The chapter concerns the way reproductive futures are imagined in speculative fiction by three Japanese female authors: Ōhara Mariko, Murata Sayaka, and Ueda Sayuri. Their imaginings counter ideologies of reproductive futurism, yet the narrative techniques they use—a circularity of the past, endless repetitions of the present moment, or the absence of a future for humanity—can point to the “failure” of the past and the present moment—failure as a denial of a linear progression of time with a singular goal-oriented success. This failure, however, is constructive in generating a meaningful understanding of the past and ongoing issues of reproduction. Ironically, the failure may provide alternative ways to engage in the future when trauma, loss, and demise are reconnected to human, especially women’s, struggles and the environment. Therefore, understanding the failure in their stories provides an alternative way to understanding feminist futurity.

Introduction

The science fiction, or SF (esu-efu), that emerged in Japan in the early postwar era was predominantly influenced by Anglo-American and European works. While Japanese authors were drawn to Western aspects of the literary genre of science fiction and sought to integrate its narrative techniques into their works, there were many debates about and attempts to move away from imported models in an effort to develop a distinctively Japanese SF genre. Thus, SF has evolved in Japan as a discursive genre of imaginative fiction that pushes the boundaries of other genres. The discursiveness of the SF genre, in general, in which inclusive and constantly changing multifold definitions and media mix, allowed women writers and artists to question the boundaries of the genre and expand it to suit their own creative speculative styles and agendas. The genre opened the door to greater experimentation in women’s writing, which in turn encouraged women to push their way into science fiction and speculative fiction, both in their prose fiction and shōjo manga (girls’ comics). Whereas this experimentation has led to many exciting innovations, such as questioning of the physical limitations of the body and of gender determination, in this chapter I will consider the way women writers of SF have challenged narratives of futures by looking at three different kinds of “failure”: repetitive time, circularity, and a future without humans.