Bridget Jones in London, Ally McBeal in Boston, Carrie and her friends in New York City. Now Sakai Junko has published a best-selling volume of essays on singletons in Tokyo over the age of 30, like herself, whom she calls -- in a mix of ruefulness and pride -- makeinu (losers). In "Makeinu no toboe" (literally, "The distant barking of losing dogs"), Sakai examines the causes and characteristics of makeinu.

Sakai herself first realized she had become a complete makeinu after turning 35, when a married friend -- a kachiinu (winner) -- praised another single friend for not being envious of her for being married and having children. Had Sakai's silence in the face of housewifely talk been taken as jealousy? And how unworldly of her friend to feel pity for them and guilelessly blurt it out. Sakai felt a glass wall between herself and her girlhood friend, as well as between herself and her rapidly receding youth.

Sakai notes that, like herself, few women consciously choose to become, in the eyes of society, a loser, but rather one day wake up to find themselves past marriageable age and with their biological clocks loudly ticking away. Various social and personal factors put them on this path.