| Sumario: | This article explores the seldom expressed class anxiety present behind representations of the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923. As with most disasters, those living in the poorer districts suffered more acutely. The government was aware of this fact and it lies unspoken behind the post-quake ideological campaign emphasizing unity. Most popular representations of the quake did little to trouble the state discourse. In Nagata Mikihiko's work, however, the interaction between the narrator and a sufferer reveals both the differing conditions of vulnerability that caused the unequal distribution of damage as well as the middle class anxiety when faced with that difference.
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