The following version of this book was used to create the guide: Murakami, Haruki. After the Quake. Vintage International, 2003.

After the Quake features six short stories, each of which is (mostly) distinct from the others. They are all loosely connected by the trauma of the Kobe earthquake in 1995.

The first story, "UFO in Kushiro," is an account of the divorce of a man named Komura. His wife, who is nameless, slowly begins to fall into an extreme depression in the wake of the Kobe earthquake and cannot tear herself away from the television. Eventually, she leaves him, and Komura is left to put the pieces of his life together. When a coworker asks him to travel to Kushiro and deliver a mysterious box to his sister, Keiko, Komura agrees, as he cannot think of a good reason not to go. He is greeted at the airport in Kushiro by Keiko and her friend Shimao. The three of them eat dinner and discuss a broad range of seemingly facile topics before Keiko brings Komura to a love hotel on the outskirts of the city. She leaves him there with Shimao, who attempts to initiate sex. Komura, however, cannot become aroused; he continues thinking of his wife and the earthquakes. Shimao makes a joke that the box which Komura gave to Keiko contained the last little part of him, something which seems to sober Komura. He tells Shimao he feels far from home.

"Landscape with Flatiron" is the story of Junko, a young woman who has fled her home to a small seaside town in the Ibaraki Prefecture. She lives with a college dropout named Keisuke who is slightly older than her, but her best friend is a middle-aged man named Miyake who is in the habit of building bonfires on the beach. Junko met Miyake at her job as a convenient store clerk and was drawn to him when he revealed his life-long fear of refrigerators. Miyake has left his family in Kobe in the wake of the earthquake because he was so traumatized by the experience. Now, he works as a painter, and his current project is called Landscape with Flatiron. One night, Junko insists that she and Keisuke join Miyake for a bonfire. After getting in a disagreement with Miyake, Keisuke leaves, and Miyake begins explaining symbolism to Junko, invoking Jack London, who authored Junko's favorite story, "To Build a Fire," which she is convinced is about a man who wants to die. In the midst of explaining Landscape with Flatiron, Junko begins to cry and says that she is empty inside. Miyake says they can die together once the fire burns out.

"All God's Children Can Dance" is a surreal narrative about a man named Yoshiya who lives with his mother, an ardent missionary who is away in Kobe. Yoshiya is on the subway home one day when he spots a man missing an earlobe and decides to follow him because he believes the man is his long-lost father. Yoshiya was told as a child by his mother and his spiritual advisor Mr. Tabata that he was the son of god. The story sprung from Yoshiya's mother's pregnancy, which was likely a product of her relationship with an abortion doctor who was missing an earlobe, a man so convinced of his contraceptive prowess that when Yoshiya's mother became pregnant he abandoned her. Yoshiya follows the man with the missing earlobe into a warehouse district, but the man disappears and Yoshiya finds himself on a baseball field, which invokes memories of his childhood when he did not understand why his father, God, would not help him catch fly balls. Yoshiya walks to the pitcher's mound and begins to dance before calling out God's name.

"Thailand" is the story of a woman named Satsuki who takes a vacation in Thailand. She has recently divorced her husband because she cannot have children and works as a pathologist. Her guide in Thailand is a man named Nimit who was recommended to her by an American friend. Nimit brings Satsuki to a peaceful swimming hole for days on end, but at the end of the trip invites her to come to his village and speak with an old soothsayer. The soothsayer presents Satsuki with a prophecy about her dreams, and suggests that if she does not act as told, she will never be able to overcome her sadness. Satsuki holds great anger toward a man from Kobe whom she blames for her inability to have children, even hoping he died in the earthquake. At the airport, Satsuki tries to tell Nimit about her dreams, but he insists that she has to face them herself.

"Super-Frog Saves Tokyo" is about a man named Katagiri who works as a collections agent for a bank and is primarily tasked with upholding the debts of the criminal underworld. One day, he comes home to find a giant anthropomorphic frog in his kitchen, who goes only by Frog. Frog insists that Katagiri needs to help him save Tokyo from an earthquake of its own that will be caused by an entity called Worm. To show he is serious, Frog assists Katagiri in his work. Katagiri agrees to help Frog, but on the evening before the battle, he is shot while making his collections. Katagiri wakes up in the hospital, where he is told that he was not shot at all, but suddenly entered a coma for reasons the doctors cannot explain. Frog appears to him that evening and tells Katagiri that he was in a coma because he was assisting Frog with fighting Worm. Frog is severely wounded and dies a gruesome death before Katagiri suddenly jerks awake. He tells the nurse about Frog and mournfully says that he has gone back to the mud.

"Honey Pie" is an account of the love triangle between three friends, Junpei, Sayoko, and Takatsuki. They met in college, and Takatsuki began a relationship with Sayoko before Junpei had a chance to. After several years of marriage, Sayoko and Takatsuki have been divorced; Junpei often helps Sayoko raise her daughter by Takatsuki, Sala. Junpei tells Sala a story about two bears named Masakichi and Tonkichi; the former makes honey, and the latter catches salmon. Eventually, Tonkichi's business dries up and he struggles to accept Masakichi's charity. Sala finds the ending sad. That evening, Junpei and Sayoko finally make love before Sala walks in on them and says The Earthquake Man, a frightening entity she has been seeing, told her to come find them. That evening, Junpei resolves to ask Sayoko to marry him, and also decides how the story with the bears should end: Tonkichi should learn to make honey pies from Masakichi's stock.