Япония: цивилизация, культура, язык 2022

«ISSUES OF JAPANOLOGY, vol. 9» St-Petersburg State Univ 2022 243 supposed to be the very last robot on the planet after the nuclear war. The race of robots had acquired power and had become able to begin the war only when the alienation and hostility in human race had reached its peack. The last robot during the last days of his life tells the very last robot the story of the people and machines which destroyed the planet, as well as the story of the very last scientist on the planet who invented a robot which would be able to experience emotions and to be glad at the remaining beauties of the Earth. So the long-lasting war between the people and the robots ended up with the friendship and reconciliation: the very last robot tries to maintain the world around her as much as she can until she is gone too, and to keep only positive memories of the human race which had long been remaining hostile to the army of robots. The characters of Otsuichi’s novels are typically postmodernistic: a lonely man and a lonely woman; while Otsuichi’s artistic method can be determined predominantly as magic realism. Feeling themselves strangers in the surrounding world leads the characters of Otsuichi’s stories to despair and encounter or sometimes even friendship with a monster. Monsters appear in human world and acquire power over man when the principal character is disappointed and devastated and feels helplessness, solitude and internal emptiness.