Hidden behind a white papier-mache mask, wearing a black bodysuit and with a voice modulated to sound something like a little girl’s, is Japan’s latest literary superstar. Almost nothing is known about Uketsu – a made-up name that means “rain hole” – who first gained fame posting surreal videos on YouTube: clips of asparagus that turns into fingers when chopped; strips of meat pegged out on a washing line; eight ears spinning on a wheel.
Then, in 2020, Uketsu posted a 21-minute mystery story based on a series of floor plans, and was told he should turn it into a novel. Since then, his books have become blockbusters in Japan: three of the country’s Top 10 fiction bestsellers last year were by him. Now the first of his novels to have been translated into English, Strange Pictures, has come out in the UK and the US, and Uketsu has agreed to speak to me about it on Zoom.
The novel, translated by Jim Rion, is structured as a quartet of stories that initially seem unconnected but in fact interlock, unfolding a clever mystery centred on a series of drawings that serve as clues.
For our call Uketsu opts to have his camera off, rather than wearing his trademark mask – a disguise that reminds me of No-Face from the Studio Ghibli film Spirited Away. The likeness was unintentional – “it just happened that way,” he tells me, via Rion, who is interpreting for us. The costume was in fact modelled on the kuroko, stagehands in classical Japanese theatre who wear all black, including a black veiled hat, to blend into the background. Because the traditional headpiece is difficult to make, Uketsu opted for the papier-mache mask instead.
A face reveal will not be coming any time soon. “I have thought about maybe sneaking a giant fake eye under the mask and then taking it off to reveal that I’ve been a terrible Cyclopean monster the whole time,” he jokes. How many people know he is Uketsu? About 30, he says, including his family, his publishers and a group of people he has worked with since he began the project.
His biographical details are scant. We know he is a man. He says he lives in Kanagawa prefecture, in south-west Tokyo. When he began posting YouTube videos, he was working at a supermarket. He lived in the UK for a short time during his childhood. His parents divorced when he was young. But when it comes to his age, “I’ll leave that to your imagination.” (From his voice, I’d guess that he is youngish, maybe in his 30s.)
Women are often the antagonists of Uketsu’s stories, and Strange Pictures is no different. “It just seems to work out that way,” says Uketsu. He explains that after his parents’ divorce, he spent a lot of time with his mother’s family, and when he was in school, many women were involved in the clubs he was part of. He is perhaps therefore “a little bit more prone to writing” about frightening women than frightening men.
Childhood trauma is a major plot driver in Strange Pictures; two of the key images in the book are drawn by children and then interpreted by a teacher and a psychologist. To write these segments, Uketsu read books by child development experts on why children draw the things that they do. “I don’t have a lot of contact with children in my actual life,” he says.
For many of Uketsu’s characters, life hasn’t turned out the way they planned. Strange Pictures is set around the time of Japan’s “lost decades” – a period of economic slowdown in the 90s and 2000s that left many graduates unable to find jobs. “It was something that I remember hearing about all the time on television or in family discussions, and it really made an impression because there was a kind of attitude that said, ‘These people are struggling because they’re weak.’”
Rion’s wife introduced him to Uketsu’s work during the pandemic. “There was not a doubt in my mind that it would be perfect for translation,” he tells me. He pitched it to the publisher Pushkin, who gave the green light. For Rion, Uketsu’s work is special because it combines accessibility with depth of theme and smart mysteries that are opaque until the very end. “You can get very complex books, and you can get very simple books, but it’s very rare to see both at the same time. It’s deceptive simplicity.”
And it’s certainly a good time for Uketsu’s book to be arriving in the UK: Japanese fiction is hugely popular at the moment, with 43% of the Top 40 translated fiction titles in 2024 being Japanese. Uketsu says that many Japanese authors, himself included, like to read foreign literature in translation, so he sees the phenomenon as Japanese writers showing how their influences have been incorporated. “I’m very happy about it,” the man behind the mask concludes.
• Strange Pictures by Uketsu, translated by Jim Rion, is published by Pushkin (£14.99). To support the Guardian and Observer, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.
