/jp/ - Otaku Culture

The processing of collective trauma soon became an important theme in Murakami's writing, which had previously been more personal in nature. After finishing The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, Murakami returned to Japan in the aftermath of the Kobe earthquake and the Aum Shinrikyo gas attack. He came to terms with these events with his first work of non-fiction, Underground, and the short story collection after the quake. Underground consists largely of interviews of victims of the gas attacks in the Tokyo subway system.