Apocalyptic Science Fiction after 1995—Sekaikei Works

Abstract

Two apocalyptic events in 1995—the Kobe Earthquake and the sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway—revealed not just the fragility of the Japanese infrastructure and emergency system that had previously been thought inviolable, secure and coordinated, but also that human lives can come to a sudden, violent end even in a highly modern society. These revelations led to the manifestation of the uncanny Other within the self and the limitation of the fictional age. We have seen that from the 1970s to the early 1980s, apocalyptic science fiction portrayed the quest for ideals in reality in order to solidify grand narratives and to maintain the concordance of beginning, middle, and end; they strongly reflect the idealistic age, relying on a linear understanding of time. From the mid-1980s, however, apocalyptic fiction shifted to describing ideals being sought in fictional settings; it no longer strove for the recreation of ideals and grand narratives in reality, and instead set them in an explicitly fictive space by introducing multiple linear timelines.