2017 Volume 1 Issue 2 Pages 51-61
Murakami's concept of “fuwa fuwa” has been studied as it appears in picture books and pocket-edition books, although it is uncertain where this concept originated. Meanwhile, “fuwa fuwa” appears in diverse complicated variants, with the texts without pictures being distributed for use as teaching materials or famous children’s stories. Looking at the process of revision from the original to the first release, we can see a significant revision of the last part. The sense of loss, which is pointed out, although without a clear basis, in previous research, originates in the image of death described in the original edition. Similes in Murakami's works project the shadow of death. The revised part explicitly includes the image of life, and a direction towards “rebirth” is seen in the process of revision. “Rebirth,” or the integration of life and death, appears at various levels in Murakami's works, such as in the integration of subject and object, the connection between two different times, and the unification of narrations.
