Analog

Analog (Japanese title: アナログ) is a novel written by Japanese director, actor, and author Takeshi Kitano in his seventies, and a rare work of "pure love" from him. The protagonist, Satoshi Mizushima, is an interior designer in his thirties; he insists on making design models by hand, is wary of the conveniences brought by digitalization, and dislikes a life in which he can be reached anytime, anywhere. One day he meets Miyuki by chance in a café; neither knows the other's identity, yet they are powerfully drawn to each other. They do not exchange contact information, only a rather childish promise: if they are both free, they will meet at the same place at dusk every Thursday. The story unfolds from there, revolving around this slow, restrained, almost "out of step with the times" way of relating—a relationship between a man and a woman exceedingly rare in the age of instant messaging—and also depicting their respective loneliness and emotional knots. As the relationship quietly deepens, Miyuki suddenly disappears... The work explores love, friendship, human feeling, and family bonds, repeatedly asking what it really means to "cherish a single person." Kitano wrote his understanding of "ultimate love" into this book: in an age when everything can be conveniently searched, copied, and contacted at any moment, what is truly precious may still be that one unrepeatable "encounter." The book is about 85,000 characters long—short in length, plain in style, and slow in pacing.