“It was the summer of 1947, and the citizens of Tokyo, already crushed with grief and shock over the loss of the war, were further debilitated by the languid heat. The city was ravaged. Seedy-looking shacks had sprung up on the messy sites of bombed-out buildings. Makeshift shops overflowed with colorful black-market merchandise, but most people were still living from hand to mouth.” So begins a famous novel published in 1948 by Japanese author Akimitsu Takagi. Takagi’s book went on to win the Mystery Writers Club Award of Japan: its title was The Tattoo Murder Case and it’s a detective novel. Yet the striking opening – which continues for some pages, with its evocative description of the traumatic aftermath of the war and its effect on the city and its people – reveals the extent and depth of the war’s impact on Japanese society. It shaped every aspect of life for years to come: from detective novels to education and foreign policy.
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