“Men like him, managers of soaplands and Chinese clubs and S&M clubs, not to mention gigolos and pimps - men who eke out a living exploiting women's bodies - all have one characteristic in common: they look as if something has eroded away inside them. I talked about this with Jun once but couldn't explain it very well. I tried to describe it in a lot of different ways, saying it was as though they've given up hope, or lost their pride, or lied to themselves too long, or have no emotions left whatsoever, but she didn't really get it. Only when I described their faces as blank - only then did she say she understood, kind of. About two or three weeks after that, I saw a news report on North Korea. It was about how people were starving there, and they had shots of some of the children. And in the faces of those skinny, dying kids was the same whatever-it-is that you see in the faces of men who live off the traffic in women's bodies.”—Kenji