As the main character reads more about the history of this township, we learn more about the Ainu, the original inhabitants of Hokkaido, and how one Ainu helped settlers found Junitaki.

Via the Shiogari Pass, they reach the fictional Junitaki township. They’re not very inspired researchers, but find a clue eventually and take the train to Asahikawa. The main character and his girlfriend with the beautiful ears head to the Dolphin Hotel in Sapporo (Hokkaido) to start their chase. But I was often wondering where the Japanese hide their livestock farms. Even if there turns out not to have been any goal.”Īpparently there were 5000 sheep in Hokkaido in 1978, which is quite impressive as I hardly saw more than a few cows and some wild horses at a horse reservation on my trip to Kyushu (another part of Japan, I know). Everyone involved sees it as a wild sheep (or goose) chase, but what can you do when more powerful people (the institutions) want something from you? “You hold the ball, you had better run for the goal. A sheep that might not exist and yet is the invisible driver behind change. Then the journey starts as the main character is sent to Hokkaido to chase a certain sheep. The first part of the book takes place in Tokyo. So let’s stop viewing sheep merely as a source of wool and meat. If you doubt the power of sheep, then remember Genghis Khan, because one sheep can transform the world. The sheep is the one with the big plans, bringing down institutions and creating chaos and order. An act that is often seen as a blessing of the gods. I guess that is why I sometimes lack inspiration or action, because of my sheeplessness.īut what is the purpose of the pure white sheep with a brownish star on its back that started this wild sheep chase? The sheep has a monumental plan to transform humanity and the human world and does so by entering a person’s body.

That is what it is to be ‘sheepless.'” So that’s what happens when you’re left with the shadow of a sheep, a sheep bigger than life itself. But without the sheep there is no expelling the idea.

“The sheep goes away leaving only an idea.

Murakami a wild sheep chase