Bokko-chan

Chapter-by-chapter summary

Spoiler warning: this section covers the plots of “Bokko-chan” and “Ōi Dete Koi”, including their endings. The book has 50 stand-alone stories rather than chapters, so they are grouped into parts here.

Part 1: Fifty stories, no chapters

Bokko-chan has no chapters and no shared plot. It holds 50 stand-alone stories, each only a few pages long, which Hoshi picked himself. The contents begin with “Akuma”, then the title story, then “Ōi Dete Koi” and “Koroshiya Desu no yo”. They end with “Saigo no Chikyūjin”. Titles in between include “Raihōsha”, “Nerawareta Hoshi”, “Manē Eiji”, “Jinruiai” and “Yokubō no Shiro”. Why it matters: you can open the book anywhere, and each piece is a complete small experience.

Part 2: “Bokko-chan”, the title story

The owner of a bar builds a beautiful female robot, Bokko-chan, to serve the customers and bring in more drink sales. She says little and mostly gives back the words the customers say to her, and she never gets drunk. The men fall for her anyway, and their feelings go nowhere. One young man, hopelessly in love, secretly puts poison in her glass and leaves. Poison cannot harm a robot, and in the end it is the people in the bar who suffer, while Bokko-chan alone is left standing at the counter, calm and unchanged. The story first appeared in February 1958 in the fan magazine Uchūjin under the title “Jinzō Bijin” (Artificial Beauty). It was reprinted in the magazine Hōseki that May and became Hoshi's breakthrough. Why it matters: the story shows in a few pages how strongly people are drawn to someone who only reflects them back.

Part 3: “Ōi Dete Koi”

After a typhoon, a deep hole opens where a village shrine once stood. A young villager shouts “Hey, come out!” into it and throws in a stone, but no answer comes back. A reporter lowers a weighted string and it snaps. A scientist tries to measure the depth by sound and hears no echo. People then start using the hole to get rid of things: secret documents, radioactive waste, sewage, and evidence of crimes. At the end, a construction worker on a steel frame hears the same call from the sky and ignores it. A small pebble falls past him, and he does not notice. Why it matters: Hoshi never lectures about waste or hidden costs; one small stone makes the point.

Part 4: Four more set-ups

Here are the openings of a few other stories, with their endings left out. In “Koroshiya desu no yo”, a woman who says she is a hired killer visits N, the head of a company, and asks whom he would like to have killed. In “Raihōsha”, aliens arrive on Earth, but they stay cool when humans show off their gold and technology. In “Seikatsu Ijishō”, an official spends a day taking cards to different places in a peaceful world with no war or struggle for survival, where his ministry keeps everything running. In “Atsusa”, a man walks into a police box on a summer afternoon and asks to be arrested, because he feels he is about to do something. Why it matters: each story begins with one odd situation and builds from it, which shows how much Hoshi can do with a few lines.

Part 5: Reading the book as a whole

The Shinchosha paperback runs to 352 pages. It includes an afterword by Hoshi, a commentary by the writer Yasutaka Tsutsui, and small drawings by Hiroshi Manabe. The stories work best in small doses: read three or four, then stop, so each twist has room around it. Afterwards, pick a favourite and split it into set-up, development and last line. Why it matters: the book's strength is its brevity, and the pace you choose changes how well the endings land.

Characters

These are the key people and terms in the book.

• Bokko-chan: the female robot who serves customers in the bar of the title story. She says little and mostly repeats what customers say, so each man hears what he wants to hear.
• The bar owner: the man who builds Bokko-chan to attract customers and sell more drinks. He is the one who sets the story in motion.
• The customers: the men in the bar who become hopelessly infatuated with Bokko-chan. They stand for anyone who longs to be listened to.
• The young villager: the person in “Ōi Dete Koi” who first shouts into the hole after the typhoon and throws in a stone. He gets no reply.
• The hole: the bottomless pit that appears at the old shrine site. It swallows whatever people want to forget, and it works almost like a character.
• The people who use the hole: the villagers, officials and others who send documents, waste and evidence into it. They stand for anyone who prefers a cheap solution to a lasting one.
• Shinichi Hoshi: the author, who chose and arranged these 50 stories himself and wrote the afterword.
• Short-short: a very short story form, usually a few pages, built around one idea. Hoshi is Japan's best-known master of it.
• Ochi (the twist): the Japanese word for a story's closing turn. Many pieces in the book are built to deliver one.

Writing about this book

This book suits a short school report because you can focus on one story and still say something about the whole. Here are themes and questions to start from, not an essay to copy.

• Why does a robot who mostly repeats the customers' own words become so popular? What does that say about how people like to be listened to?
• In “Ōi Dete Koi”, who is responsible for the pebble at the end: the people who dumped things, or the people who looked away?
• Hoshi says very little about feelings. How does he still make you feel something at the end?
• Pick two stories and compare their twists. Which one did you see coming, and why?

Use concrete moments, such as the snapped string in the hole or a customer talking to a robot. Then explain what each moment shows about people, in your own words and with your own example from daily life.