한일 TV 드라마 <솔로몬의 위증ソロモンの偽証> 속 소년의 자살 비교연구: 심리주의와 신자유주의 교육을 중심으로

Abstract

This study compares the Korean (2016) and Japanese (2021) TV series adaptations of Miyabe Miyuki’s novel Solomon’s Perjury, with particular focus on the divergent narrative constructions of juvenile suicide. The Japanese version reflects the social impact of the 1997 Kobe child murders and a broader psychologized social climate that promoted Kokoro no Kyoiku(Mind education). In this context, the boy’s suicide is represented as the inevitable outcome of unresolved anxiety within the inner self and the so-called ‘Darkness of the Mind,’ thereby highlighting the limits of mind education and the persistence of psychological insecurity among youth. On the contrast, the Korean version situates the cause of suicide within the neoliberal restructuring of education following the 1997 IMF Crisis. It emphasizes school corruptions, admission fraud, and the reproduction of socioeconomic inequality, showing how distorted educational practices and systemic injustice lead to despair and death. Despite sharing the same source novel, the two series diverge significantly in how they frame school, youth, and death, reflecting each society’s distinct educational discourses and cultural anxieties. This study demonstrates how juvenile suicide becomes a narrative lens to expose structural violence in schools and to reveal the broader contradictions of Japanese and Korean society.