In 2025, Japanese literature took a turn for the weird

This year’s Japanese literature in English translation was yet again ruled by a clowder of cozy cat fiction and the occasional crime story.

But 2025 wasn’t without some surprises. Two ghostly figures — novelist Osamu Dazai, who died by suicide in 1948 at age 38, and anonymous, mask-wearing horror writer and YouTuber Uketsu — captivated bookworms online and off.

Dazai’s work aging out of copyright has encouraged a slew of retranslations and first-ever translations into English: three books this year alone, with a new translation of “No Longer Human,” rendered by David Boyd, coming in May. This new wave of Dazai’s appeal — 77 years after his death — has reached beyond literature circles and into social media, propelled initially by the anime “Bungo Stray Dogs,” in which Dazai is one of the protagonists. A viral, cheeky and almost meaningless “Dazai, ahh” soundbite from the anime swept through TikTok, followed by videos of people reading quotes from his books, many relating to his melancholy musings.