Paper short abstract

Numa Shōzō's scifi Human Cattle Yapoo (Kachikujin Yapū, 1956-91) has been typically read as a racialized analogy of a masochistic Japan under American occupation, but the work is also a precursor of current speculative writing imagining a posthuman future.

Paper long abstract

Numa Shōzō's multivolume scifi novel of a post-nuclear world, Human Cattle Yapoo (Kachikujin Yapū, 1956-91) has been hailed by Tatsumi Takayuki as Japan's most important literary work since 1945. Typically read as a racialized analogy of a masochistic Japan under a sadistic American occupation, I argue that it is better understood as what Mishima Yukio called it: the greatest intellectual novel (kannen shōsetsu) postwar Japan produced. I will argue the work is a precursor of current speculative writing imagining a posthuman future, one in which Japanese serve as living commodes, sex machines, clothing, furniture, door mats, and even meals.