Naomi's story
Kanako's story

Translator's Note

Naomi, who has a trauma from childhood violence,
Kanako, who is still suppressed and oppressed by violence today,
The perfect counterattack by two women who can no longer tolerate violence.

Naomi, a female sales employee at a department store, has suffered from childhood trauma due to her father's habitual violence against her mother.
Kanako, a housewife, is currently exposed to the violence wielded by her husband.
Naomi accidentally discovers that her friend Kanako is living in helpless fear, unable to even attempt to escape her husband's brutal violence.
Naomi, who cannot forgive the man who tramples on her friend, devises a 'clearance plan' (a plan to make her husband disappear) on behalf of Kanako.
Moreover, Naomi thinks that this plan, in which all the circumstances are exquisitely intertwined and progressing in her favor, is almost like fate.
Even Kanako, who had maintained a passive attitude, agrees that the only way to escape the hell of violence is for her husband to disappear from the world, and begins to move toward perfect execution.
However, as the flaws in the plan, which they believed to be a perfect crime that meticulously calculated every possible scenario, from murdering her husband and burying him in secret to treating it as a simple disappearance, are revealed one by one, Naomi and Kanako find themselves in a desperate situation.

"Naomi and Kanako" largely contains 'Naomi's story' and 'Kanako's story'.
The process of proposing, preparing, and executing a clearance plan is depicted in 'Naomi's Story', while the process of dealing with the inevitable aftermath of the sudden disappearance they had planned to complete the plan and the tenacious confrontation with the suspicious gazes of those around them is depicted in 'Kanako's Story'.
The story of the two women naturally brings to mind the movie [Thelma & Louise], but as the story unfolds, the direction of the story changes and the ending becomes difficult to predict, keeping the tension high until the last line.
It's not just the readers.
Even Hideo Okuda revealed his thoughts, saying, “I hesitated until the very end about how to end it.”
This novel takes the reader on a roller coaster ride, rushing toward a climax until the very last moment, only to deliver a moment of exhilarating catharsis and a sense of relief.

We will never get caught!
I have no regrets, no remorse, no hesitation in getting rid of my husband…

The main points of interest in "Naomi and Kanako" are the friendship and loyalty between the women, and the energy that the female characters exude.
Among them, the curiosity of whether Naomi and Kanako will eventually be caught or not doubles the thrill and makes the reader's heart race the most.
They murdered Kanako's husband and gave him the motive of "fleeing overseas on charges of embezzlement," but her husband's younger sister, Yoko Hattori, continues to pursue her brother, bringing up points that she finds questionable about his disappearance, things they had never considered.
As a single, career-oriented woman with a strong sense of purpose, Yoko's relentless pursuit of suspicions gradually widens the gaps in her supposedly flawless clearance plan, putting increasing pressure on them.
But what's really strange is that Naomi and Kanako are criminals who committed murder, and yet they don't show an ounce of remorse, guilt, or hesitation, and yet somehow the reader becomes an accomplice and sincerely hopes they don't get caught.

How is this possible? This novel, centering on the not-so-light topics of "domestic violence" and "husband murder," vividly exposes the contradictions and absurdities of modern society by demonstrating how flawed the social mechanisms that keep the world running safely are.
The physical scars and pain that domestic violence leaves behind will fade with time, but the scars and pain that it leaves on the mind will not disappear with time and force people to make extreme choices.
Society fails to protect individuals who fall victim to domestic violence, and individuals choose to find ways to survive by exploiting loopholes in social institutions to secure their own safety.
However, it is revealed that Naomi and Kanako's counterattack method was actually flawed, and having failed to fully counterattack, they dream of a new challenge and once again cleverly exploit the flaws in the social system.
This huge joke is probably the kind of humor that only Hideo Okuda can use.