Hooked

Eriko Shimura’s early morning ritual of arriving at an office that resembles a “deserted indoor pool” (1) establishes her deep isolation. She craves a sterile, controlled environment where the boundaries between herself and the world are clear, a stark contrast to Shōko’s messy, unstructured life as a housewife. While Eriko meticulously manages her time and career to achieve an impressive salary, Shōko drifts through her days, ambivalent about a book deal and content to get by on her husband’s income. This juxtaposition highlights the theme of The Alienating Nature of the Modern World, where both the high-pressure corporate track and the quiet domestic sphere produce a similar sense of loneliness and a yearning for connection. Eriko’s fascination with Shōko stems from a desire for the “laid-back and unrestrained” (5) freedom she imagines Shōko possesses, while Shōko idealizes Eriko’s privileged life as an escape from her own dysfunctional family history. Their mutual attraction is based on misunderstanding one another’s lives; each woman perceives the other woman’s life to be ideal, emphasizing the flaws in their own lives while being unable to recognize one another’s struggles. This idealization is based on projection, with each woman seeing the other as the embodiment of a life she cannot access.

The primary medium for this projection is the motif of the blog, which facilitates a one-sided intimacy and introduces the theme of The Dangers of Parasocial Relationships. Eriko’s consumption of Shōko’s life begins digitally, through reading The Diary of Hallie B, and becomes literal when she seeks out the same convenience store melon bun. She believes she knows Hallie B, relating to the blogger’s apparent lack of female friends and her carefree attitude. This persona is a curated performance, however, and Eriko is a consumer, not a friend. Her colleague Sugishita immediately identifies the imbalance, warning her that her obsessive interest borders on stalking. When the women meet, the dynamic remains one-sided; Eriko approaches as a fan, and Shōko later writes about her new acquaintance as a “stunning” (31) girl, performing their encounter for her readers. This digital filter prevents genuine connection, as Eriko’s expectations are built on a fantasy, leading her to cross boundaries by locating Shōko’s home and demanding an explanation for her silence, a violation rooted in the false sense of entitlement the blog fosters.

The men in the narrative consistently interpret female relationships through a misogynistic lens, reflecting the cultural stereotype of doro-doro, or toxic female friendships. When Sugishita discovers Eriko reading the blog, he reflexively assumes she does it to feel superior, sneering that “female jealousy is a scary thing” (18). Later, Shōko’s husband Kensuke calls Eriko “frightening” (74) and dismisses her intense behavior as envy over Shōko’s marriage and blogging success. These patriarchal assumptions foreclose the possibility of genuine female connection by framing it as inherently competitive. Both women have internalized this, bonding over their shared difficulty with female friendships, a vulnerability that makes them susceptible to these external judgments. The men’s commentary reveals the novel’s theme of The Impossibility of Self-Actualization Under Patriarchy, as their narrow interpretations police the women’s behavior and reinforce the very isolation they are trying to escape. Sugishita’s patronizing praise of Eriko for not being “needy, like other girls” (68) emphasizes this dynamic, rewarding her for aligning with a masculine ideal of independence while punishing any display of emotional vulnerability.

Eriko’s new work assignment to import Nile perch from Africa introduces a potent symbol for her destructive approach to relationships. The fish is described as a voracious carnivore that “totally desecrates any surrounding ecosystem it enters” (16), an invasive species that wipes out native populations. This directly parallels Eriko’s invasive pursuit of Shōko. Her behavior is predatory; she methodically gathers clues from the blog to hunt down Shōko’s location, and her relief at finding her safe quickly curdles into an aggressive sense of ownership. The confrontation with her estranged friend Keiko, who accuses Eriko of being “incapable of giving other people any space” (42), suggests that this is a recurring, destructive pattern. Just as the Nile perch was introduced into Lake Victoria by humans, Eriko’s social behavior seems to be a product of an unnatural, high-pressure environment that has warped her capacity for healthy connection. This symbolism is deepened by the motif of mislabeled fish, such as halibut sold as engawa, which reflects the deceptive nature of the identities Eriko and Shōko present to each other.

The characters’ dysfunctional family backgrounds reveal the psychological roots of their mutual idealization and loneliness. Eriko feels stifled in her parents’ “deathly silent” (37) home, a place of suffocating tension that fuels her desire for the carefree friendship she projects onto Shōko. Her emotional outburst and desperate plea—“We’re supposed to be friends” (65)—are about more than just Shōko, hinting at her past failure with Keiko and suggesting a deep-seated fear of abandonment. Shōko’s trip home reveals an equally oppressive, though more chaotic, dynamic with a passive-aggressive father who demands care without asking for it. Her resentment of this inherited role as a caretaker, a role that drove her own mother away, reinforces her desire for an escape. This shared experience of parental emotional neglect creates a fragile bond between the two women, as each views the other as a potential savior from her own alienating family life, a foundation too unstable to support a genuine friendship.