“The rest of the world is trying to change people to fit the world. I’m trying to change the world to fit people.”

3. Convenience Store Woman – Sayaka Murata

Misfit, oddball, weirdo, eccentric, antisocial, unconventional, odd bird, idiosyncratic, alienated, a “foreign object,” is something wrong with her, is she a sociopath or is she autistic because she found her purpose in life and it doesn’t involve some grand lie to herself about changing the world or being in a relationship and having a family…an Invasion of the Body Snatchers alien scream goes here. Keiko is not like everyone else and they’ve taken notice.

She doesn’t want all the “normal” hallmarks of a life that the people around her tell her she should want as a 36 year old woman. Her family tries to push her into them, even giving her phrases to use. Keiko doesn’t want a “proper career,” she’s fine with her job at Smile Mart, a 24 hour convenience store. She knows the rhythms of the store, what the people who come in need even when they don’t know their own patterns or the influence of the world around them and the weather on their shopping decisions and lunch choices. Society barely if ever understands a single woman who wishes to remain single, but a certain variety of single woman understands society and is a real help to a lot of people who refuse to acknowledge her as a worthy person or her contribution to helping society function smoothly as valuable.

And Keiko gives in eventually. She spends a lot of time in the story mimicking how “normal” people operate and speak and uses these imitations of “normal life” to find a man and settle down like her family wants her to so she’s worthy of their love instead of their nitpicking. This, of course, also involves leaving the job she actively enjoys and the emotional and schedule stability she had there. And …she doesn’t like it. They should have left her to it.

Merricat is named for the Merricat who understands not fitting in – and ritualizing.