Two high profile Japanese people use the name in their pen names Kafka Shishido, a female drummer and singer; and Kafka Asasiri, the author of the manga series Bungo Stray Dogs, a series about the members of a very specialist detective agency; in which the main characters are named after famous authors: such as Agatha Christie (1890-1976), Osamu Dazai (1909-1948), Kenji Miyazawa (1896-1933), Junichiro Tanizaki (1886-1965), and Akiko Yosano (1878-1942).
Another example is a character called Kafuka Fu’ura in the award winning manga series and subsequent spin-off anime Sayonara Zetsubou-Sensei (Goodbye, Mr. Despair), where the characters have nicknames coined after social issues. The name Kafuka Fu’ura is apparently a conscious reference to Franz Kafka while the character’s actual real name is said to be An Akagi a pun on the Japanese translation of the title of the book Ann of Green Gables by L.M Montgomery (1874-1942).
Interestingly, a port and the main hub on a small Japanese island called Rebun, with a population of three thousand, north of Hokkaido is called Kafuka. Despite the name; it is not related to Shikoku, the Island, which features in Murakami’s book, Kafka on the Shore.
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