"Super-Frog Saves Tokyo" Essay

In Murakami’s "Super Frog saves Tokyo," we have two types of heroes. One being Katagiri, our plain, ordinary man living in a plain, ordinary world (according to his perception of himself); a regular hero that the audience strongly empathizes with, struggles and all. Our next character and a romantic-type leader, Super Frog, comes in and saves Tokyo from the devastating earthquake that will be caused by Worm, a vessel of rage and evil. These hero types are extremely vital to the deeper meaning of the story and the metamorphosis of Katagiri from the ironic hero he appears to be in his mind, to the regular hero, and a good person overall.

Frog is a blend of contradictions. He is a lighthearted, gentle-spirited giant (“powerfully built, standing over six feet tall”) who loves art and nature, yet when Worm’s growing instability threatens the city of Tokyo, Frog shoulders his mission bravely and resolutely; even though things seem extremely bleak, he trusts himself and his human companion to pull through in the end and save Tokyo- to save the ordinary people that are like Katagiri, people like us. “For many years I lived as a pacifist, loving art, living with nature. Fighting is not something I like to do. I do it because I have to.” In a way, Frog resembles Katagiri, who doesn’t like to do the dirty cases given to him but does it because he knows that no one else will. Super Frog speaks courteously and respectfully to and of Katagiri yet proves capable of stirring fear and terror in his enemies, such as the Big Bear case and Worm. These aspects of frog allow us to conclude that he is our romantically-inclined leader hero.

Katagiri, on the other hand, can be seen as our average, “everyday” kind of hero. On the surface, there doesn’t seem to be much to our main protagonist. “I'm an absolutely ordinary guy. Less than ordinary. I'm going bald, I'm getting a potbelly, I turned 40 last month. My feet are flat. The doctor told me recently that I have diabetic...