Every generation, civilization is invaded by barbarians — we call them ‘children’.
Hannah Arendt
There is something inherently comical about humanity in its current form: A bunch of overweight apes, hunched over, banging away at electrical devices in order to affect outcomes on a network that doesn’t really exist. As mammals, our chief concerns should be sustenance, sex, and sleep. Yet, our mammalian nature is increasingly being tamed, locked away by technologies which provide for all of these needs at our convenience. It might seem natural to think about what humanity should do to escape the nihilism of fulfilment, but that there is nothing natural about whatever it is we choose to do is precisely the point.
At no time has this point been emphasised more than this year: Many people for the first time realised what it means to go weeks, or even months, at a time with only the minimum in real contact with other human beings. Instead, electronic networks became our reality. We came to realise that physical reality was where we put on our false masks and acted according to pre-programmed codes called social manners. In contrast, online was where we could act in our full complexity, without being constrained by what is natural for a mammal.
Unfortunately, sophistication and sophistry are two sides of the same coin. The spaces where we can live as ourselves can also become spaces where we live as our delusions. This is the lesson of the tale of the Loups-Garous: What happens when all the wolves go extinct, and only domesticated dogs remain?
Loups-Garous: The Wolf We Should Avoid is a Japanese sci-fi mystery novel written by Natsuhiko Kyougoku, and published in 2001. It depicts Japanese urban life in the 2030s, where society has been fundamentally altered by network technology: Almost all social contact and productive activity is done over computer “terminals” and “monitors”, and basically the only arena with any mandated real contact with other human beings is the schooling system. However, the learning part of this is actually done online; only specialised communication sessions, designed to preserve basic interpersonal skills, are carried out in-person. (The similarities to our world only increase with the knowledge that the canonical catalyst to the emergence of this perpetually quarantined society was a global pandemic.)
This technologically complex, interconnected world has become accustomed to massive data surveillance, and acting outside of the system is deemed impossible. It is for that reason that a serial killer who targets the teenage students of these communication sessions should be an impossibility. And yet, the system is completely unable to catch this menacing murderer, and the victims keep piling up.
Our story centres on a pair of perspective characters who seem utterly unequipped to unravel anything, and the mystery threatens to remain eternally unresolved. Hazuki Makino is a wealthy and reclusive high school girl who struggles to communicate after being acclimatised to a perpetually online world whilst living with a social disability. Shizue Fuwa is an uncompromising, cold childhood councillor who takes a central part in this communication education program. Neither are detectives, or for that matter, even well suited to solving the most basic of real world issues. And yet, they are our anchors in this story filled with horrific murders.
All of that said, let us step back for a moment. After all, we are not here to recount the events of the novel — if you want that, just read the thing. Instead, we’re here to discuss why I am awarding Loups-Garous the title of book of the year.
The spoiler-free zone
In Japan, the statement that “Natsuhiko Kyougoku wrote a good mystery novel” is relatively trivial. He is not famous on the level of someone like Keigo Higashino. Indeed, Kyougoku does not even rise up to being a minor household name. However, he is an award winning author with a solid reputation and in good standing. That said, in the West, he is a complete nobody. So, it is perhaps necessary to cover some basic biography in order to best explain why Loups-Garous is obviously noteworthy to begin with, outside of its premise.
Natsuhiko Kyougoku is a Japanese mystery author most famous for his blending of the conventions of traditional Japanese horror with more recent mystery novel trends. He is most famous for his debut Hyakki Yagyou (Night Parade of One Hundred Demons) Series — also known as the Kyougokudou Series. The series follows the exploits of the titular detective referred to as “Kyougokudou”, a mythology and spiritualism expert (“onmyouji”) who solves non-supernatural crimes by reference to the psychological and sociological reasoning underpinning Japanese and Chinese mythology. (Some readers may notice the non-coincidental similarity of this premise to the more recent and more pop culture friendly Monogatari Series, penned by another famous mystery author.)
In this Hyakki Yagyou Series, Kyougoku pioneered the presentation of what has been called his “innovative detection style”. The detective, Kyougokudou, does not collect clues as a conventional crime solver would. Instead, he and the audience are acclimatised to the true nature of the crime by reference to various ghost stories, myths, and legends which explain the unique character of each crime. This style relies heavily on gradually building a strong sense of atmosphere and setting. However, beyond just this series, Kyougoku has expanded this style to his other novels to great success. Loups-Garous is, simply, a triumph for its ability to apply this theory of storytelling to the unique superstitions of science and technology instead of mythology and legends.
To be fair, the thought of Loups-Garous as a story of superstition, rather than science-fiction, may seem odd based on the novel’s premise. But the trappings of science-fiction is exactly how Kyougoku deceives his audience and makes the crime seem incomprehensible. Within this setting that seems straight out of a speculative dystopian novel, we are not being given an allegory for the perversion of society by technological abuse or political corruption as is conventional. Instead, we are chiefly concerned with the fundamentally superstitious substructure of the human mind.
In the world of Loups-Garous, the online world does not merely replace the world of real contact, it builds a mythological and metaphysical system unto itself. If there is a system that monitors each citizen, and all contact is done over computer networks, a serial killer is an impossibility that presents a fundamental incongruence that cannot be overcome. As a result, solving the mystery becomes a journey where our characters must step outside of the mythology which defines their comprehension of the world.
By manner of this setting, Kyougoku builds a world which feels more familiar today than the dozens of more famous speculative sci-fi worlds that have come before it. He correctly identifies that the coming of technology does not herald an escape from our fundamentally mammalian nature, ruled by superstitions and legends. Instead, the subtle but pervasive impact of network technology on our minds interfaced with our animalistic nature to build a new sense of myth. The consensus of our social networks forms a new set of myths, and the ideologies underpinning them a new theology, which informs our perception of the world of real contact.
The year 2020, more than most other years, has emphasised these exact points. As we’ve retreated into the technology which grants the human mind access to seemingly limitless knowledge, the effect has been a wave of superstition, reasoning based on rumours, and a pervasive sense that society is getting crazier by the moment. The truth is that society does not cure us of our beastly nature, it domesticates us, and hijacks our lizard brains in service of the shared delusions which constitute society. This is a necessary and good process, otherwise we would all be ruled by nothing more than roaming bands of murderous apes. However, as Kyougoku reminds us, both a domesticated beast and a wild beast are the same mammal, and we should never forget that underlying truth and the danger it represents.
The spoiler zone
The are two kinds of murderers in Loups-Garous. The wild killer and the killer in service of a mythology. This is true as a metaphorical point, about the fundamentally distinct nature between those characters who act outside of the system and those who act within it. However, it is also true as a diegetic point about the identity of the murderer, and is essentially the crux of the reasoning of Kunagi, the poor excuse of a detective that the audience and Shizue must rely on in order to solve the crime. What seems like a single serial killer is in fact the work of two different killers, one wild and one domesticated.
No clearer point about the philosophy of this story exists than a simple comparison of these two killers. Ayumi Kono kills because the mammal inside of her cannot accept the risk of death that comes with trusting others to be peaceful, and so she kills any and all who threaten her, before she even has time to comprehend or reflect on her actions. In contrast, Riichiro Ishida does not kill anyone; at least, he says he does not. To quote him directly, ‘I’m not killing people. Those girls are going to die anyway. There’s nothing we can do about it.’
Ishida has outsourced all of his perception of behaviour to the system of society itself. He does not intend to corruptly undermine the system for his own benefit, as is quintessential for such villains in a dystopian story. There is no monetary gain or secret cabal who abuse the system for their own power in Loups-Garous. Merely a bureaucrat who has internalised the mythology of the system. He believes that Yutaro Suzuki, the most powerful member of this system, defines reality. And therefore, if that man commands it, there is nothing wrong with murder or cannibalism. He does not kill out of personal or mammalian desire, but instead he kills as a domesticated dog, at the behest of his master.
In the eyes of the story, while murder is wrong either way, Kono is leading the superior life to Ishida. And, in an ultimate statement of poetic justice, Kono kills Ishida, who is immune to the justice of a society which is founded on shared delusions and myths. There is no grand arc about how to redeem society, or build a more just legal system, or prevent killers like Ishida in the future. Merely a story about a group of high school girls who learn how to live without relying on the myths told to them by society.
When the story ends, there is no epilogue about how their actions changed the world. For Hazuki, Mio, and Ayumi, the only thing they can decide is how they will live in their own lives. Ayumi continues to live as a wild beast as she always has. But Hazuki, who knows no life other than domesticated life, cannot follow her. She can only life on with the memory she has gained that her reality, the one she sees in a computer monitor, is only an illusion.
Summing up
Really, to express my most basic thoughts, I should only need one sentence. Loups-Garous is a mystery novel which perfectly captures the feeling of the year of the CoViD pandemic, and that alone should grant it the honour of book of the year. However, that is underselling the mastery on display in Kyougoku’s work. It is not merely one example among many of the continued prevalence of the detective story in Japanese culture. It is a rich, atmospheric tale which allows you to completely absorb a world which mirrors our own in ways which invite crucial questions about this ape we call humanity.
However, this is not to say it is merely of literary value, and therefore a failure as a genre novel. The most impressive feature of Loups-Garous, perhaps more so than even Kyougoku’s other work such as in the Hyakki Yagyou Series, is that it is first and foremost a thrilling example of his unique blend of traditional Japanese storytelling forms with modern genre sensibilities. It is a richly detailed sci-fi dystopia and a mystifying detective novel, as is obvious from the premise: But Kyougoku achieves the remarkable by telling this inherently science-fiction story with all of the legendary suspense and mysticism of a Japanese ghost story. There is no moment in this tale which is not spent absorbing you into his unique style which you cannot find anywhere else.
Bonus thoughts
- Mio Tsuzuki is really cute and likes tokusatsu films. Best girl.
- Some quick Googling may reveal that there is an anime film version of this novel. While it is a well made enough film with good character designs, good voice acting, and good production quality, it cannot be overstated how much is lost turning a 150k word novel into a conventional feature length film. It is a fun, flawed film, but no replacement for this novel.
- Shizue Fuwa is a (seemingly) asexual character in the novel, which is a good and rare kind of representation. Especially in this novel where the relationship between technology and changing sexual dynamics that we are experiencing in reality are an explicitly important subject. A regrettable change in the film is that this aspect of her character seems to have been cut to save screen-time.
- Basically no one has read Loups-Garous in the West. But among those that have, it has a rather infamous reputation because it was basically only read by those on the werewolf hype train after Twilight. However, there’s no werewolves in Loups-Garous. There’s no deep insight there, I just thought it was funny that people disliked it for such an insubstantial reason.
- Those also interested in the Hyakki Yagyou/Kyougokudou Series on account of its premise can find information on an anime adaptation of the second novel here. One can also read the first novel in the series in English directly since it was localised by Vertical. However, copies are rare and no eBook exists.
