Tony Takitani

is a 2004 Japanese film directed by Jun Ichikawa, based on the short story by Haruki Murakami. Inspiration Haruki Murakami was intrigued by the name Tony Takitani when, at a garage sale on Maui, he found a yellow T-shirt that said, "Tony Takitani, House (D)." At the time, Takitani was running for office. Murakami decided to write the man's life story as this short story. Plot summary Takitani Shozaburo, a jazz trombonist from Japan, spends the Second World War in China. Shozaburo is imprisoned and many of his fellow inmates are executed. He expects he will be executed, and he is shown curled up on the floor of his cell. However, he survives and in 1946 returns to Japan where he marries a distant relative on his mother's side. A year later they have a child, Tony, but Tony's mother dies three days after giving birth to him. Shozaburo continues to travel and is away from home most of the time. Because of Tony's Americanised name, people often react oddly or sometimes with hostility to him. As such, he finds it natural to spend time alone. Tony develops an interest in drawing but prefers accuracy over emotion. As an adult he gets a job as a technical illustrator.