Strange Houses
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Uketsu on Strange Houses
In their own words: quotes and insights from the author.Why they wrote it
A strange man asking why anyone reads himUketsu appears in public wearing a white papier-mâché mask with a digitally altered voice, and their anonymity is not merely a persona: it shapes the question they put to themselves about the work’s purpose. At a press conference with the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan, they turned the puzzle outward before answering it.
Why do they read these strange books written by this strange man?
The answer Uketsu gave at the same FCCJ appearance frames the entire project of their fiction. Rather than naming a story they needed to tell, they named the reader they were trying to reach: young Japanese people who had not yet found their way into novels.
I just hope that Japanese young people can discover the joy of reading novels through my books. I hope they will have the courage to read [more challenging] books.
The bracketed phrase appears in the original citation. What it signals is that Strange Houses was never meant to be a destination. Uketsu designed it as a door.
That intent carries a specific formal consequence. At the same FCCJ press conference, Uketsu described the kind of novel they were making, and the description sits at some distance from conventional literary categories.
If I had to describe my novels, I’d like to call them comic-like novels or manga-like novels.
How they wrote it
One reader in the room, and a regret that wouldn’t settleIn the December 2025 Billboard Japan interview, conducted when Uketsu’s fourth book had just topped the inaugural Billboard Japan Book Chart, they described a method that governs every draft. The interviewer was focused on Strange Maps, but the process Uketsu named goes back to the first book.
If I start thinking about writing for a large audience, at least in my case, it probably won’t work. So, I write under the premise that there’s only one reader and I’m writing just for that single person. While I’m writing, I imagine their reaction in my head, almost as if I’m asking, ‘What do you think?’ or ‘What if this comes next?’ Maybe it’s a form of self-dialogue, but the idea of pleasing one reader is something I’ve never wavered from.
A second structural decision shapes how the books reach readers outside Japan. Where some authors leave cross-cultural translation entirely to the translator, Uketsu builds the constraint into the drafting itself, treating cultural specificity as a problem to solve before the manuscript is finished.
I try to avoid writing stories that can only be understood if you have a deep knowledge of Japanese grammar or Japanese culture. I want to steer clear of works that require prior knowledge or an understanding of Japanese culture to be enjoyable, as much as possible.
The synthesis notes one place where the English edition of Strange Houses diverges materially from the original. Translator Jim Rion, finding a plot thread dropped in the novel’s final section, wrote to Uketsu asking him to address it. Uketsu agreed, and the new material appears in the English edition. Rion’s own account of that exchange is not available in these sources, so the texture of the collaboration remains largely one-sided. What Uketsu’s side of it cost him, personally, is audible in the Billboard Japan interview, where he assessed Strange Houses from a distance of several years and several books.
With Strange Houses, my first book, I always felt some regret. At the time, my skills weren’t quite there yet, and especially toward the ending, I wasn’t able to fully pull it together as a mystery. That feeling stayed with me for a long time.
That regret is also a form of transparency unusual in an author who otherwise guards his identity completely. Uketsu said this in an interview about a different, newer book, which means the admission was voluntary, not prompted. The ending of Strange Houses had been sitting with them long enough that when the English edition gave them a chance to revise it, they took it.
What they want us to sit with
An open door, not a final wordThe synthesis is candid about a gap: no statement from Uketsu exists in these sources about what they specifically want readers to carry away from Strange Houses. What exists is a general declaration, made in the Billboard Japan interview, that functions as the closest thing to a closing argument for their fiction as a whole.
I believe the books are easy to read, so my strongest feeling is simply, if you have some time, please give them a try.
The modesty is consistent with the stated aim: Uketsu is not asking for admiration of the work. They are asking for the attempt. The deeper ambition, articulated at the FCCJ press conference, is that the attempt leads somewhere beyond Strange Houses itself.