Exit 8 by Genki Kawamura, translated by Sameeha Anwar, is a disturbing, short Japanese psychological mystery based on a hugely successful game that has sold three million copies, created by Kotake Create. The global craze for Japanese fiction designed explicitly as a game between author and reader, based around interactive escape-room logic and surreal loops, is a hugely successful publishing trend. Yukito Ayatsuji’s Mansion Series, beginning with The Decagon House Murders, is the market leader and pioneer of this genre which has been a massive success for Pushkin Vertigo, who also publish Uketsu’s Strange Buildings.
Exit 8 is similar in essence, though it translates the concept into a digital space. Instead of using physical blueprints and architectural loops found in traditional ‘locked-room’ puzzles on paper, readers find themselves accompanying a person going down an endlessly looping corridor where they must spot subtle visual changes (‘anomalies’) in the environment in order to escape.
A Metaphor for Life?
A young man in a crowded subway carriage is playing a game on his phone, reads a text from his ex announcing her pregnancy, loses the connection as he gets out, drops his phone when a man bumps into him, the screen cracks, and he has a coughing fit. He is trapped in the subway and finds himself walking down a long, tiled passageway heading for Exit 8.
‘The walls were lined with white square tiles that reflected the cold glow of fluorescent lights. A yellow panel hung from the ceiling, emblazoned with the words “Exit 8” in bold black letters.’
There are posters advertising various services, exhibitions, and a sign with large eyes indicating security cameras. He turns left and sees a photo booth. There are Exit signs starting from zero. He is anxious as he wants to get to the hospital to see his ex but is stuck in a nightmarish, repetitive loop. ‘If I stayed here any longer, I was going to lose my mind.’
Reaching Exit 8 Requires Flawless Observation
The young man a.k.a. The Lost Man, spots a nondescript sign giving information: it turns out he has to keep an eye out for subtle ‘anomalies’, in other words discrepancies like the large eyes moving or a disembodied voice from the photo booth, and immediately turn around when he spots one. If everything is normal, he can keep moving until he reaches Exit 8 and escape. He is repeatedly overtaken by a strange walking man in a suit, silent and expressionless. The anomalies pile up in this underground purgatory. The Lost Man ruminates over the conversation he had with is his ex about keeping the baby, and is suddenly joined by a little boy. So now the two of them are trying to get out. The young man’s angst and dread build and build . . . as does the reader’s!
The focus on parenthood, having a baby or not, being a good father, and the little boy’s appearance indicates a concern for children and adult responsibility. The failure to spot anything mysterious or unusual, namely an anomaly, indicates a kind of inner blindness or lack of awareness, and tedious mindless conformity. I was reminded of the film Groundhog Day, which may be totally different on the surface, but underneath it has the same looping foundation as Exit 8. Trapped in a time loop, the protagonist must face himself to find a way out.
Being stranded in a corridor trying to escape is a classic trope. A passageway is a transitional area which you go through, rather than staying. It is one of the more unsettling spaces in human storytelling. Through the centuries, this space has evolved from physical mazes to psychological and existential nightmares, mirroring how human fears have shifted over time.
The Minotaur was trapped at the centre of the Labyrinth, which was a massive, shifting maze of endless, winding corridors. In Gothic horror stories like Dracula, characters find themselves trapped in decaying, subterranean passages in crumbling castles and mansions. Stanley Kubrick turned the hotel hallways in his film The Shining into spaces of crushing psychological claustrophobia as the main character goes mad and tries to kill his family. There is no escape because his madness is internal.
The most terrifying claustrophobic corridor chase is in Guillermo del Toro’s glorious film Pan’s Labyrinth when young Ofelia is chased by an utterly terrifying deathly pale white man who is a monster that devours children. She flees down a long stone corridor and gets out through the slowly closing exit door only just in time. Metaphorically, she barely survives the brutal transition from innocent childhood into the harsh, violent reality of the adult world — in her case 1944 Francoist (Fascist) Spain.
A clever, addictive read, what starts as a play on the humdrum nature of daily life builds into something far more disquieting. An intricately woven brainteaser, Exit 8 is a book you won’t put down until you find the way out.
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