 The title takes its name from the first-person Japanese pronoun .Early in the novel, the narrator engages in a kind of scam known in Japan as a , in which he calls up an older person, pretends to be a relative, and tries to get the person on the other end of the phone line to send money.In the novel, the narrator finds himself unwittingly pulled into the life of the person whose identity he has fraudulently assumed, at the same time that someone else assumes his identity.