Despite their inherent stylistic difference, both Owakare Hospital and To Die in a Hospital seek to examine the realities and place of death and dying (and, to some extent--grief) within the ever-changing social landscape of contemporary Japan. The presence of the hospital and its inhabitants--patients and healthcare workers alike--feel nothing short of a worldly purgatory. How can we come to terms with this looming sense of mortality? Death is unprecedented and scary. Yet, both media offer a sense of reckoning to those feelings. To have companionship at the end is to feel joy like no other. Knowing that you will greet death with someone besides you--whether it is someone close or a stranger--makes dying sound a little less daunting.
