A Device for Compressed Perception
An Experiment in Semi-Nonfiction
<Key Points>
1. The Gap Between Reality and Genre: Reality is inherently continuous, but human beings divide it through language, creating artificial genres such as “novel,” “general nonfiction,” and “criticism.” Semi-nonfiction presents a new form that does not fit into these existing boxes: a “compressed device for perception” positioned between them. It is an attempt to preserve the fluidity of reality while delivering its core insight to the reader.
2. Transforming Abstraction into Concrete Devices: The essence of semi-nonfiction lies in transforming abstract propositions into unforgettable concrete forms: national loss into an archipelago divided into three parts, the philosophy of death into Memento Mori Airlines, the limits of intelligence into Mikeko coughing softly. It hands the reader a compressed object that lodges in memory and allows an unwritten world to decompress inside the mind.
3. An Intermediate Form Suited to the Present Age: For busy modern readers, full-length novels are too long, general-interest nonfiction is too dry, and social media is too thin. Semi-nonfiction aims for the space between them. It preserves structure while retaining sensory temperature. In the age of AI, it may also function as a form in which the human designs the structure while AI supplies the skin. In that sense, it can be seen as an inevitable form adapted to the conditions of the age.
Reality is continuous.
Human sensation, memory, history, and society are originally fluid, without clear boundaries. Yet human beings divide them through language: “novel,” “general-interest nonfiction,” “criticism,” “essay,” “nonfiction.” These categories are convenient, but they are not natural divisions etched into reality itself. They are artificial boundaries sustained by publishing systems, educational institutions, reader expectations, and the inertia of criticism.
Language is, at its core, a device of discretization.
The moment we say “rain,” humidity, temperature, droplet size, the feeling of water on skin, past memories, and the reflection of light are all compressed into a single word. In the same way, when we say “novel,” countless possible styles, densities, purposes, and ways of reading are forced into a single box. But that box is not necessarily the essence of the thing.
What is a novel?
We tend to assume that it involves characters, dialogue, events, conflict, and movement toward an ending. But that is only one possibility within the vast space of what a novel can be. If the novel is, in principle, a form in which one may write in any way one wishes, then other forms should also be possible.
A form that does not endlessly elaborate the details of characters, but instead presents a hypothetical world in compressed form.
A form that has the structure of criticism, yet carries the subjective texture of fiction.
A form that is less direct than general-interest nonfiction, but less verbose than a full-length novel.
For now, I would like to call this semi-nonfiction.
Semi-nonfiction is not a halfway point between fact and fiction. More precisely, it is a compressed form that transforms abstract propositions about reality into concrete fictional devices.
It does not merely report facts. Nor does it flee into pure fantasy. It extracts structures, hypotheses, anxieties, and distortions of perception from reality, and presents them through fictional people, landscapes, institutions, dialogues, losses, and symbols.
Its aim is not to immerse the reader in a long story.
Its aim is to slightly shift the way the reader sees reality.
Perhaps this is the form our age requires.
People often speak of declining readership, but the human attraction to concrete stories has not changed much. Human beings respond more strongly to the concrete than to the abstract.
If one says “the loss of national sovereignty,” it remains a concept. But if one writes that the signs outside a train station have changed into unfamiliar characters, abstraction becomes landscape.
If one says “surveillance society,” it remains institutional theory. But if one writes that a vending machine displays a social credit score, the system acquires the temperature of daily life.
If one says “views on life and death,” it remains a philosophical term. But if one writes of an airline whose boarding gate bears a giant skull logo, and whose check-in counter asks passengers about the regrets of their lives, death becomes an experiential device.
Abstract structures reach the body more easily once they are transformed into concrete form.
At the same time, the concrete alone cannot reveal the world.
One can draw readers in through a character’s love, family, loss, and conflict. But if one sinks too deeply into those details, geopolitical, institutional, historical, and civilizational structures recede into the background. Ordinary fiction draws readers in through rich concrete detail, but precisely because of that richness, it can dilute the sharpness of structure.
Nonfiction, by contrast, can present structure clearly, but it often feels dry. It may produce understanding, yet it rarely conveys the subjective temperature of a world undergoing deformation.
Semi-nonfiction aims at the space between the two.
It preserves structure without enclosing itself in dry analysis. By placing a small number of concrete elements, it allows an unwritten world to unfold inside the reader’s mind.
I did not invent this form first and then begin writing in it. Rather, there were strange pieces I had already written, and only later did I realize that they shared the same operation of perception. Semi-nonfiction is the provisional name I later gave to that operation.
For example, the geopolitical loss of a nation becomes a future archipelago divided among three empires.
Hokkaido sinks into the shadow of Russia. Okinawa and Kyushu are subjected to Chinese-style surveillance and assimilation. Honshu is absorbed into American military, market, and cultural domination. The loss of a nation does not end with a change in maps. Language changes. City signs change. The place where memory lives changes. And the memory of a lover who disappeared into Hokkaido overlaps with the disappearance of the name “Japan” itself.
Criticism says, “the loss of sovereignty.”
Semi-nonfiction places the lost name of a country and the lost voice of a woman on the same map.
The same applies to death.
“To contemplate death is to reorganize the priorities of life” is a philosophical proposition. Line up the Stoics, Epicurus, and psychological research, and it becomes a chapter in a short nonfiction book. But that alone feels dry.
So the philosophy of death becomes Memento Mori Airlines.
At the boarding gate is a giant skull logo. At the check-in counter, passengers are asked about the regrets of their lives. The in-flight announcement says, “We will soon be departing from reality.” The meal served on board is “the Last Supper.”
Philosophy does not have to take the form of a lecture.
It can also take the form of an airline.
The same applies to embodiment and the limits of intelligence.
“Abstract thought cannot transcend the finitude of the body” is a philosophical proposition. Discuss modern intellectuals, language, the body, death, aging, and illness, and it becomes criticism. But that alone does not fully convey the sensation of language losing momentum before the body.
So that proposition becomes a cat.
The teacher lifts the world through words. He speaks of society, of human beings, of civilization, of the self. Yet on his lap, Mikeko coughs softly. The teacher’s words can lift most things, at least once, to a higher place. But the cough does not rise. The body cannot be cured by argument.
Here, the cat is not merely a character. It is a device that pulls abstraction back into the body.
The height of Soseki-like intelligence is measured from another angle by Mikeko’s small body. The modern intellectual who tries to grasp the world through language falls silent before a cat’s cough. Criticism says, “the limits of intelligence.” Semi-nonfiction places a ringing bell on a lap, and a small cough.
The same transformation can operate in other domains as well.
Gene-centered thinking and skepticism toward qualia would normally be discussed as scientific or philosophical essays.
The human body may be nothing more than a vehicle for genes. Consciousness and qualia may not be sacred souls, but byproducts of neural activity. The excessive meaning human beings find in their own lives may be an illusion produced by evolutionary byproducts.
Written directly, this is hard and abstract.
But it can also become a dialogue with a used condom.
A man looks at the condom on the table and says, “You’re just leftover residue.” The condom replies, “No. The real residue is you.” From the perspective of the genes being carried, the body is the vehicle, while the mind and qualia are surplus. The man is defeated in argument. Yet in the end, he feels lighter. If he is nothing more than residue, perhaps he does not have to take life so seriously.
Here, the stripping away of dignity turns into a form of salvation.
The same applies to religion and the critique of the desire for recognition.
“Human beings turn external evaluation functions into gods” is an abstract proposition. In society, people make gods of others’ evaluations. In romance, they make gods of the other person’s feelings. In the desire for recognition, they make gods of other people’s gazes. In responsibility, they make a god of causality. Human beings outsource their authority to judge.
Written directly, this becomes criticism.
But it can also become a fairy tale about a religion with one believer and one god, except that both are the same person. A man founds “My Own Religion.” Since the god and the believer are identical, decisions are swift. He does not proselytize. The religion would collapse if the number of believers increased. A friend says, “Isn’t that just self-satisfaction?” The man replies, “In society, people make gods of other people’s evaluations. I have simply taken that god back.”
Here, religion is treated not as belief, but as the location of an evaluation function.
What these examples share is that they do not explain abstract propositions directly.
The tripartite imperial division transforms national loss into maps, streets, and a lost voice.
Memento Mori Airlines transforms the philosophy of death into an experiential device.
Mikeko transforms the limits of intelligence and embodiment into a small cough.
The used condom transforms gene-centered thinking and skepticism toward qualia into a reversal in which the destruction of dignity becomes salvation.
My Own Religion transforms dependence on external evaluation functions into a one-person religion.
The nation is shown not as a map, but as a street. Death is shown not as a concept, but as a flight. The limits of intelligence are shown not as a lecture, but as a cat’s cough. Gene theory is shown not as a scientific explanation, but as an obscene fairy tale. The critique of the desire for recognition is shown not in psychological terms, but as a one-person religion.
Concrete detail does not exist merely for realism.
It exists to fix abstraction in memory.
Narrative is a Trojan horse for information. On the surface, there are characters, landscapes, cats, airlines, vulgar jokes, and strange religions. But the real payload is hidden inside.
If an abstract proposition is handed to the reader directly, it is often rejected or forgotten. But a proposition disguised as a concrete device enters the reader’s memory and is decompressed later.
Narrative is a form for smuggling abstraction.
“The loss of a nation” is forgotten. But Sapporo Station with a statue of Putin remains.
“Remember death” is forgotten. But Memento Mori Airlines remains.
“Intelligence cannot transcend the body” is forgotten. But Mikeko coughing on the teacher’s lap remains.
“Gene-centered thinking” is abstract. But a man being defeated in argument by a used condom remains.
“External evaluation function” is stiff and theoretical. But a religion with one believer remains.
This is the strength of semi-nonfiction.
It allows abstract propositions to possess strange concrete forms.
It transforms concepts into memorable shapes.
It does not hand the reader a conclusion. It hands the reader a compressed object that can later be decompressed.
This form resembles a summary. But it is not merely a summary.
A summary condenses a body of work that already exists. Semi-nonfiction, however, is like the compressed form of a full-length novel that does not yet exist. It contains a world, characters, history, loss, and symbols that could be expanded into a long novel, but it deliberately refuses full expansion. Indeed, that very refusal stimulates the reader’s imagination. By not describing everything, it leaves space inside the reader.
This also suits the contemporary reading environment.
A short social media post is too thin. An academic paper is too heavy. General-interest nonfiction is too dry. A full-length novel is too long. Yet the world has grown more complex, and we increasingly need to grasp geopolitics, institutions, civilizational dynamics, evolution, death, recognition, evaluation functions, embodiment, and the limits of intelligence not as isolated events, but as structures.
There should be an intermediate form that allows complex hypotheses to arise inside the mind in a short span of time.
Of course, this form has its dangers.
The greatest danger is thinness. By compressing everything, the text may end up with characters, structures, and emotions that are all half-formed and fail to strike anywhere. Emotions may become mere signs. Worldbuilding may become only a tool for asserting a thesis. The flesh of fiction may be insufficient. Such criticism is partly correct.
But there are two kinds of thinness.
The first is thinness as failure. The characters are thin, the hypothesis is thin, the concrete details are weak, and nothing remains after reading. This is simply incompletion.
The second is thinness as compression. Instead of fully developing characters, a small number of concrete details are made to carry excessive meaning. Instead of lengthening the story, the text allows an unwritten world to unfold inside the reader. Instead of explaining everything, it uses a strange concrete device to drive the abstract proposition into memory.
Semi-nonfiction should aim for the second kind.
The example of Mikeko makes this clear.
Mikeko is not developed in full, as a character in a long novel might be. Yet through a small number of concrete details—the lap, the bell, the cough, the teacher’s words, the decline of the body—she suggests a larger structure behind her. There is a critique of the modern intellectual. There is a response to the Soseki-like self.
There is the conflict between language and the body. There is the helplessness of intelligence before death.
Not everything is explained.
But the cough remains.
That is thinness as compression.
Therefore, this form requires different criteria from the conventional full-length novel.
The question is not only whether the characters feel sufficiently “alive.” Is the hypothesis sharp? Can a small number of concrete details stand in for a larger structure? Does it create a subjective landscape that criticism alone cannot convey? Can the reader internally unfold what has been left unwritten? Does it remain compressed while still casting the shadow of a longer novel? Above all, does the concrete device transform the abstract proposition into something difficult to forget?
Here, it is worth clarifying how this differs from existing forms.
Semi-nonfiction did not emerge from nothing. It partly overlaps with fable, the novel of ideas, speculative fiction, essay-fiction, creative nonfiction, autofiction, and metafiction. But overlap is not identity.
Creative nonfiction writes facts in a literary manner.
Semi-nonfiction transforms abstract propositions into fictional devices.
The novel of ideas develops thought within a narrative.
Semi-nonfiction does not expand thought into a long story; it presents it as a compressed symbolic device.
Speculative fiction explores the possibilities of reality through imagined worlds.
Semi-nonfiction is less concerned with the imagined world itself than with the compressed presentation of perceptual structures extracted from reality.
Essay-fiction mixes thought and fiction.
Semi-nonfiction is concerned not with mixture itself, but with the efficiency of transformation from abstraction to concretion.
Autofiction unsettles the boundary between the self and fiction.
Semi-nonfiction unsettles the boundary not between the self and fiction, but between structures of perception and fictional devices.
Metafiction makes us conscious that a story is a story.
Semi-nonfiction uses fiction less for self-reference than as a compressed device for understanding reality.
Fable concretizes a lesson.
Semi-nonfiction concretizes not a lesson, but a structure of perception.
So this is not a bizarre mutant cut off from existing genres. Rather, it is a contemporary hybrid form that arises at the boundary surface of several genres. Yet at its center is not self-expression, not moral instruction, and not narrativity.
At its center is the compression of perception.
That is why this is not a brand name I want to paste onto my own writing. Rather, it is a provisional surveying line for understanding things I had already written.
The genre name is not the essence.
If the term “semi-nonfiction” becomes a new cage, it loses its meaning. It is merely a provisional scaffold for escaping existing classifications.
When the age changes, forms change as well.
As AI lowers the cost of generating prose, the human role is becoming less that of someone who writes every detail and more that of someone who designs structures. A human designs the hypothesis, the world, the symbolic arrangement, the strange device. AI supplements the landscape, style, and sensory skin. If such a division of labor becomes possible, then the act of “writing a novel” itself will change.
The novelist gives life to characters.
The critic explains structures.
Semi-nonfiction stands between them, giving a body to structure.
It uses fiction. But not in order to escape into fiction. It uses fiction to illuminate reality from another angle. It does not simply arrange facts as they are. It writes the sensations that can arise from facts, hypotheses, and structures of perception. It carries out the cognitive aim of nonfiction through the generative device of fiction.
It does not speak abstraction as abstraction.
It transforms abstraction into a sign in front of a station, a vending machine, an airline, a cat’s cough, a used condom, a religion for one person.
Reality is continuous, and genres are artificial.
If so, the emergence of writing that does not fit into existing boxes is not a deviation.
It is an inevitable adaptation.
That is what I think.