Hooked

At a soba restaurant in Hakone, Eriko delivers an articulate monologue on how society forces women to compete like invasive species, proposing that she and Shōko “become an invincible duo” (274) to fight this system. This speech reveals a critical disconnect between Eriko’s intellectual understanding and her emotional reality. She identifies the patriarchal framework that fosters female rivalry—a dynamic encapsulated in the Japanese cultural trope of doro-doro friendships—yet her proposed solution is another form of consumption and control rather than genuine solidarity between herself, Shōko, and other women. The speech is an explicit invocation of the symbol of the Nile perch, casting women as creatures pitted against each other in an unnatural ecosystem created by outside forces. In her desperate attempt to forge a powerful alliance, however, Eriko ironically becomes the invasive predator herself, trying to take over Shōko’s life. This contradiction is foreshadowed moments earlier, when she dismisses a TV show because she “couldn’t really relate to the main character” (271), exposing a worldview where empathy is contingent on self-recognition. Eriko cannot forge a true bond because she is incapable of seeing Shōko as anything other than a mirror or a project, a failing that emphasizes the theme of The Impossibility of Self-Actualization Under Patriarchy. Even when a character can diagnose the illness, the patriarchal values of competition and control are so deeply internalized that she cannot conceive of a cure that isn’t itself toxic.

The Hakone trip and its aftermath expose the illusion at the heart of the blog. As a document of their trip, the blog becomes pure fiction, with Eriko meticulously photographing untouched food and writing “cheerful, perfectly illuminated prose” (294) about a journey Shōko found unbearable and cut short. The subsequent plummet in site traffic demonstrates that the blog’s appeal was rooted in an authenticity Eriko cannot replicate, even if she can use Shōko’s phrasing and style. Her writing is sterile because it is a performance of friendship, rather than the product of one, a failure that speaks to the theme of The Dangers of Parasocial Relationships. Eriko’s obsession was built on a curated digital identity she fundamentally misunderstood. She consumed the blog as a reflection of her own desires, projecting a rich interiority onto a woman who, she painfully realizes, “really had nothing to say” (289). When Shōko reads Eriko’s post, she hears the writer’s “screams of desperation” (294), recognizing the deep loneliness driving the performance. Shōko’s decision to quit blogging is a definitive rejection of this parasocial dynamic, an attempt to reclaim her private life from the demands of an audience and an obsessive fan who tried to possess it.

The narrative structure of the Hakone chapters, which alternates between Shōko’s and Eriko’s perspectives, emphasizes their deep and mutual incomprehension. In Chapter 25, Shōko mentally reduces Eriko to a “human-shaped bolster” and a “puppet” (266) to endure the trip, seeing her behavior in the onsen as proof that Eriko is emotionally a “child” (282). Conversely, in Chapter 26, Eriko’s internal monologue reveals her frustration with Shōko’s passivity and her crushing disappointment upon realizing Shōko’s online persona was a void. This dueling point-of-view technique creates a dramatic irony where the reader is the only one aware of the vast gulf between their experiences. They share a room, a meal, and a bath, yet remain utterly isolated within their own subjective realities. This structural choice illustrates the theme of The Alienating Nature of the Modern World, showing how physical proximity fails to guarantee connection. Their inability to bridge this internal distance demonstrates that their relationship was never a dialogue. It was always two competing monologues, a core dynamic of their failed friendship.

Eriko’s psychological breakdown is precipitated by a stark encounter with her own physical body. The bicycle crash, a failed attempt to restage their first joyful ride, occurs because Shōko can no longer bear Eriko’s literal and metaphorical weight. Thrown to the ground, Eriko catches her reflection in a shop window and is horrified by her own changed appearance, a moment of anagnorisis that shatters her delusion. The physical self she has neglected in her obsession becomes undeniable proof that the “Eriko Shimura that existed in her imagination” (309) is gone. This moment of clarity is contextualized by her mother’s earlier breakdown, a raw outburst that reveals the supposedly idyllic family home is also a site of female repression and sacrifice, a truth which eluded Eriko for much of her life. Later, when her colleague Sugishita lazily repeats the misogynistic trope that “a woman’s worst enemy is other women” (328), Eriko’s quiet reflection that he, too, is broken shows significant growth. She has moved from imposing her worldview on others to recognizing a shared human frailty.

This section culminates with both protagonists achieving a brutal form of liberation through the collapse of their primary social structures. After Eriko frees her, Shōko feels a “heady exhilaration” (316) that prompts her to confess her infidelity to Kensuke, an act that promptly destroys her marriage, her “only sanctuary” (295). Forced to return to her family home—a site of decay and entrapment—she discovers her father’s prone body. Rather than feeling grief, she is surprised to feel an overwhelming sense of liberation, a psychologically honest response to the end of a lifetime of oppressive paternal influence; her mind immediately goes to the song Ding-Dong! The Witch Is Dead, framing his death as the defeat of a tyrant. Both women are stripped of their defining relationships: Shōko of her husband and father, Eriko of her obsessive focus. They are left alone, yet this isolation creates an opening for something new. Shōko’s brief, positive encounter with her cousin Miwa, a woman in a similar situation, offers the first glimmer of a healthy, reciprocal female bond based on shared reality, a stark contrast to the toxic fantasy she has just escaped.