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troperville

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tools

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toys

The novel contains examples of:

• Above Good and Evil: The Little People are described in these exact words.
• Abusive Parents: Fuka-Eri's, Tengo's, and Aomame.
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: The three things Aomame hates the most are: abussive men, religious fanatasim, and constipation.
• As You Know: Used often as a means of exposition and summarizing previous events.
• Black and Gray Morality: When the good guy is an assassin, you're pretty much stuck with this.
• Chekhov's Gun: Discussed at length regarding an actual gun. Ultimately averted, as the gun is never fired.
• Doorstopper: The Japanese version is 1600 pages long and the English version is 900 pages. The audiobook clocks in at over 46 hours.
• Down the Rabbit Hole: How Aomame ends up in the altered world.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: It takes about 20 years for Aomame and Tengo to find each other.
• Everyone Calls Him Barkeep: The Leader is never named in speech, although his real name is Tamotsu Fukada.
• First Girl Wins: After two decades apart, even.
• Freudian Excuse: Tengo has a lot of daddy issues.
• Gainax Ending: Tengo and Aomame make it out of the two-moon world, but where they end up is not quite like how Aomame remembers it.
• Genre Busting: The novel is a fantasy/sci-fi/thriller mix.
• The Grotesque: Ushikawa
• Hypocrite: Tengo's girlfriend, despite being married to someone else, insists on Tengo being completely monogamous.
• Les Yay: Aomame spends a lot of time thinking about other women's bodies.
• Literary Allusion Title: 1Q84 is a pun on 1984.
• Murder the Hypotenuse: Tengo's girlfriend conveniently disappears as Aomame gets closer to finding him.
  • Same thing with Ayumi getting killed.
• Mushroom Samba/Pink Elephants: Tengo has a rather odd drug induced hallucination.
• Never Say "Die": Aomame refers to people dying as "being sent to another world".
• Not so Different: Ushikawa realizes that he has a lot in common with Tengo.
• Omnibus: Originally published as three separate volumes, the English release combined all into one really big book.
• Parrot Exposition: Happens a lot, especially when someone is talking to Fuka-Eri.
• Pun-Based Title: The title is a pun on 1984. The number 9 in Japanese is pronounced the same as the English letter Q.
• The Red Stapler: Janácek's Sinfonietta became more popular after the release of this book.
• Sadistic Choice: Aomame can either kill the leader, causing the Little People to lose any interest in Tengo but result in Sagikake coming after her, or let him live, in which case the Little People will arrange Tengo's death.
  • She ultimately chooses to kill the leader, but the effects don't get explored in time.
• Sealed with a Kiss: The book ends with Tengo and Aomame sleeping together.
• Spoiler Title: After 78 chapters of Tengo and Aomame looking for each other, the last chapter of Book 3 is called "Tengo and Aomame".
• The Stoic: Fuka-Eri never shows emotions.
• Strange Girl: Fuka-Eri, the teenage girl whose draft novel Air Chrysalis sets off Tengu's storyline, has a totally flat affect in her speech and seems vaguely autistic, for reasons that become clear over the course of the novel.
• Three Lines Some Waiting: Books 1 & 2 are Two Lines, No Waiting with Tengo and Aomame, but Book 3 introduces Ushikawa.
• To Be Lawful or Good: Aomame thinks that the illegality of her actions are a trivial detail.
• Well Done Son Guy: Tengo. What's odd is that he manages to come to an understanding while his father is in a coma.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: Aomame kills people who, as far as she's concerned, deserve it.