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Tomohiro Okamoto is an official from the Japanese Ministry of Transport, and he, along with his assistant Atsuro Chiba, travels to Mexico to meet with Pi about the sinking of the Tsimtsum. After the gravity of Pi’s harrowing survival at sea, the mishaps and awkward moments that they experience during the interview render them rather absurd characters. Mr. Okamoto misreads his map, for example, and travels to the wrong city before realizing his error. He and Mr. Chiba also bicker back and forth in Japanese during their conversation with Pi, a humorous dynamic which undercuts their attempts to act professionally. The comedic element that Mr. Okamoto and Mr. Chiba add to the final section of the novel offers the reader a reprieve from the high-stakes drama of the previous chapters. Even more importantly, however, the presence of this inept pair makes Martel’s argument for the power of belief particularly compelling. Mr. Okamoto is very quick to dismiss Pi’s original story as a complete fantasy and insists that he tell the truth about what happened in the aftermath of the Tsimtsum’s sinking. Given his own repeated displays of incompetence, the idea that Mr. Okamoto has the power to deny the truth of Pi’s incredible survival narrative seems rather absurd. This scenario allows Martel to reiterate the limitations of a singular perspective. When Pi does finally offer a version of his narrative that meets their request for logic and believability, Mr. Chiba readily admits that he found the story with the animals to be the more compelling one. Pi allows Mr. Chiba, and eventually Mr. Okamoto, to recognize the power of belief. In the end, Mr. Okamoto and Mr. Chiba leave Mexico without any real information about the sinking of the Tsimtsum. Mr. Okamoto’s final report, however, reveals that they left the interview with a new, broader perspective as he commends Pi for miraculously surviving alongside a tiger.
