紫陽花が散る街 (The City Where Purple Flowers Scatter)

The story takes place in a beautiful but deeply authoritarian country whose capital is called Mahoroba. The nation presents itself as peaceful, prosperous and aesthetically perfect. Its streets are clean, its white buildings gleam beneath an unnaturally vivid sky, and seasonal flowers—especially hydrangeas—are cultivated as symbols of social harmony. Yet the apparent beauty is manufactured and maintained through surveillance, censorship, reproductive control, rigid gender roles and the systematic deletion of unwanted people.

The central figure is Uroko, a woman in her late thirties who works for a governmental or quasi-governmental surveillance system. Her job consists of observing citizens through an enormous network of cameras, sensors, microphones and biological monitors. Every resident is tracked through a centralized digital infrastructure known as Izanagi. Its associated personal devices, databases and analytic systems collect fingerprints, voices, faces, locations, health data, purchases, conversations, intimate behaviour and even bodily functions.

Uroko’s society is obsessed with an official concept called the “Happiness Score”, or something very close to it. Citizens gain or lose points according to how well they serve the state. Good behaviour includes working, marrying an approved partner, producing children, remaining healthy, consuming designated products and complying with social expectations. Marriage partners can be allocated through a state-controlled matching service. Men and women are encouraged to reproduce, and the society treats childbirth as a patriotic contribution rather than a private decision.