Point of View

Tokyo Ueno Station is narrated in first person, predominantly past tense, by a ghost named Kazu Mori. Significantly, the narrator's last name means “to die” in Latin, which is fitting, obviously, because this character is dead, and also because he is driven to despair and ultimately suicide in large part by the deaths of those he loved most. Kazu narrates his story from Ueno Imperial Gift Park in Tokyo. At the time of his death, he was living in the park as a member of the homeless community there. In 2006, Kazu stepped in front of a train at Ueno Station and he has since remained in some form of stasis between living and dead, a purgatory of sorts, unable to pass on to the afterlife and incapable of affecting the world around him. Several scenes are narrated in present tense as Kazu remarks on what...