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There're some Mamoru Oshii book lists on the Internet, but they don't have detailed explanations about the contents. My Mamoru Oshii book collection is far from complete, but I'd like to write some short summaries for each of those books.
I apologize in advance for grammatical errors and misinformation.
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title: ゾンビ日記
(ZOMBIE DIARY)
release: 06/01/2012 (reprinted on 07/18/2015)
publisher: Kadokawa Haruki Corporation
[contents]
Zombie Diary
commentary by Kazuko Mogami
[review]
Zombie Diary is Oshii's zombie apocalypse novel. As Oshii fans already know, Oshii loves apocalyptic images. That taste originates from his delusion. When he was a high school kid, he imagined a post-apocalypse world every day on commuter trains.
In this novel, Oshii added zombies to the delusion. However, it is not just another zombie knock-off. Oshii put his philosophy about corpses and funeral-rites culture into it.
The story is set in post-apocalypse Japan. A weird incurable disease devastated the world, like the angel disease from Seraphim. Most people got infected with "death", so there are only "the dead" except for some rare cases. The "death" disease just randomly infects people, so there's no defense against it.
The protagonist is a nameless sniper. He shoots "the dead" every day as his daily habits. He thinks he's doing something like funeral rites. He "respectfully" shoots dead people.
While shooting the dead, he gives monologues about various topics, like sniping techniques, dance, food, weapon history, anonymousness, etc. The philosophies and sociological arguments in those monologues account for almost 95 % of the pages. It doesn't have any plot nor character development. The protagonist just shoots dead people and thinks about something.
Some people might remember Oshii's film called ".50 Woman". This novel is pretty similar to it. It is also similar to INNOCENCE because most of INNOCENCE's script is quoted from other people's books. For example, the protagonist talks about a certain dancer's philosophy about bodies and death. That's quoted from a book written by Kazuko Mogami, Oshii's elder sister.
The similarity with INNOCENCE can be seen in the argument itself as well. This novel thematizes the culture of corpses, "our view on death" in other words. Oshii put that theme into doll and dog symbols when he made INNOCENCE. In this novel, he shows it by "corpse". (We should remember that Oshii intentionally avoided showing corpses in INNOCENCE. He thinks it is generally difficult to portray corpses in anime.)
If you like Oshii's long and plotless dialogue scenes so much, I recommend this book to you. To be honest, I think it is one of Oshii's best novels. Come to think of it, this novel includes most of the "Oshii” elements we love, like the apocalypse, food, weapons, philosophies, and violence. It just lacks action and plot. In that kind of sense, it is one of the "purest" Oshii's works.
In recent film-essay books, Oshii often uses the term "criticism on civilization". I think it is safe to say this book is "a criticism-on-civilization in the novel form".
[edit]
The format of this book is probably inspired by Haruhiko Oyabu’s novel. Some people might know Oyabu for “The Beast To Die”. Oyabu is a famous hard-boiled novel author. Oshii loves Oyabu’s novels from his youth. In an interview, Oshii says that he was influenced by the details in Oyabu’s novels, especially by the details of food. Zombie Diary series and .50 Woman have a lot of detailed food scenes probably because they were homages to Oyabu’s novels.
