Haruki decides to break up with Chikako since Chikako has to go back to her hometown Fukushima and take care of her father. Haruki chooses to stay in Tokyo for his job. Nine years later, Haruki found out that Chikako, who “died” in the Great East Japan Earthquake, is still alive and works at a hospice care, but it seems like she has lost her memory about the earthquake.

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In YOKOSUKA STRANGE INCIDENT, we seem to follow Haruki who takes a break away from the busy modern life to find out the truth of a mysterious case, but instead, director Ostuka gently leads us to aware a social reality that’s long been neglected: people are incapable and lack of resource to heal from the traumatic memories in Japan.

The film presents two generations, those who witnessed Japan’s surrender at the end of World War II in 1945, and those who experienced the Great East Japan Earthquake in 2011. It’s obvious in the film that though many years have passed, these people are still suffering from the trauma, and they deal with it by using psychological mechanism to suppress the collective memories and pretend that everything is just fine. Only till the end do we understand that the “strange incident” is not only normal, but also a realistic representation of the post-truth era we are in today.