Japanocentric Critical Dystopias An Exploration of the Critical Dystopian Lens in Japanese Contexts

Contemporary critical dystopian fiction circulating in the English-speaking world is largely shaped by progressivist sensibilities that frame dystopia as the intensification of oppressive traditions, hierarchies, and techno-economic rationality, and emancipation as their erosion. This paper argues that a significant strand of Japanese dystopian literature articulates a contrasting critical logic. Drawing on works by Tawada Yōko, Murata Sayaka, Oyamada Hiroko, and Kawai Masashi, it demonstrates that these texts frequently frame the erosion of tradition, social roles, and demographic continuity not as liberation, but as dystopian in itself. In these narratives, the disappearance or degradation of the Japanese polity – understood as an interrelation of territory, population, social relations, and cultural continuity – constitutes the central object of anxiety. By juxtaposing Japanese dystopian fiction with dominant Anglosphere models of critical dystopia, this article proposes the concept of Japanocentric critical dystopia as a culturally situated expression, highlighting the limits of progressivist assumptions within dystopian fiction.