The Great Kanto Earthquake of September 1923 devastated Tokyo and Yokohama, killing over 100,000 people; the subsequent insurance claims crisis and the government's decision to compensate losses through public bonds transformed Japanese financial and insurance institutions.

The Great Kanto Earthquake and subsequent mass insurance failure in Japan in 1923 obliterated much of Tokyo's literary infrastructure, leading to a significant body of disaster literature. Writers like Akutagawa Ryunosuke captured the trauma and chaos, which permeated Japanese modernist writing of the 1920s and 30s.