Love in the Time of Corona: Heterosexual Romance, Space, and Society in Japanese Fiction on COVID-19

“Love in the Time of Corona: Heterosexual Romance, Space, and Society in Japanese Fiction on COVID-19” is an academic article by Japanese literature scholar Mina Qiao that investigates the existing features of Japanese society, COVID-19 and their combined influence on heterosexual relationships, as shown from a new genre of Japanese literature known as COVID-19 Pandemic Fiction. The article employs a gendered perspective, analyzing the respective roles of men and women within real and fictional relationships.

Heterosexual media is especially prevalent in Japan because of the policy of “reproductive futurism,” meaning an overemphasis on the birth of new children to secure a country’s future. The policy reinforces the privilege of heterosexuality and informs purity education practices that seek to regulate female sexuality and reproduction and creates a social environment that favors heterosexual romances in media.

With the advent of COVID-19, romance has become increasingly “online,” a phenomenon reflected in the short story “Ai Means Love” by Ueda Takahiro. It follows the male protagonist who desires more physical intimacy with his fiancee, Ai. Ai, whose name is the Japanese word for love, disagrees as she wants to spend her life with him in “terminal space,” or a virtual space akin to the Internet. The story raises the question of whether love can exist solely through technological means, and whether connections through cyberspace can replace physical contact, which forms the bodily experience of love.

Another story, “Underground Wind, Rooftop’s Soil” by Tsukui Itsuki, tells of a romance between the male protagonist, who uses self-isolation as his strategy for protecting himself from COVID-19, and the female protagonist, who believes in living life as normal. He eventually gives up his isolationist lifestyle and learns about the importance of community from his new girlfriend, reflecting the difficulty of community formation under lockdown regulations and the conflict between individual freedoms and government policy, with the story suggesting the pursuit of love despite the regulations.

Kanehara Hitomi’s work “Unsocial Distance” takes a starkly different tone towards the pandemic and romance. Instead of forcing the lovers apart, the pandemic drives the protagonists Sanan and Koki closer together and allows them to further defy societal expectations by traveling to meet each other against government guidelines. The virus becomes a metaphor for rebellion and anti-sociability, such as in Koki’s statement, “I wish [coronavirus] could be designed to kill my mother, owners of evil corporations, politicians who are all about their own interests, and those who oppress and exploit others” (Kanehara, qtd. in Qiao), as he invokes COVID-19 in support of his destructive sentiments. The story also mentions issues such as unemployment and financial struggle, which paint a more realistic picture of pandemic life. Shaped by the heteronormative culture of its society, Japanese literature has addressed the interpersonal implications of the pandemic in varying ways. Some use fiction to express their concerns about the disruptions to human connection under lockdown, while others see the pandemic as an opportunity to rebel against strict societal expectations and hierarchy.