Shunrō Oshikawa was a Japanese author, journalist and editor, best known as a pioneer of science fiction. Like other early science fiction writers of the period, he was influenced by the stories of Jules Verne, whose technological adventure novels had become popular in translation in the rapidly modernising Meiji era Japan. Specifically, the speculative conception of submarine warfare, based on ramming and making no mention of torpedoes, is shared with Verne.