now lives with, and hears that this is true of the many other women he pursues, including a prostitute who Toma also sleeps with and hits during the act.
And when he finds himself succumbing to violence when with his girlfriend, Chigusa, he realised that something needs to change.
His fever had not chilled completely, and a heat still lingered in Toma's body. He splashed himself with cold water in the bath, but the unagi tangled in transparent fishing line would not vanish from his mind. He felt the filth seeping from the gashes in its head flowing into his body. He gripped his penis. He used his fingers, pretending he was shoving himself into the wound on the unagi's head. Suddenly he was hard, and now his penis was the unagi, and the unagi was swimming into its own wounds and flailing, and the crushed head of the unagi and Chigusa and Kotoko-san all appeared in frighteningly rapid succession one after the other then all blurred to-gether, and the blood rushing to fill him spread like a net trying to catch everything, including Toma himself, and Toma tried to break through his own net of blood, and when he thought he had broken it, he was again wrapped in blood, and when he pressed down on the rising rage with his fingers, he saw clearly Kotoko-san being strangled by his father and it was all over.
3.5 stars
May 16, 2024
That was a lot of crap. I was sold on the cover and title. Also, the book seemed short, so I decided to give it a shot.
To my surprise, this novel was replete with gratuitous violence as well as a nonsensical theory and philosophy that attempted to rationalize the characters' ridiculous behavior. It was disappointing and will remain with me as a terrible memory.
I am disgusted and cannot understand why this person received an honor. Also, where was the canabilism promised in the title, and why was it named that way?
This was definitely not the book for me. There were undoubtedly a lot of deep meanings and vital points to win the reward, but they all went over my head. For me, it is just a book about violence.
To my surprise, this novel was replete with gratuitous violence as well as a nonsensical theory and philosophy that attempted to rationalize the characters' ridiculous behavior. It was disappointing and will remain with me as a terrible memory.
I am disgusted and cannot understand why this person received an honor. Also, where was the canabilism promised in the title, and why was it named that way?
This was definitely not the book for me. There were undoubtedly a lot of deep meanings and vital points to win the reward, but they all went over my head. For me, it is just a book about violence.
June 23, 2024
I had to sleep on it after finishing this book that is less than 100 pages but had got me stirred up. Because, the more you think about this book, the more I felt that it really is deserving of that Akutagawa Award in 2011.
I feel that the word Cannibals in here might insinuate you to think the story is about the literal meaning itself - of the act of humans eating other human's flesh.
Instead, the word Cannibals itself is somewhat a metaphor and symbolism of how the living condition and environment can seemingly eat you up alive. That is how I've interpreted the story. The main plot revolves around the slums of Japan by the riverside, and how the lives of the people living there revolves with the tide and condition of the place. It showcases a side of Japan that was not highlighted often but exists. Its a state of condition from the lives of normal people having to go through conditions that are not ideal for them, in which it will eat them up alive.
And at the very core of this short novel is about abuse. The abuse inflicted on women in order for the men to feel superior, the heinous acts acted during intercourse for the power struggle that reflects more of the Japan society than they will care to admit. If you're reading it at face value, paired with its very straightforward writing, its almost degrading how the author writes about the characters in here, especially the women. But, as the plot progresses and intensifies, the backbone of the story had always been about the women and their strengths and how at the end, due to the heinous acts acted by men, women had been forced to clean up their mess.
One of the things I liked about the book is how everything in the story revolves around the riverside. Even with the straightforward writing, it leaves me almost suffocating towards the end, on how intense it was. It was as if I could see it happen before my very eyes. The symbolism that the river brings forward, making it carry the emotions and weight of both the characters and it had affected me as a reader.
This book is not one that you can pick up on a whim. Its vile and heinous but its also the depiction of a society that comes and goes. Its there but its never acknowledged. It will make you uncomfortable but its an eye opening read.
Thank you to Honford Star for this gorgeous copy!
4🌟 for this one~
I feel that the word Cannibals in here might insinuate you to think the story is about the literal meaning itself - of the act of humans eating other human's flesh.
Instead, the word Cannibals itself is somewhat a metaphor and symbolism of how the living condition and environment can seemingly eat you up alive. That is how I've interpreted the story. The main plot revolves around the slums of Japan by the riverside, and how the lives of the people living there revolves with the tide and condition of the place. It showcases a side of Japan that was not highlighted often but exists. Its a state of condition from the lives of normal people having to go through conditions that are not ideal for them, in which it will eat them up alive.
And at the very core of this short novel is about abuse. The abuse inflicted on women in order for the men to feel superior, the heinous acts acted during intercourse for the power struggle that reflects more of the Japan society than they will care to admit. If you're reading it at face value, paired with its very straightforward writing, its almost degrading how the author writes about the characters in here, especially the women. But, as the plot progresses and intensifies, the backbone of the story had always been about the women and their strengths and how at the end, due to the heinous acts acted by men, women had been forced to clean up their mess.
One of the things I liked about the book is how everything in the story revolves around the riverside. Even with the straightforward writing, it leaves me almost suffocating towards the end, on how intense it was. It was as if I could see it happen before my very eyes. The symbolism that the river brings forward, making it carry the emotions and weight of both the characters and it had affected me as a reader.
This book is not one that you can pick up on a whim. Its vile and heinous but its also the depiction of a society that comes and goes. Its there but its never acknowledged. It will make you uncomfortable but its an eye opening read.
Thank you to Honford Star for this gorgeous copy!
4🌟 for this one~
November 4, 2023
This story is about sexed-up father and son who cannot resist the urge to hit women. I'm disgusted and don't understand why this story got an award.
January 21, 2024
Widzę w tym coś więcej niż historię dwóch lokalnych turboruchaczy i dla odmiany powiem, że nie dziwi mnie nagroda Akutagawy za to, ale nie jestem pewna, ile osób będzie podobnej opinii i da za 88 strony prawie 14 funtów 😔
July 2, 2024
Super cover, super topic, super gute „schlechte/disturbing Atmosphäre“ aber trotzdem bad wegen der Umsetzung. Es hätte soooo gut sein können.
June 30, 2026
A bleak portrayal of the immense difficulty of breaking generational cycles of poverty and violence. Its vivid, almost claustrophobic sense of place won me over. The riverside feels like a character in its own right. Conventionally associated with change and movement, the river in Cannibals instead symbolizes a marker of death and stagnation. The recurring imagery of the heron, the sea slaters, the freshwater eels and the chained red dog reinforces the novel's overwhelming sense of entrapment as though mirroring Toma's growing conviction that there's no escaping the fate of becoming his father.
"Then came the smell. The riverside's sewage system had not yet been completed. Houses did have indoor plumbing and flush toilets; however, the sewage was carried directly to the river — The smell was awful, and, what was worse, it meant home and his father."
3.75/5
"Then came the smell. The riverside's sewage system had not yet been completed. Houses did have indoor plumbing and flush toilets; however, the sewage was carried directly to the river — The smell was awful, and, what was worse, it meant home and his father."
3.75/5
February 26, 2024
"Then came the smell. The riverside's sewage system had not yet been completed. Houses did have indoor plumbing and flush toilets; however, the sewage was carried directly to the river. It had been decided that homeowners would shoulder some part of the cost of connecting each house's sewage system to the main line, and construction was slated for next spring, so the intense stench of summer would also end this year.
The smell was awful, and, what was worse, it meant home and his father."
Set in circa 1989, 17-year-old Shinogaki Toma lives with his father and his father's lover (Kotoko-san). His father is sadistic, violent, and has a high sex drive. As Toma's father has a high tendency to abuse women, Toma's birth mother, Jinko-san, left his father long ago and lives nearby as a fishmonger. Jinko-san lost her right arm during WW2 and often uses a prosthetic arm, especially when gutting an unagi. When Toma starts to succumb to violence and becomes sexually active, Toma fears that he will follow his father's footsteps (especially when he starts to treat his girlfriend, Chigusa-san, violently). When Kotoko-san becomes pregnant and informs Toma that she is leaving Toma's father for a better life, the story comes to a turning point where Toma would have to face his fears once and for all.
Cannibals (translated from Japanese by Kalau Almony) is Tanaka Shinya's Akutagawa Prize-winning novel. It is branded as a brutal coming-of-age story where Shinya's depiction of desire, violence, sex, sadism, and toxic masculinity, are vivid and grotesque. Moral degradation and the fear of it is perhaps the overarching theme of this story and was portrayed through the perspective of a 17-year-old. Toma's despise towards his father (which was comparable to the stench and smell of the sewage system, as depicted in the opening of the novel), and his conflicted state of mind (when he discovered that he enjoys the sadistic approach towards sex, like his father), are quite decently executed. Shinya spent some time describing the characteristics of an unagi as well as the act of gutting an unagi, which to me, is a metaphor for Toma's conflicted perspective towards moral degeneration. Cannibals is unique on its own and Tanaka Shinya's stylistic prose supplements the melancholic tone and atmosphere of the novel. A 4/5 star read for me!
The smell was awful, and, what was worse, it meant home and his father."
Set in circa 1989, 17-year-old Shinogaki Toma lives with his father and his father's lover (Kotoko-san). His father is sadistic, violent, and has a high sex drive. As Toma's father has a high tendency to abuse women, Toma's birth mother, Jinko-san, left his father long ago and lives nearby as a fishmonger. Jinko-san lost her right arm during WW2 and often uses a prosthetic arm, especially when gutting an unagi. When Toma starts to succumb to violence and becomes sexually active, Toma fears that he will follow his father's footsteps (especially when he starts to treat his girlfriend, Chigusa-san, violently). When Kotoko-san becomes pregnant and informs Toma that she is leaving Toma's father for a better life, the story comes to a turning point where Toma would have to face his fears once and for all.
Cannibals (translated from Japanese by Kalau Almony) is Tanaka Shinya's Akutagawa Prize-winning novel. It is branded as a brutal coming-of-age story where Shinya's depiction of desire, violence, sex, sadism, and toxic masculinity, are vivid and grotesque. Moral degradation and the fear of it is perhaps the overarching theme of this story and was portrayed through the perspective of a 17-year-old. Toma's despise towards his father (which was comparable to the stench and smell of the sewage system, as depicted in the opening of the novel), and his conflicted state of mind (when he discovered that he enjoys the sadistic approach towards sex, like his father), are quite decently executed. Shinya spent some time describing the characteristics of an unagi as well as the act of gutting an unagi, which to me, is a metaphor for Toma's conflicted perspective towards moral degeneration. Cannibals is unique on its own and Tanaka Shinya's stylistic prose supplements the melancholic tone and atmosphere of the novel. A 4/5 star read for me!
May 2, 2024
3.5
February 6, 2025
Giải Akutagawa lần 146 năm 2012. Min dịch tiêu đề thành "Chén thịt đồng loại".
Cảnh báo sách nhiều chi tiết bạo lực tình dục. Tớ đã dịch cuối năm ngoái, gồm hai truyện ngắn và truyện đầu tiên là truyện đạt giải. Có phim do Suda Masaki đóng chính (nhưng cắt hết cảnh nhạy cảm trong truyện)
❝Hình ảnh cái đầu con lươn lại xuất hiện, lần này chồng lên hình ảnh bộ phận sinh dục màu đỏ nâu mà cậu từng thấy giữa trần nhà tầng một và lan can cầu thang. Máu con lươn đang chảy vào bụng Kotoko, sinh sôi bên trong cô. Cậu muốn moi hết đứa trẻ, thịt, máu và xương của Kotoko ra, rồi nhét bộ phận sinh dục của mình vào đó, lấp đầy cô. Cậu muốn chà sát lên cơ thể đang phồng lên theo hình dạng của chính mình.❞
Đoạn trên là phân cảnh đứa con riêng của chồng lại có suy nghĩ như vậy với mẹ kế trẻ, đang mang thai con của bố mình. Có thể nói rằng, câu chuyện về cậu chàng mới lớn Toma giữa nơi làng chài ven biển ngập trong cả bùn đất, căm hận và kinh tởm này vô cùng xứng đáng đạt giải, chỉ tội là văn không hay nên tớ chưa thích.
Một câu truyện bế tắc và bẩn thỉu bùn đất lẫn thói người. Nhưng tác giả viết không quá hay nên câu chuyện nó chưa được đỉnh cao. Dịch rất mệt, truyện thứ hai "Cá Kỷ Đệ Tam" thì như được viết ra cho sách dày thêm dễ bán chứ không đặc sắc gì.
Mọi người muốn đọc thì có thể nhắn tin qua IG min_toumeimin, mail toumeimin@gmail.com xin bản dịch hoặc cmt vào post này.
Có thể gọi là tóm tắt spoil hết sạch: Toma sống với một ông bố không vũ phu nhưng có thói bạo hành tình dục với người mẹ kế trẻ măng. Cậu có cô người yêu là Chigusa và luôn thề thốt rằng không bao giờ đánh cô hay ép cô làm tình. Mẹ ruột cậu thì mất một cánh tay từ bom đạn chiến tranh, lớn tuổi hơn bố cậu và sống riêng ở tiệm cá. Tới một ngày thì mẹ kế thông báo đã có thai, Toma bức bách mới đến ép bé người yêu làm tình, bé tát cho một phát xong chia tay. Xong cậu tìm đến bà điếm ở chung cư gần nhà để SM với bả, bả mới phán hai bố con cậu chả khác gì nhau. Toma sốc vl vì mình đâu có muốn như thế. Hè nên ở đền đang tổ chức lễ hội, nhưng mà ai ngờ lại mưa, Chigusa hẹn Toma nhưng cậu không tới. Xong Ông bố mới tới hiếp con bé luôn. Cay tức và sôi lòng hận thù, Toma muốn tự tay giết bố mình. Trong khi đó mẹ kế bỏ đi khiến ông bố hốt hoảng đi tìm. Lúc ông ta trở về thì mẹ ruột cậu quyết định bảo hai đứa Toma và Chigusa ở im đấy rồi chính tay giết ông ta.
❝Cậu nắm chặt bộ phận sinh dục. Như thể đang ấn nó vào vết rách của con lươn. Nó cứng lên ngay lập tức. Rồi cậu lại có cảm giác chính bộ phận sinh dục của mình là con lươn, con lươn đang cố lết vào vết thương của cậu, vùng vẫy giãy giụa, những hình ảnh của Chigusa, của Kotoko, của những vết máu hiện lên, trộn lẫn, quấn lấy nhau…❞
Cảnh báo sách nhiều chi tiết bạo lực tình dục. Tớ đã dịch cuối năm ngoái, gồm hai truyện ngắn và truyện đầu tiên là truyện đạt giải. Có phim do Suda Masaki đóng chính (nhưng cắt hết cảnh nhạy cảm trong truyện)
❝Hình ảnh cái đầu con lươn lại xuất hiện, lần này chồng lên hình ảnh bộ phận sinh dục màu đỏ nâu mà cậu từng thấy giữa trần nhà tầng một và lan can cầu thang. Máu con lươn đang chảy vào bụng Kotoko, sinh sôi bên trong cô. Cậu muốn moi hết đứa trẻ, thịt, máu và xương của Kotoko ra, rồi nhét bộ phận sinh dục của mình vào đó, lấp đầy cô. Cậu muốn chà sát lên cơ thể đang phồng lên theo hình dạng của chính mình.❞
Đoạn trên là phân cảnh đứa con riêng của chồng lại có suy nghĩ như vậy với mẹ kế trẻ, đang mang thai con của bố mình. Có thể nói rằng, câu chuyện về cậu chàng mới lớn Toma giữa nơi làng chài ven biển ngập trong cả bùn đất, căm hận và kinh tởm này vô cùng xứng đáng đạt giải, chỉ tội là văn không hay nên tớ chưa thích.
Một câu truyện bế tắc và bẩn thỉu bùn đất lẫn thói người. Nhưng tác giả viết không quá hay nên câu chuyện nó chưa được đỉnh cao. Dịch rất mệt, truyện thứ hai "Cá Kỷ Đệ Tam" thì như được viết ra cho sách dày thêm dễ bán chứ không đặc sắc gì.
Mọi người muốn đọc thì có thể nhắn tin qua IG min_toumeimin, mail toumeimin@gmail.com xin bản dịch hoặc cmt vào post này.
Có thể gọi là tóm tắt spoil hết sạch: Toma sống với một ông bố không vũ phu nhưng có thói bạo hành tình dục với người mẹ kế trẻ măng. Cậu có cô người yêu là Chigusa và luôn thề thốt rằng không bao giờ đánh cô hay ép cô làm tình. Mẹ ruột cậu thì mất một cánh tay từ bom đạn chiến tranh, lớn tuổi hơn bố cậu và sống riêng ở tiệm cá. Tới một ngày thì mẹ kế thông báo đã có thai, Toma bức bách mới đến ép bé người yêu làm tình, bé tát cho một phát xong chia tay. Xong cậu tìm đến bà điếm ở chung cư gần nhà để SM với bả, bả mới phán hai bố con cậu chả khác gì nhau. Toma sốc vl vì mình đâu có muốn như thế. Hè nên ở đền đang tổ chức lễ hội, nhưng mà ai ngờ lại mưa, Chigusa hẹn Toma nhưng cậu không tới. Xong Ông bố mới tới hiếp con bé luôn. Cay tức và sôi lòng hận thù, Toma muốn tự tay giết bố mình. Trong khi đó mẹ kế bỏ đi khiến ông bố hốt hoảng đi tìm. Lúc ông ta trở về thì mẹ ruột cậu quyết định bảo hai đứa Toma và Chigusa ở im đấy rồi chính tay giết ông ta.
❝Cậu nắm chặt bộ phận sinh dục. Như thể đang ấn nó vào vết rách của con lươn. Nó cứng lên ngay lập tức. Rồi cậu lại có cảm giác chính bộ phận sinh dục của mình là con lươn, con lươn đang cố lết vào vết thương của cậu, vùng vẫy giãy giụa, những hình ảnh của Chigusa, của Kotoko, của những vết máu hiện lên, trộn lẫn, quấn lấy nhau…❞
April 6, 2024
I am disappointed that this did not contain any cannibalism
April 26, 2024
This is a dark short novel that relates the coming of age of 17 year old Toma as he tries to avoid the fate of becoming like his abusive father. He lives in a hot and unpleasantly humid village by a polluted river with his father, who is a fisherman. His mother has recently fled further down river to escape her husband’s violence, and now makes a living gutting fish with the hook that replaces her hand, lost in a fire bombing.
It’s a dark premise indeed, only heightened by Toma struggling to deal with his emerging sexual and violent inclinations.
It’s a tale of family conflict, with too much going on to be dealt with in just 80 pages. Tanaka has the skill though to make what might seem unpleasant reading become a lot less demanding. Ultimately, the novel poses questions about the nature of good and evil, and the fine line that can often separate them. And of how that though the world outside may seem fraught with violence, it can be more of a threat from within.
It’s a dark premise indeed, only heightened by Toma struggling to deal with his emerging sexual and violent inclinations.
It’s a tale of family conflict, with too much going on to be dealt with in just 80 pages. Tanaka has the skill though to make what might seem unpleasant reading become a lot less demanding. Ultimately, the novel poses questions about the nature of good and evil, and the fine line that can often separate them. And of how that though the world outside may seem fraught with violence, it can be more of a threat from within.
October 1, 2024
this is one of those novellas you wait patiently for to end.
It came with no trigger warnings so here they are :
- referenced bestiality
- pedophelia
- rape
- domestic violence
and no the novel doesn’t go into depth about Toma’s state of mind nor does it explore/discuss domestic violence properly as a theme. It almost reads like it has no real purpose, only an idea. maybe there was an attempt, but the execution is not it.
this is not what I signed up for when I was looking for spooky szn reads 💀
It came with no trigger warnings so here they are :
- referenced bestiality
- pedophelia
- rape
- domestic violence
and no the novel doesn’t go into depth about Toma’s state of mind nor does it explore/discuss domestic violence properly as a theme. It almost reads like it has no real purpose, only an idea. maybe there was an attempt, but the execution is not it.
this is not what I signed up for when I was looking for spooky szn reads 💀
January 19, 2026
”The herons with their bent, overheated necks seemed as though they might evaporate into the sky at any second.”
July 10, 2024
dawg… what did i read
Read
October 15, 2024I think the best part of this is the surreal quality of its descriptions. Drives and emotions melding into the imagery of a river laden with trash, emotions projected onto animals, insects, unagi - eroticism and violence manifesting in the landscape. It reminds me a lot of Yoshihiro Tatsumi - the like margins of the city that missed out on all the post war economic boom redevelopment - a setting that is kinda beautiful but also v ugly.
Unfortunately, also like Yoshihiro Tatsumi, while this does try to explore the internal life of the child of a domestic abuser who himself teeters on the edge of sexual violence and whose thoughts frequently are interrupted by metaphorical or literal images of his father's sexual violence - which is all stuff I find interesting even if ick to read -- it does ultimately do a disservice to all the women characters who are the victims of the sexual violence. Jinko-san, the mother, is the most interesting in the way she escapes but still kinda lives by the riverside - alone and fishing - her relationship with her son is cool and her act of revenge with her prosthetic arm feels cathartic even if emotionally everything is cold by the end (which imo is done well). Kotoko-san is alsoo not the worst - she does manage to run away - she's soorta written as like dumb broad and some of the teenage boy descriptions of her are blegh but yea. Chigusa though annoyed mee - she goes from being this interesting counterpoint to Toma to becoming this like tragic rape-victim figure who must be avenged in a way that feels really ughly to her - I *do* like the way it ends between her and Toma and would be mad if they got together but yeah
Alsoo the sex worker lady who is emptily gazing into the river also kinda exemplifies some of the problems w this - she almost becomes a part of the setting and the images within it - which like COULD BE FINE - but if we see detailed descriptions of the protag boy having violent sex w her - sorta denying her any sense of character or self feels ick as welll.
I'm glad I read this thoo should read more Akutagawa prize winners (cuz they're short and at the very least would be written interestingly)
Unfortunately, also like Yoshihiro Tatsumi, while this does try to explore the internal life of the child of a domestic abuser who himself teeters on the edge of sexual violence and whose thoughts frequently are interrupted by metaphorical or literal images of his father's sexual violence - which is all stuff I find interesting even if ick to read -- it does ultimately do a disservice to all the women characters who are the victims of the sexual violence. Jinko-san, the mother, is the most interesting in the way she escapes but still kinda lives by the riverside - alone and fishing - her relationship with her son is cool and her act of revenge with her prosthetic arm feels cathartic even if emotionally everything is cold by the end (which imo is done well). Kotoko-san is alsoo not the worst - she does manage to run away - she's soorta written as like dumb broad and some of the teenage boy descriptions of her are blegh but yea. Chigusa though annoyed mee - she goes from being this interesting counterpoint to Toma to becoming this like tragic rape-victim figure who must be avenged in a way that feels really ughly to her - I *do* like the way it ends between her and Toma and would be mad if they got together but yeah
Alsoo the sex worker lady who is emptily gazing into the river also kinda exemplifies some of the problems w this - she almost becomes a part of the setting and the images within it - which like COULD BE FINE - but if we see detailed descriptions of the protag boy having violent sex w her - sorta denying her any sense of character or self feels ick as welll.
I'm glad I read this thoo should read more Akutagawa prize winners (cuz they're short and at the very least would be written interestingly)
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 6, 2024
tackling themes of the cycle of violence and abuse, we follow shinogaki toma as he struggles to not become like his father, who’s a serial abuser. he sees his father’s violence towards women and his greatest fear is that it is his fate to turn into someone as sadistic as him.
i think this novella is interesting with the way it tackles masculine aggression but it is also a really tough read (as some of the violent scenes may come off as gratuitous). i don’t think it merits the award it has received but this is still a short and compelling read.
i think this novella is interesting with the way it tackles masculine aggression but it is also a really tough read (as some of the violent scenes may come off as gratuitous). i don’t think it merits the award it has received but this is still a short and compelling read.
January 20, 2025
"The smell was awful, and, what was worse, it meant home and his father."
[3.5 stars] A visceral and harrowing tale of the cycle of serial violence, the book follows Toma, a teenager who lives with his abusive father Madoka, and his father's girlfriend, Kotoko. Toma's birth mother lives, Jink0, in a fish shop, having separated from the father a long time ago, and lost her hand during the war. The book starts with a description of Toma's neighborhood, surroundings, and the riverbank nearby: the setting is filthy, with the stench of the sewage inundating the bodies of water — This is not ideal for Toma or anyone, yet, like his home life, it's something he's grown accustomed to.
As we're introduced to Madoka, we learn how unabashedly sadistic he is, and it's the reason why Jinko left — the patriarchal society allows him to continue his wicked deeds, not because they actively condone them, but because it doesn't seem to be their business. Kotoko becomes the father's new outlet of rage, and Toma, who acknowledges his father's abuse and doesn't want to be his doppelganger, fights the urge to let out his toxic masculinity on his girlfriend, Chigusa. The turmoil and highs and lows of Toma's emotions are directly reflected in the surroundings: the diminishing water of the riverbank, the unappealing unagi that somehow converges with Toma's anger and sex drive, the skinny red dog that incessantly barks at everything, and the large striped cat that looks like it has eaten the fish shop.
What I appreciate about this book in particular, is the characterization of the women; they're not typically meek, however they're not a heroine either — they're women living in a sexist society, adapting but enacting their agency at the same time. Jinko's prosthetic hand, which got made at Madoka's request, initially seems helpful. However, it seems that this emotionally and physically weighs her down: it's better to be struggling on your own than to have an extra hand that dictates what kinds of struggles you have.
The content in relation to the title is unexpected and more so metaphorical; its interpretation is more so that certain selfish people consume others' soul with their own depravity, attempting to take the victims' essence and power. Toma does succumb to his dark thoughts, and it becomes a question of how much of his dad's personality is in his genes — or is all his behavior within his control every time? One might have an urge due to one's upbringing, but as his surroundings, which he thinks will "remain unchanged," he will have to make a choice to trudge through the mud and lead his life anew. This novella asks the hard questions through details that are even harder to stomach. I understand that this is not everyone and that some might think this is too graphic, but I think the themes and plot are well executed. I think this could have been a bit longer and some of the character development could have been stronger, but its short and foul stench have been unquestionably made.
[3.5 stars] A visceral and harrowing tale of the cycle of serial violence, the book follows Toma, a teenager who lives with his abusive father Madoka, and his father's girlfriend, Kotoko. Toma's birth mother lives, Jink0, in a fish shop, having separated from the father a long time ago, and lost her hand during the war. The book starts with a description of Toma's neighborhood, surroundings, and the riverbank nearby: the setting is filthy, with the stench of the sewage inundating the bodies of water — This is not ideal for Toma or anyone, yet, like his home life, it's something he's grown accustomed to.
As we're introduced to Madoka, we learn how unabashedly sadistic he is, and it's the reason why Jinko left — the patriarchal society allows him to continue his wicked deeds, not because they actively condone them, but because it doesn't seem to be their business. Kotoko becomes the father's new outlet of rage, and Toma, who acknowledges his father's abuse and doesn't want to be his doppelganger, fights the urge to let out his toxic masculinity on his girlfriend, Chigusa. The turmoil and highs and lows of Toma's emotions are directly reflected in the surroundings: the diminishing water of the riverbank, the unappealing unagi that somehow converges with Toma's anger and sex drive, the skinny red dog that incessantly barks at everything, and the large striped cat that looks like it has eaten the fish shop.
What I appreciate about this book in particular, is the characterization of the women; they're not typically meek, however they're not a heroine either — they're women living in a sexist society, adapting but enacting their agency at the same time. Jinko's prosthetic hand, which got made at Madoka's request, initially seems helpful. However, it seems that this emotionally and physically weighs her down: it's better to be struggling on your own than to have an extra hand that dictates what kinds of struggles you have.
The content in relation to the title is unexpected and more so metaphorical; its interpretation is more so that certain selfish people consume others' soul with their own depravity, attempting to take the victims' essence and power. Toma does succumb to his dark thoughts, and it becomes a question of how much of his dad's personality is in his genes — or is all his behavior within his control every time? One might have an urge due to one's upbringing, but as his surroundings, which he thinks will "remain unchanged," he will have to make a choice to trudge through the mud and lead his life anew. This novella asks the hard questions through details that are even harder to stomach. I understand that this is not everyone and that some might think this is too graphic, but I think the themes and plot are well executed. I think this could have been a bit longer and some of the character development could have been stronger, but its short and foul stench have been unquestionably made.
January 14, 2025
2.5*
This novella is a bleak exploration of sex, poverty, family and toxic masculinity. It makes for deeply uncomfortable reading and I totally understand why some reviewers reject it.
TW for sexual violence.
I did not enjoy this book. However, I appreciate what I hope was Tanaka's expose of a young man, on the cusp of adulthood, battling against what he felt was his destiny - to become an abusive man just like his father.
His mother, who abandoned him, has told him since childhood that he is the diseased fruit of his father and even boasts of aborting their sibling because "that man should only have one seed". The damage this attitude has is obvious - he feels unable to do anything but repeat the sins of his father and uses violence against his girlfriend. He is the product of a violent father and a mother who rejected him.
I found the ending to be satisfying. It has a positive conclusion, although there no guarantee that life will get better for Toma. He must fight every day to be the better man.
While I felt relief in the concluding act, that doesn't change the fact this book made me unhappy while reading it. Understanding it and liking it are two different things, hence my low rating.
This novella is a bleak exploration of sex, poverty, family and toxic masculinity. It makes for deeply uncomfortable reading and I totally understand why some reviewers reject it.
TW for sexual violence.
I did not enjoy this book. However, I appreciate what I hope was Tanaka's expose of a young man, on the cusp of adulthood, battling against what he felt was his destiny - to become an abusive man just like his father.
His mother, who abandoned him, has told him since childhood that he is the diseased fruit of his father and even boasts of aborting their sibling because "that man should only have one seed". The damage this attitude has is obvious - he feels unable to do anything but repeat the sins of his father and uses violence against his girlfriend. He is the product of a violent father and a mother who rejected him.
I found the ending to be satisfying. It has a positive conclusion, although there no guarantee that life will get better for Toma. He must fight every day to be the better man.
While I felt relief in the concluding act, that doesn't change the fact this book made me unhappy while reading it. Understanding it and liking it are two different things, hence my low rating.
June 7, 2024
Bleak & unsentimental coming-of-age novella about a teenage boy in an impoverished riverside community that feels fated to become like his abusive father. Really enjoyed this one- loved the vivid sense of place. Tanaka does a great job of capturing the destitute riverside that seems forgotten by, and detached from, the rest of the world. Filtered through the boy's life experiences, the riverside is rendered as a place that never changes, illustrated by a series of recurring images; the willows, the heron, the sea slaters, the snail on the veranda, the freshwater eels, the chained red dog, the shrine, the gang of neighborhood boys, the prostitute on the corner, and of course the river itself. Tanaka has a real talent for metaphor. Kinda reminded me of The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison, in that it's a short coming-of-age novel with a dark subject matter, with very good writing. Will def check out Tanaka's other stuff!
June 20, 2025
I can see why someone might want to give this book a low rating. When I was only halfway through, I felt so incredibly disgusted I thought I wouldn’t even bother rating it. But towards the end, something shifted.
I’m not exactly sure what that change was, or why it made me rate this book the way I did. But I have this awful feeling in my stomach—as if I’ve encountered this book somewhere before. Of course I have, technically—it’s been lying in my downloads for over a year now. But that’s not what I mean.
It feels like this sensation doesn’t belong to this life. Almost like a leftover from a past one. It’s strange to admit, but despite everything, this book brought me a kind of nostalgia I’ve never felt before—something spiraling in my stomach, forming a clump I can’t describe.
I’m not exactly sure what that change was, or why it made me rate this book the way I did. But I have this awful feeling in my stomach—as if I’ve encountered this book somewhere before. Of course I have, technically—it’s been lying in my downloads for over a year now. But that’s not what I mean.
It feels like this sensation doesn’t belong to this life. Almost like a leftover from a past one. It’s strange to admit, but despite everything, this book brought me a kind of nostalgia I’ve never felt before—something spiraling in my stomach, forming a clump I can’t describe.
November 11, 2025
“art should disturb the comfortable but it should never ever disturb me in particular.” seems to be a prevailing theme in these reviews.
a short but impactful novella that tells the story of a 17 year old boy who is desperately fighting against becoming a mirror of his father and perpetuating the cycle of abuse that he was born into. yes, the topics and the way they are discussed is uncomfortable but that is kind of the point.
for me toma and jinko-san were both very interesting characters and whilst the others fall into pretty typical archetypes that’s to be expected of something this length, the setting is also very vivid.
also people expecting literal cannibalism because of the title are perhaps new to the concept of metaphor?
a short but impactful novella that tells the story of a 17 year old boy who is desperately fighting against becoming a mirror of his father and perpetuating the cycle of abuse that he was born into. yes, the topics and the way they are discussed is uncomfortable but that is kind of the point.
for me toma and jinko-san were both very interesting characters and whilst the others fall into pretty typical archetypes that’s to be expected of something this length, the setting is also very vivid.
also people expecting literal cannibalism because of the title are perhaps new to the concept of metaphor?
September 18, 2026
Disgusting. It just describes sexual abuse in extreme detail, glamorises violence and justifies a lack of effort to be a good human???
Should not have won so many awards. I am actually going to get rid of my copy as I fear this sort of normalisation of extreme misogyny is a dangerous thing to let back into the world.
Should not have won so many awards. I am actually going to get rid of my copy as I fear this sort of normalisation of extreme misogyny is a dangerous thing to let back into the world.
April 1, 2024
this book left me aching. it’s tragic from start to end
February 2, 2025
Don’t read this book
December 3, 2025
When I first learned what cannibalism was, I reacted the same way most people probably do: with disgust, horror, the immediate instinct that it’s something profoundly wrong. Eating the flesh of your own kind sits at the extreme end of the moral spectrum, and Western societies have long used this disgust as a way to distance themselves from places where the practice still exists—New Guinea, Congo—framing themselves as more “civilized,” more advanced, more human.
But growing up complicates a lot of clean ideas like that. The older I got, the more I saw how people get mistreated in ways that aren’t physical at all—how oppression, humiliation, and emotional brutality are normalized, sometimes even encouraged by the very people in power, and are even often encouraged in Western society (how ironic!). It made me question why literal cannibalism is treated as the ultimate taboo when so many people grind each other down every day in ways that are just as violent, just less visible. If “normal,” respectable citizens can eat away at their neighbor’s dignity or spirit without anyone blinking an eye, then why is the physical act considered so much more shocking?
Shinya Tanaka’s Cannibals operates directly in that tension. The novel isn’t really about people eating flesh. The “consumption” here is spiritual—an inherited, generational devouring of autonomy and self-worth. Violence isn’t a singular blow; it’s something absorbed over time, passed down almost like a family recipe. The father wounds the mother; the child watches; the child becomes the next link in the chain. If cannibalism is the only mode of relationship you grow up witnessing, what else can you realistically imagine becoming?
The story opens by laying out this psychological inheritance clearly. The fear at the heart of the book isn’t the fear of someone eating another person—it’s the fear of becoming the person who does the devouring. Madoka Shinogaki, the father, isn’t chewing on anyone’s flesh, but he consumes the women in his life all the same. He strips Jinko, his estranged wife, of dignity through cheating and neglect. He chips away at Kotoko, his live-in girlfriend, through casual violence, belittling jokes, and the kind of everyday disrespect that eventually erodes a person’s sense of self. None of this is framed as a dramatic revelation; it’s simply how he operates. This is the environment his son, Toma, is marinating in.
And Toma knows it. One of the things Tanaka portrays so sharply is how self-aware Toma is about the danger he’s in—not physical danger from his father, but the danger of internalizing him. He watches Madoka brag about wanting a younger woman right in front of Kotoko. He watches his mother shrink under his father’s words. And he draws a mental line: I don’t want to be like him. He tries to speak politely to the women around him. He tries to move gently. Even in his relationship with Aida Chigusa, he’s constantly monitoring himself—terrified that enjoying sex at all might mean he’s already inherited his father’s mindset. His fear is obsessive: What if I’ve already become the thing I hate?
The river becomes the perfect symbol for this dread. Madoka gives it the crude nickname “River Slit,” which Toma hates—it reduces something natural into something vulgar, something meant to be conquered or mocked, and that tells you everything about the father’s attitude toward the world. Toma’s own understanding of the river is different. To him, it’s a swallowing presence. The trash caught in its bed—the broken bike that can only turn right forever, the swollen bags, the rust-eaten metal—feels like a prophecy. When Toma says, “No matter how hard we try, in the end it all gets swallowed up by the river,” he’s not just being dramatic. He’s articulating the fear that where you grow up, the air you breathe, the rules you absorb without noticing—they all shape you more deeply than any conscious decision you make. Even if he rejects his father outright, the river suggests rejection might not be enough.
The real sting of the story’s early chapters is in the irony Tanaka builds: Toma is so scared of becoming his father in the most obvious way (the violence, the sexual aggression) that he doesn’t realize how the inheritance has already seeped and bled into him in quieter ways. His interactions with Chigusa, for example, are already marked by a disconnect. He’s so consumed by the question Am I like my dad? that he can’t fully hear her when she tells him she’s hurting, or that sex feels painful for her. It’s not intentional cruelty, but it is a kind of consumption—his fear takes up so much space that it leaves no room for her experience. And that’s the cycle: not the hitting, not the shouting, but the inability to see the other person as fully separate from your own spiraling thoughts.
Eventually, Toma is pushed into confronting the reality he’s been trying so hard to outrun. Watching his father’s violence becomes routine. The day he catches Madoka and Kotoko in their room, the narration makes it clear: this isn’t the first time. The way the scene is described—almost observational, almost numb—shows how deeply this has been normalized for him. His father’s actions become a blueprint. The slapping, the choking, the way personal boundaries are treated as meaningless—it all prints itself onto Toma’s understanding of intimacy. Not because he agrees with it, but because repetition has a way of writing itself into the bones.
And the worst part is how unconsciously this gets absorbed. Jinko later tells him he has “the same eyes” as his father. Not the same habits. Not the same actions. The same look—that condescending, dismissive expression that signals someone has stopped seeing you as a person. For Toma, this is the true moment of horror. Violence doesn’t start with a punch; it starts with a way of looking. A way of valuing. A way of perceiving another human being. And if even that has already slipped into him, then what does resistance really mean?
All of this sits inside a larger environment that reinforces the same cycle. The town itself feels deadened, stuck. The river isn’t flowing; it’s stagnant. The people aren’t growing; they’re waiting—for some moment that will magically change things without requiring them to act. Jinko waits for “the time that would never come back,” some earlier version of herself. The woman in the apartment downstairs waits for a different life to arrive, like a package. The men kill time with baseball games, treating their own lives like something happening to someone else on TV. The whole town operates on this slow, rotting sense of inertia. And Toma, who sees all of this clearly, still feels pinned by it.
The snail appears as the perfect metaphor for that stagnation. It moves, technically, but it never really gets anywhere. Toma’s fixation on it—watching it inch along, losing track of whether hours or days have passed—mirrors his sense that time in this town doesn’t move forward. It only loops. The snail’s shell spirals in one direction, just like the bike stuck turning right, just like the paths generations take when nothing interferes. Even the snail’s body—soft but probably tough to bite into—echoes the mixture of vulnerability and hardness in the people around him. Everyone here survives, but no one changes.
Taken together, these early elements of the novel build a world where the cycle of “cannibalism”—of consuming another person’s will, perspective, or humanity—feels almost inevitable. Toma sees the trap, and that might be the saddest part. He has the awareness his father never did. But awareness alone doesn’t grant him the power to escape. In Cannibals, the danger isn’t that you’ll be eaten. It’s that you’ll learn to eat without noticing.
And with nowhere else to turn, all of this pushes Toma further into becoming his father. But instead of resigning himself to it calmly, it tears him apart from the inside. He’s fighting something inhuman inside him—this inherited violence wired into him—and at the same time, he absolutely hates himself for the ways he’s already started slipping. He’s trying so hard to find the “least damaging” thing to do in a situation where every option feels hopeless. The tragedy is that he can’t see a way forward that isn’t shaped by what his father has already done to him.
This is where the story shifts from fear into enactment. All the things Toma dreads about himself start showing up in the smallest, most mundane details. Kotoko notices first: the way he holds his chopsticks, the way his mouth moves when he eats—these tiny echoes of Madoka that Toma never consciously meant to imitate. Even the things he does differently, like refusing to mix soup with rice, are choices defined in response to his father. He’s forming his identity around negation, not independence.
Then comes the gaze—Jinko’s quiet but devastating observation: “You’ve got his eyes now.” This isn’t about looks; it’s about perspective. That flattening, condescending stare his father uses on women is now living inside Toma without him realizing it. When Jinko says, “You wound up being both of ours,” it hits like a confession and a curse. She’s admitting he inherited her vulnerability and Madoka’s cruelty, wrapped into one body.
His worst fears are confirmed when his behavior toward Chigusa crosses the line from anxious to abusive. The way he approaches her—trying to undress her before even touching her gently—shows that he’s reenacting the script he witnessed on the stairs. His words slide into the same crude register as his father’s. When he snaps, “What, you wanna fuck the condom?” it’s not just disrespect; it’s Madoka’s voice slipping out through Toma’s mouth. And the moment his hands go to her throat, mirroring his father choking Kotoko, the transformation is complete. He’s become the mold he’s been trying to escape.
His decision to sleep with the woman in the corner apartment is another attempt to inhabit his father’s role. It’s a confused, symbolic act—like if he takes what Madoka had, he’ll gain some distorted form of power or maybe understand the monster better. But the woman’s calm comparison—“You weren’t as wild as he is”—doesn’t comfort him. It just underlines that the resemblance is clear enough to name.
What makes this descent so painful is how aware he is of it. It’s not happening behind his back. Toma recognizes his own voice sounding like Madoka’s and recoils from himself. He keeps insisting, “I’m my dad’s son,” not with pride, but with the despair of someone who thinks genetics is destiny. He wants to hit his father—wants that cathartic moment—but all he does is sit and watch storms build over the town, praying the rain won’t fall, as if weather could somehow solve the mess he’s trapped in.
At this point in the story, he’s not just a victim or a bystander anymore. He’s crossed into being a perpetrator. He consumes Chigusa’s trust, he consumes the nameless woman as a stand-in for inheriting Madoka’s role, and he’s consumed by a hatred of himself so intense it feels like a possession. The snail keeps crawling along its pointless path, and Toma realizes he’s doing the same—moving forward in a direction he never chose, repeating a cycle he never asked for, but can’t break from.
If the snail represents Toma’s relationship with time, then the unagi—the eel—is the symbol Tanaka uses to express the corruption inside Toma’s body and desire. Where the snail is slow, existential despair, the eel is violent, immediate, and erotic. It’s the turning point where the violence Toma has watched for years becomes physically wired into him.
Catching the unagi isn’t just fishing. It’s practically a rite of passage—a moment where his father’s worldview becomes embodied in him. Even before he sleeps with Chigusa, he’s already thinking about the eel. His arousal is tangled up with the image of capturing it. What excites him isn’t the catch itself but the sight of its “split, half-collapsed head”---the moment of injury becomes sexualized. The eel’s gouged face, the nail driven through it—these brutal details fuse with the shape of his erection in his mind. Violence, sex, and power collapse into one.
The bath scene is the moment everything snaps. Toma can no longer tell the difference between the women in his life and the eel. He masturbates while imagining himself entering the wound in the eel’s head—a grotesque reversal where penetration equals destruction. The people he thinks about—Chigusa, Kotoko, even the eel—merge into one blurred image. In his imagination, they’re all caught in what he calls a “net of blood,” a system of violence that traps everyone tied to him. His climax comes only when he recalls the exact moment his father strangled Kotoko. The fact that this memory triggers release shows how deeply sexualized violence has become for him. It’s no longer symbolic. It’s literal, bodily.
When Kotoko reveals she’s pregnant, Toma’s reaction is horrifying but completely consistent with where his mind has gone. He imagines the eel’s ruined head sliding into Kotoko’s womb. The child stops being a child in his mind, and becomes the eel—this extension of violent male desire that will “scrape out” the existing baby and devour her from the inside. To him, creation becomes another act of violation. Birth becomes another form of cannibalism.
Toward the end of the novel, the giant wounded eel appears one last time. Its reappearance isn’t random—it’s a warning. Even injured, “it looked new,” which says everything about the cycle repeating itself. Violence doesn’t die; it regenerates. The eel vanishing into the swirling water is a perfect mirror of what’s coming. Toma’s desire, now completely warped, won’t end in satisfaction or power. It’s going to collapse into tragedy—consume itself the same way the eel disappears into the whirlpool. It’s the final confirmation that what’s inside him isn’t building toward anything. It’s dissolving.
Altogether, the unagi arc traces Toma’s descent from fearful awareness into full psychosexual corruption. The eel changes form throughout the story: it starts as something external that triggers him, becomes part of his fantasies, mutates into his idea of conception, and finally transforms into a symbol of the destruction waiting at the end of his path. It’s the raw, instinctual part of him—violent, slippery, hungry—that has been awakened and cannot be put back.
The scene at the shrine grounds is really the point where everything Tanaka has been building up—violence that gets passed down, the idea of “eating” someone’s spirit, and the fallout of both—finally erupts in the worst possible way.
Madoka’s assault on Chigusa is basically the physical version of the twisted worldview he’s lived by for years, the same worldview Toma grew up absorbing. His line—“When you can’t hold it back anymore, anyone will do. Any slit will do.”—is horrifying not just because of what he’s doing, but because of how casually he strips Chigusa of humanity. In that moment, he’s not just harming her; he’s treating her like an object he can consume. That’s the novel’s “cannibalism” idea made brutally literal.
Toma’s reaction is one of the most heartbreaking parts. When he says “I did this,” he’s not confused or blaming himself irrationally. He understands that, in some way, he’s part of the chain that led here. He sees himself repeating his father’s gaze, his father’s impulses, his father’s violence—especially since he himself choked Chigusa earlier. He thinks he helped create the conditions for this to happen.
His guilt also comes from the fact that he wasn’t there. Chigusa was waiting for him. He failed her, and he knows it. When he finally takes her hand—cold, stiff, but steady—it’s a small but powerful moment. She doesn’t forgive him, but she gives him something even harder: a recognition that he is not Madoka. She separates the crimes of the father from the regrets of the son. Her calm is shocking, almost surreal, especially beside Toma falling apart.
And then there’s Jinko-san.
When she learns what happened, she steps in with a kind of strength that feels ancient and terrifying. Her killing Madoka isn’t framed as revenge, but as stopping something that should’ve been stopped a long time ago. She uses her prosthetic hand—the same tool she used for work, the one connected to eel-gutting and river-life—to stab the source of all the rot. It’s such a perfect, grim image: she destroys the man who made the prosthetic for her with the prosthetic itself.
Her line afterward—“You’re all safe now.”—isn’t about triumph. It’s about protection. She cuts the head off the generational poison to save Toma, Chigusa, Kotoko, and even the unborn baby. The rain washing the blood off her is one of the novel’s most symbolic moments: a kind of cleansing that’s more about duty than redemption.
The river, which used to represent the stuck, filthy fate of the family, becomes the thing that carries Madoka’s body away. It doesn’t purify him—it just gets rid of him. The fact that his corpse is tangled in trash says everything about the story’s worldview.
In the final scene, the flood doesn’t bring cleansing. It just rearranges the rot. The shop and home fill with new mud, new trash, new reminders that the riverside never really changes. The giant unagi, with all its symbolism, is gone—but only because everything got washed out equally.
Life continues, but not in a way that suggests renewal—more like survival.
Toma and Chigusa’s relationship is changed forever. Desire is replaced by careful, almost wordless companionship. Her injuries make her cheek stiff; his hand hesitates because he knows too well how touch can harm.
The cat walking through the shop is “just walking now”—a sign that Toma isn’t projecting symbolism onto everything anymore. He sees things as they are: filthy, broken, but real.
Toma deciding to take over the fish shop is the biggest shift in his character. Before, the shop symbolized doom—becoming Madoka, inheriting the same life. But after everything Jinko did, running the shop became something else entirely. It becomes a responsibility. Penance. A way to honor his mother’s fierce practicality. He stays not because he’s trapped, but because he chooses to. He understands that escape isn’t the same as healing.
The ending doesn’t offer catharsis. Just a grim, honest sense of continuity. The “Cannibal” is gone. The Avenger is behind bars. And the Heir is left to hold everything together in the mud. It’s not a happy ending. But it’s a human one.
But growing up complicates a lot of clean ideas like that. The older I got, the more I saw how people get mistreated in ways that aren’t physical at all—how oppression, humiliation, and emotional brutality are normalized, sometimes even encouraged by the very people in power, and are even often encouraged in Western society (how ironic!). It made me question why literal cannibalism is treated as the ultimate taboo when so many people grind each other down every day in ways that are just as violent, just less visible. If “normal,” respectable citizens can eat away at their neighbor’s dignity or spirit without anyone blinking an eye, then why is the physical act considered so much more shocking?
Shinya Tanaka’s Cannibals operates directly in that tension. The novel isn’t really about people eating flesh. The “consumption” here is spiritual—an inherited, generational devouring of autonomy and self-worth. Violence isn’t a singular blow; it’s something absorbed over time, passed down almost like a family recipe. The father wounds the mother; the child watches; the child becomes the next link in the chain. If cannibalism is the only mode of relationship you grow up witnessing, what else can you realistically imagine becoming?
The story opens by laying out this psychological inheritance clearly. The fear at the heart of the book isn’t the fear of someone eating another person—it’s the fear of becoming the person who does the devouring. Madoka Shinogaki, the father, isn’t chewing on anyone’s flesh, but he consumes the women in his life all the same. He strips Jinko, his estranged wife, of dignity through cheating and neglect. He chips away at Kotoko, his live-in girlfriend, through casual violence, belittling jokes, and the kind of everyday disrespect that eventually erodes a person’s sense of self. None of this is framed as a dramatic revelation; it’s simply how he operates. This is the environment his son, Toma, is marinating in.
And Toma knows it. One of the things Tanaka portrays so sharply is how self-aware Toma is about the danger he’s in—not physical danger from his father, but the danger of internalizing him. He watches Madoka brag about wanting a younger woman right in front of Kotoko. He watches his mother shrink under his father’s words. And he draws a mental line: I don’t want to be like him. He tries to speak politely to the women around him. He tries to move gently. Even in his relationship with Aida Chigusa, he’s constantly monitoring himself—terrified that enjoying sex at all might mean he’s already inherited his father’s mindset. His fear is obsessive: What if I’ve already become the thing I hate?
The river becomes the perfect symbol for this dread. Madoka gives it the crude nickname “River Slit,” which Toma hates—it reduces something natural into something vulgar, something meant to be conquered or mocked, and that tells you everything about the father’s attitude toward the world. Toma’s own understanding of the river is different. To him, it’s a swallowing presence. The trash caught in its bed—the broken bike that can only turn right forever, the swollen bags, the rust-eaten metal—feels like a prophecy. When Toma says, “No matter how hard we try, in the end it all gets swallowed up by the river,” he’s not just being dramatic. He’s articulating the fear that where you grow up, the air you breathe, the rules you absorb without noticing—they all shape you more deeply than any conscious decision you make. Even if he rejects his father outright, the river suggests rejection might not be enough.
The real sting of the story’s early chapters is in the irony Tanaka builds: Toma is so scared of becoming his father in the most obvious way (the violence, the sexual aggression) that he doesn’t realize how the inheritance has already seeped and bled into him in quieter ways. His interactions with Chigusa, for example, are already marked by a disconnect. He’s so consumed by the question Am I like my dad? that he can’t fully hear her when she tells him she’s hurting, or that sex feels painful for her. It’s not intentional cruelty, but it is a kind of consumption—his fear takes up so much space that it leaves no room for her experience. And that’s the cycle: not the hitting, not the shouting, but the inability to see the other person as fully separate from your own spiraling thoughts.
Eventually, Toma is pushed into confronting the reality he’s been trying so hard to outrun. Watching his father’s violence becomes routine. The day he catches Madoka and Kotoko in their room, the narration makes it clear: this isn’t the first time. The way the scene is described—almost observational, almost numb—shows how deeply this has been normalized for him. His father’s actions become a blueprint. The slapping, the choking, the way personal boundaries are treated as meaningless—it all prints itself onto Toma’s understanding of intimacy. Not because he agrees with it, but because repetition has a way of writing itself into the bones.
And the worst part is how unconsciously this gets absorbed. Jinko later tells him he has “the same eyes” as his father. Not the same habits. Not the same actions. The same look—that condescending, dismissive expression that signals someone has stopped seeing you as a person. For Toma, this is the true moment of horror. Violence doesn’t start with a punch; it starts with a way of looking. A way of valuing. A way of perceiving another human being. And if even that has already slipped into him, then what does resistance really mean?
All of this sits inside a larger environment that reinforces the same cycle. The town itself feels deadened, stuck. The river isn’t flowing; it’s stagnant. The people aren’t growing; they’re waiting—for some moment that will magically change things without requiring them to act. Jinko waits for “the time that would never come back,” some earlier version of herself. The woman in the apartment downstairs waits for a different life to arrive, like a package. The men kill time with baseball games, treating their own lives like something happening to someone else on TV. The whole town operates on this slow, rotting sense of inertia. And Toma, who sees all of this clearly, still feels pinned by it.
The snail appears as the perfect metaphor for that stagnation. It moves, technically, but it never really gets anywhere. Toma’s fixation on it—watching it inch along, losing track of whether hours or days have passed—mirrors his sense that time in this town doesn’t move forward. It only loops. The snail’s shell spirals in one direction, just like the bike stuck turning right, just like the paths generations take when nothing interferes. Even the snail’s body—soft but probably tough to bite into—echoes the mixture of vulnerability and hardness in the people around him. Everyone here survives, but no one changes.
Taken together, these early elements of the novel build a world where the cycle of “cannibalism”—of consuming another person’s will, perspective, or humanity—feels almost inevitable. Toma sees the trap, and that might be the saddest part. He has the awareness his father never did. But awareness alone doesn’t grant him the power to escape. In Cannibals, the danger isn’t that you’ll be eaten. It’s that you’ll learn to eat without noticing.
And with nowhere else to turn, all of this pushes Toma further into becoming his father. But instead of resigning himself to it calmly, it tears him apart from the inside. He’s fighting something inhuman inside him—this inherited violence wired into him—and at the same time, he absolutely hates himself for the ways he’s already started slipping. He’s trying so hard to find the “least damaging” thing to do in a situation where every option feels hopeless. The tragedy is that he can’t see a way forward that isn’t shaped by what his father has already done to him.
This is where the story shifts from fear into enactment. All the things Toma dreads about himself start showing up in the smallest, most mundane details. Kotoko notices first: the way he holds his chopsticks, the way his mouth moves when he eats—these tiny echoes of Madoka that Toma never consciously meant to imitate. Even the things he does differently, like refusing to mix soup with rice, are choices defined in response to his father. He’s forming his identity around negation, not independence.
Then comes the gaze—Jinko’s quiet but devastating observation: “You’ve got his eyes now.” This isn’t about looks; it’s about perspective. That flattening, condescending stare his father uses on women is now living inside Toma without him realizing it. When Jinko says, “You wound up being both of ours,” it hits like a confession and a curse. She’s admitting he inherited her vulnerability and Madoka’s cruelty, wrapped into one body.
His worst fears are confirmed when his behavior toward Chigusa crosses the line from anxious to abusive. The way he approaches her—trying to undress her before even touching her gently—shows that he’s reenacting the script he witnessed on the stairs. His words slide into the same crude register as his father’s. When he snaps, “What, you wanna fuck the condom?” it’s not just disrespect; it’s Madoka’s voice slipping out through Toma’s mouth. And the moment his hands go to her throat, mirroring his father choking Kotoko, the transformation is complete. He’s become the mold he’s been trying to escape.
His decision to sleep with the woman in the corner apartment is another attempt to inhabit his father’s role. It’s a confused, symbolic act—like if he takes what Madoka had, he’ll gain some distorted form of power or maybe understand the monster better. But the woman’s calm comparison—“You weren’t as wild as he is”—doesn’t comfort him. It just underlines that the resemblance is clear enough to name.
What makes this descent so painful is how aware he is of it. It’s not happening behind his back. Toma recognizes his own voice sounding like Madoka’s and recoils from himself. He keeps insisting, “I’m my dad’s son,” not with pride, but with the despair of someone who thinks genetics is destiny. He wants to hit his father—wants that cathartic moment—but all he does is sit and watch storms build over the town, praying the rain won’t fall, as if weather could somehow solve the mess he’s trapped in.
At this point in the story, he’s not just a victim or a bystander anymore. He’s crossed into being a perpetrator. He consumes Chigusa’s trust, he consumes the nameless woman as a stand-in for inheriting Madoka’s role, and he’s consumed by a hatred of himself so intense it feels like a possession. The snail keeps crawling along its pointless path, and Toma realizes he’s doing the same—moving forward in a direction he never chose, repeating a cycle he never asked for, but can’t break from.
If the snail represents Toma’s relationship with time, then the unagi—the eel—is the symbol Tanaka uses to express the corruption inside Toma’s body and desire. Where the snail is slow, existential despair, the eel is violent, immediate, and erotic. It’s the turning point where the violence Toma has watched for years becomes physically wired into him.
Catching the unagi isn’t just fishing. It’s practically a rite of passage—a moment where his father’s worldview becomes embodied in him. Even before he sleeps with Chigusa, he’s already thinking about the eel. His arousal is tangled up with the image of capturing it. What excites him isn’t the catch itself but the sight of its “split, half-collapsed head”---the moment of injury becomes sexualized. The eel’s gouged face, the nail driven through it—these brutal details fuse with the shape of his erection in his mind. Violence, sex, and power collapse into one.
The bath scene is the moment everything snaps. Toma can no longer tell the difference between the women in his life and the eel. He masturbates while imagining himself entering the wound in the eel’s head—a grotesque reversal where penetration equals destruction. The people he thinks about—Chigusa, Kotoko, even the eel—merge into one blurred image. In his imagination, they’re all caught in what he calls a “net of blood,” a system of violence that traps everyone tied to him. His climax comes only when he recalls the exact moment his father strangled Kotoko. The fact that this memory triggers release shows how deeply sexualized violence has become for him. It’s no longer symbolic. It’s literal, bodily.
When Kotoko reveals she’s pregnant, Toma’s reaction is horrifying but completely consistent with where his mind has gone. He imagines the eel’s ruined head sliding into Kotoko’s womb. The child stops being a child in his mind, and becomes the eel—this extension of violent male desire that will “scrape out” the existing baby and devour her from the inside. To him, creation becomes another act of violation. Birth becomes another form of cannibalism.
Toward the end of the novel, the giant wounded eel appears one last time. Its reappearance isn’t random—it’s a warning. Even injured, “it looked new,” which says everything about the cycle repeating itself. Violence doesn’t die; it regenerates. The eel vanishing into the swirling water is a perfect mirror of what’s coming. Toma’s desire, now completely warped, won’t end in satisfaction or power. It’s going to collapse into tragedy—consume itself the same way the eel disappears into the whirlpool. It’s the final confirmation that what’s inside him isn’t building toward anything. It’s dissolving.
Altogether, the unagi arc traces Toma’s descent from fearful awareness into full psychosexual corruption. The eel changes form throughout the story: it starts as something external that triggers him, becomes part of his fantasies, mutates into his idea of conception, and finally transforms into a symbol of the destruction waiting at the end of his path. It’s the raw, instinctual part of him—violent, slippery, hungry—that has been awakened and cannot be put back.
The scene at the shrine grounds is really the point where everything Tanaka has been building up—violence that gets passed down, the idea of “eating” someone’s spirit, and the fallout of both—finally erupts in the worst possible way.
Madoka’s assault on Chigusa is basically the physical version of the twisted worldview he’s lived by for years, the same worldview Toma grew up absorbing. His line—“When you can’t hold it back anymore, anyone will do. Any slit will do.”—is horrifying not just because of what he’s doing, but because of how casually he strips Chigusa of humanity. In that moment, he’s not just harming her; he’s treating her like an object he can consume. That’s the novel’s “cannibalism” idea made brutally literal.
Toma’s reaction is one of the most heartbreaking parts. When he says “I did this,” he’s not confused or blaming himself irrationally. He understands that, in some way, he’s part of the chain that led here. He sees himself repeating his father’s gaze, his father’s impulses, his father’s violence—especially since he himself choked Chigusa earlier. He thinks he helped create the conditions for this to happen.
His guilt also comes from the fact that he wasn’t there. Chigusa was waiting for him. He failed her, and he knows it. When he finally takes her hand—cold, stiff, but steady—it’s a small but powerful moment. She doesn’t forgive him, but she gives him something even harder: a recognition that he is not Madoka. She separates the crimes of the father from the regrets of the son. Her calm is shocking, almost surreal, especially beside Toma falling apart.
And then there’s Jinko-san.
When she learns what happened, she steps in with a kind of strength that feels ancient and terrifying. Her killing Madoka isn’t framed as revenge, but as stopping something that should’ve been stopped a long time ago. She uses her prosthetic hand—the same tool she used for work, the one connected to eel-gutting and river-life—to stab the source of all the rot. It’s such a perfect, grim image: she destroys the man who made the prosthetic for her with the prosthetic itself.
Her line afterward—“You’re all safe now.”—isn’t about triumph. It’s about protection. She cuts the head off the generational poison to save Toma, Chigusa, Kotoko, and even the unborn baby. The rain washing the blood off her is one of the novel’s most symbolic moments: a kind of cleansing that’s more about duty than redemption.
The river, which used to represent the stuck, filthy fate of the family, becomes the thing that carries Madoka’s body away. It doesn’t purify him—it just gets rid of him. The fact that his corpse is tangled in trash says everything about the story’s worldview.
In the final scene, the flood doesn’t bring cleansing. It just rearranges the rot. The shop and home fill with new mud, new trash, new reminders that the riverside never really changes. The giant unagi, with all its symbolism, is gone—but only because everything got washed out equally.
Life continues, but not in a way that suggests renewal—more like survival.
Toma and Chigusa’s relationship is changed forever. Desire is replaced by careful, almost wordless companionship. Her injuries make her cheek stiff; his hand hesitates because he knows too well how touch can harm.
The cat walking through the shop is “just walking now”—a sign that Toma isn’t projecting symbolism onto everything anymore. He sees things as they are: filthy, broken, but real.
Toma deciding to take over the fish shop is the biggest shift in his character. Before, the shop symbolized doom—becoming Madoka, inheriting the same life. But after everything Jinko did, running the shop became something else entirely. It becomes a responsibility. Penance. A way to honor his mother’s fierce practicality. He stays not because he’s trapped, but because he chooses to. He understands that escape isn’t the same as healing.
The ending doesn’t offer catharsis. Just a grim, honest sense of continuity. The “Cannibal” is gone. The Avenger is behind bars. And the Heir is left to hold everything together in the mud. It’s not a happy ending. But it’s a human one.
April 16, 2025
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