“Who's the Monster?”

The oft-spoken and sometimes sung question “Who’s the monster?” in Koreeda Hirokazu’s Monster (2023) is just one of many times the film evokes monstrosity, monsters, and the acts of naming them. While Japan has a long history of monsters (kaibutsu, bakemono) representing the mysterious and fantastical, Koreeda’s film situates questions of the monstrous in everyday life. In the film’s unfolding plot that seems to be about school bullying but ends up portraying the friendship and potential romance of two young boys, the descriptor “monster” takes on shifting meanings that comment on how behavior and people are deemed outside of social norms. Putting the rich history of Japanese monsters and ideas of alterity and resistance in monster theory in conversation with notions of futurity in queer theory, this chapter explores how Koreeda’s film deploys naming the monster as a performative act to challenge existing social norms and undo a single meaning around “monster.” In so doing, the film develops an ethical engagement, activating a call and response with the unknown, that highlights future potential instead of present reality.