미나토 가나에의 『고백』에 나타난 일본사회의 범죄화 ‒모리구치의 복수를 둘러싼 집단 광기(狂気)를 중심으로‒

Abstract

Kanae Minato’s debut 『Confession』(2008) is a work that became popular enough to cause ‘Kanae Minato Syndrome’ at the time of release. This work shows the process of criminalization(madness) of Japanese society through the confession of the perpetrator and the victim. In the work, the author mostly names the suspects ‘Shuya Watanabe’ and ‘Naoki Shimomura’ boy A and boy B through Moriguchi. It seems to indirectly talk about the universal problem of Japanese society by rather presupposing unspecified A and B, instead of simply respecting human rights within their class. Furthermore, although the author did not provide a clear answer to the criminalization of Japanese society (‘abnormal atmosphere’), the naming of the work contents such as <clergy>, <martyr>, <self-lover>, <truth-seeker>, <devotee>, and <evangelist> indirectly criticizes that theses words, which have been used in a religious sense, are no longer accepted in this society and at the same time it has the meaning of an alternative to a crime-infested society in the future because these are heterogeneous words that are far from the content, even though they have a religious character. In this way, a work 『Confession』 is meaningful in that it criticizes the problems of the contemporary Japanese society by exposing the cheapening of human life inherent in individuals, families, and society as a whole through the confession of the characters. and furthermore by offering a structural system differentiated from the current Juvenile Act and the mass media as a solution to these problems.