Humor with a Girl's Gaze: Keiko Ochiai's "Play" and Literary Theory, ca. 1976

Humor with a Girl's Gaze: Keiko Ochiai's "Play" and Literary Theory, ca. 1976

Around 1976, Keiko Ochiai positively accepts the fact that her writing style has been described as "girlish" and says that a sensitive and non-violent point of view is important in literature. In this interview, she emphasizes the aspect of literature as "play," but also as wisdom to create an escape route after accepting the weight of everyday life. Ochiai's view of literature illuminates the possibility of "lightness" in an era when society was undergoing a variety of changes, such as economic stagnation and the rise of feminism. In his radio program "Say! Young" also showed a consistency with literature. Her humor and "play" were not merely frivolous, but functioned as a sharp social critique and a line of defense against life.