Pathway to Japanese Literature

Discover Japan's stories—across time, across language.

Conquest of the SkyAuthor: Kagawa Toyohiko

Original Title	空中征服
Author	賀川豊彦
Genre	Fantasy & Sci-Fi
Author Type	Male Author
Summary	In a sweltering slum, a sleepless visionary named Kagawa Toyohiko awakens as Osaka’s self-proclaimed mayor through a feverish dream. His inaugural address—delivered to an empty hall—declares war on the city’s suffocating smog, vowing to purge its skies of industrial soot to save its citizens from lung-ravaged fates. Yet Osaka’s reality is a labyrinth of greed: factory chimneys belch unchecked, council members bicker like squabbling animals, and capitalist interests dismiss public health as collateral damage. Kagawa’s crusade spirals into surreal chaos—debates with resurrected warlords, phantom labor uprisings, and a city council where politicians morph into literal beasts defending their profits. As strikes paralyze streets and shadowy thugs stalk his doorstep, Kagawa grapples with a disorienting truth: cleansing Osaka’s air demands dismantling not just chimneys, but an entire world order. Blending biting satire and ecological urgency, this tale pits one man’s quixotic idealism against the monstrous machinery of progress, where every breath is a battleground between survival and greed.