The setting for Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel An Artist of the Floating World is post-World War II Japan, in an unnamed city. Furukawa, where young narrator and protagonist Masuji Ono relocates as a young man to work as an artist under Master Takeda, and Arakawa District, where older Ono visits his friend Chishi Matsuda, are both suburbs in present-day Tokyo though it cannot be assumed with certainty that these are the actual locations to which the novel makes reference. Parks such as Kawabe Park are mentioned which speak to the urban planning design of large cities in Japan where residents frequently live in high-rise apartments (as will Ono’s daughter Noriko and her husband later in the novel) and do not have green space of their own but are able to make use of the public spaces. The home Ono purchases after getting married is a house with a yard and garden up the hill from the Bridge of Hesitation, a bridge which leads to the former pleasure district where Mrs Kawakami’s bar is located. The less congested Arakawa District, where Ono takes a train to visit Chishi Matsuda, is a neighbourhood situated outside the city centre.

The floating world referred to in the novel’s title is the colloquial term used for pleasure districts which existed throughout Japanese cities before the war. Ono refers to the pleasure district he frequented as a young artist to capture subject matter for his art, where Mrs Kawakami’s bar is situated, but which is gradually being replaced by modern office blocks.

By the end of World War II and the surrender of Japan, who together with Germany and Italy had formed the Axis powers, Japan had suffered wide-scale damage. Of particular note are the two nuclear bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the United States which caused damage to physical infrastructure as well as emotional trauma. American forces under General Douglas MacArthur, on behalf of the Allied powers, subsequently occupied Japan from 1946 until 1950. Among the sweeping reforms and reprisals that took place were the trials of many members of the Japanese military for war crimes, with hundreds committing suicide, the creation of a new Japanese constitution, which relegated the emperor’s position to a ceremonial one, the introduction of universal suffrage, and the Shinto religion being officially separated from state. Censoring of the Japanese media to restrict anti-American sentiment, the disbanding of the Japanese military, and the introduction of a Western-style free market, capitalist economic system, also took place. While the latter reform initially saw the economy suffer, the commencement of the Korean War and the use of Japan as a supply depot for the United Nations led Japan to undergo rapid economic growth.

During the years of Japan’s occupation by US forces its citizens were heavily influenced by the post-war wealth that the United States brought, including in areas of popular culture such as movies and television. The pervasiveness of the American influence which occurred in Japan at this time is frequently referenced in the novel. A major conflict to the story is the contrast between those like Ono who held favourable views on Japanese imperialism and the younger generation who had embraced the American occupation and resented the war.