Tomoka

Tomoka is one of the novel’s primary characters and first person narrators. Chapter 1 is written from her vantage point. Tomoka is 21 years old and living in Tokyo by herself. After “graduating from junior college,” Tomoka found a job at a general merchandise store called Eden (8). Although she has always wanted to live in Tokyo, her life in the present brings her little satisfaction. Because Eden is “the only job offer” she received, Tomoka feels dislocated from the life she once imagined for herself in the city (12). Although Tomoka wants to get another job and fears living “a life with no dreams or ambitions, getting old and wrinkled” while still working at Eden, she feels incapable of making the effort required “to do anything about it” (14). She wishes that she could prove herself, but fears that she has no real dreams and no motivation to even make goals...