[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/the_makioka_sisters.jpg]]

->''"If epic literature is based in the dramatic and forward-moving narrative of a male hero's journey, The Makioka Sisters is a female epic of inaction--trying to figure out what to wear, crying for no reason at the same time every afternoon. With each perilous, pathetic step, the sisters are heroes setting out for the new world. They're like [[Literature/TheOdyssey Odysseus]], except without the ship and without the sea."''
--> --Reviewer '''Emily White''' on ''The Makioka Sisters''.

''The Makioka Sisters'' is a highly regarded Japanese novel by Jun'ichiro Tanizaki telling the story of [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin the four sisters of the Makioka family]]. The first part was originally serialized during UsefulNotes/WorldWarII but the book as a whole was only fully published after the war due to running afoul of wartime censorship. The action takes place from Autumn 1936 to April 1941.

Sachiko, the second sister, is the novel's main [[SympatheticPOV viewpoint character]]. Loosely based on Tanizaki's wife, she is outwardly brisk and businesslike but in fact very introspective and conservative. Sachiko spends most of her time trying to find a husband for the third sister, Yukiko, who is [[OldMaid thirty years old at the beginning of the novel]] and [[HiddenDepths subtly being deliberately as unhelpful as humanly possible to register her displeasure with the situation and desire to stay with her sisters and niece rather than be forced to move away with an unfamiliar man]]. The youngest sister, Taeko, is something of a problem child and her amoral and acquisitive behavior makes it harder to get Yukiko a match.

The eldest sister, Tsuruko, has been DemotedToExtra since before the beginning of the main plot and mostly appears to pass judgment on the other sisters' actions, although she and Sachiko maintain a positive relationship most of the time.

Tsuruko and Sachiko are both married. Sachiko's husband, Teinosuke, is the most prominent male character in the novel; Tsuruko's husband, Tatsuo, is [[TheGhost judging by other characters' reactions]] [[JerkAss the closest thing the novel has to an antagonist]]. Sachiko's daughter [[CheerfulChild Etsuko]] is also prominent, as are some of Taeko's boyfriends.

[[SliceOfLife There is no central driving plot.]]

A film adaptation, directed by Creator/KonIchikawa, was made in 1983.

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!!This novel contains examples of:

* TheAlcoholic:
** Mimaki, Yukiko's eventual husband, is a heavy drinker and chosen partially ''because'' his probable neglect of Yukiko will leave her on a longer leash than a marriage to a more upstanding man.
** Sachiko.
* AmbiguousSituation: Do Yukiko's engagements keep failing through no fault of her own due to her LoveItOrHateIt personality or (as Website/ThisVeryWiki assumes) is she sabotaging them on purpose?
* ApocalypticLog: Hilda Stolz's letters from Germany as UsefulNotes/WorldWarII rages.
* AsYouKnow: Quite a bit of expository dialogue in the beginning of the movie, like one of the sisters referring to "our late father".
* BadassLongcoat: Itakura wears an overcoat that is explicitly stated to look like one out of an American FilmNoir.
* BigBad: Downplayed with Tatsuo. He is manipulative and demanding towards the rest of the family. He and Tsuruko force Yukiko to move to Tokyo for no real reason and constantly pass unedifying moral judgment on the other sisters' actions. The lack of a core driving conflict and the novel's refusal to sermonize prevent him from being presented as an outright villain.
* BigSisterBully: Tsuruko often pulls rank on the other sisters and attempts to circumscribe or pass judgment on their behavior, usually with good intentions but often in an unhelpful and self-righteous way.
%%* BittersweetEnding: "Weddings, I find, are not always gay."
* BladeOfGrassCut: The film has some lovely close-ups of cherry blossoms in the rain.
* BrattyHalfPint: Makioka "Japanese [[WesternAnimation/{{Arthur}} D.W.]]" Etsuko.
* ButNotTooForeign: Averted. The Stolzes are 100% German and the Kyrilenkos 100% Byelorussian.
* CerebusSyndrome: The flood and Itakura's death herald in a steadily darkening plotline for the second half of the book.
* CheerfulChild: Etsuko.
* DoesNotLikeMen: Yukiko.
%%* DemotedToExtra: Tsuruko.
* EpunymousTitle: The original title is ''Sasameyuki'', a word referring to a type of light, powdery snow. Since the book takes place in Osaka, it doesn't snow very much; the title exists essentially as a pun on the third sister's name, which means "snow child" ("Flurries of Yukiko" might capture the meaning, but not the pun, in English). So greatly was this LostInTranslation that, rather than trying to replicate the meaning of the word "sasameyuki" ''or'' the nature of the pun, translator Edward G. Seidensticker just gave the book a completely new title.
%%* FailureIsTheOnlyOption: Getting Yukiko married.
* FleetingPassionateHobbies: Taeko develops intense interest and then loses said interest on dollmaking, western style sewing and embroidery and traditional Osaka dance.
* FourTemperamentEnsemble: Tsuruko is phlegmatic, Sachiko is choleric, Yukiko is melancholic, and Taeko is sanguine to a fault.
* GenreThrowback: Tanizaki wanted to write something like a Creator/JaneAusten "novel of manners," set in the modern day and in his own country.
* HappilyMarried: Sachiko and Teinosuke; Tsuruko and Tatsuo.
* HeroicBSOD: Sachiko [[INeedAFreakingDrink hits the bottle]] starting about halfway through the novel.
* HeroOfAnotherStory: Katherine Kyrilenko, whose story is actually more interesting than the main plot and would completely eclipse it were the novel not SliceOfLife.
* {{Jerkass}}: In addition to Tatsuo, Okubata, although [[HiddenDepths events late in the novel reveal that he has been much more solicitous towards Taeko than the other characters had any reason to believe]].
* LovableAlphaBitch: The entire main cast, relative to the rest of Japanese society.
%%* ManipulativeBitch: Yukiko [[Administrivia/TropesAreTools is one]]. Taeko wishes she was.
* MeaningfulName: Subverted. Sachiko means 'Bliss Child'. Sachiko is not a happy person.
* MonochromePast: The flashbacks (in the movie) to Taeko's elopement are in black-and-white, except for one particularly long flashback segment, which starts out in black-and-white but shifts into color.
* PassiveAggressiveKombat: A SignatureMove for the women (and, on occasion, the men) of the Makioka family.
%%* PerfectlyArrangedMarriage: Sachiko and Teinosuke.
* PolitenessJudo: Yukiko's main survival mechanism. Sachiko and Tsuruko are also quite capable of this.
* TheQuietOne: Yukiko, who in one scene sinks a marriage prospect by answering a phone call from her suitor but being unable (or refusing) to speak into the phone.
* RandomEventsPlot: The more action-heavy parts of the novel can feel like this due to the serial format and generally loose plot structure.
* RealLifeWritesThePlot: Tanizaki's wife's abortion is split into two different plot points: Sachiko's (involuntary) miscarriage early in the story, and her [[WhatTheHellHero contemplating coercing Taeko into aborting a socially scandalous pregnancy towards the end]]. (She eventually decides not to because putting Taeko through it would be more trouble than it would be worth.)
* RuleAbidingRebel: Tanizaki writes characters who quietly dissent from a lot of the most toxic social and political trends of wartime Japan, but only very quietly.
* SeasonalBaggage: The novel is famous for this (somewhere between the Motif and Montage variants). Stand-out scenes include spring cherry blossom viewings and a midsummer firefly hunt.
* SelfMadeMan: Itakura, Taeko's second plot-relevant suitor, which ''horrifies'' the other Makiokas.
* SliceOfLife: It's been described as "pre-war Japanese Series/{{Seinfeld}}".
* TamerAndChaster: Far less racy than most of Tanizaki's other novels (many of which have pronounced BDSM themes), although several of the characters' sex lives are still relevant within the story.
* ThreeActStructure: The book is divided into three sections that do follow somewhat different sets of events and relationships, although any given event in one section may or may not be relevant in later sections (see RandomEventsPlot and SliceOfLife).
* TraumaCongaLine: Taeko gets put through the wringer late in the novel (broken relationships with her sisters; ilness; her daughter dying during birth).
* YamatoNadeshiko: Yukiko [[SilkHidingSteel weaponizes]] it.
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