The Makioka Sisters (細雪, Sasameyuki, "light snow") is a novel by Japanese writer Jun'ichirō Tanizaki that was serialized from 1943 to 1948.

It depicts the decline of the family's upper-middle-class, suburban lifestyle as the specter of World War II and Allied Occupation hangs over the novel.

The main branch lives in Osaka, at the family home, and consists of the eldest sister, Tsuruko, her husband, Tatsuo, who has taken the Makioka name, and their six children.

The branch house is located in Ashiya, an affluent suburb between Osaka and Kobe, and consists of the second-oldest sister, Sachiko, her husband, Teinosuke (also an adopted Makioka), and their young daughter, Etsuko.

Hurried by Itani, the family agrees to an informal ”miai” (見合い, a formal marriage interview) before they can thoroughly check Segoshi's background.

The Makiokas become optimistic about their chances of making the match, but are eventually forced to decline when they discover that Segoshi's mother is afflicted with a kind of dementia which was considered hereditary.

Despite Tsuruko's attachment to the Osaka house, both her and her husband sorely need additional income, as Tatsuo's inheritance from the Makioka's father is running out.

After dinner, they are taken back to Nomura's house, where he shows them the Buddhist altar where he prays for his dead wife and children.

Taeko's interest in dolls wanes and she begins to devote time to Western-style sewing and traditional Osaka dance, taught by Yamamura Saku.

As a result, she turns her attention yet again towards dress-making Taeko wants to study fashion design in France with her sewing teacher and asks Sachiko to convince the main house to support her, a decision which is opposed by the main house, on the grounds that, when Taeko inevitably marries Okubata, she will have no need to support herself - looking for alternative sources of money, then, could indicate she plans on spurring his advances.

In June, Tatsuo's eldest sister alerts Sachiko of a marriage prospect, a Mr. Sawazaki from a prominent Nagoya family.

After the 1923 Great Kantō earthquake and fire, which destroyed Tokyo, he settled permanently in Kansai, the region where The Makioka Sisters is set.

[citation needed] The Makioka Sisters spans the period from autumn 1936 to April 1941, ending about seven months before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

The novel references a number of contemporary events, such as the Kobe flood of 1938, the Second Sino-Japanese War, and the growing tensions in Europe.

The popularity of the novel attracted the attention of government censors, who ordered that publication be halted, saying: “The novel goes on and on detailing the very thing we are most supposed to be on our guard against during this period of wartime emergency: the soft, effeminate, and grossly individualistic lives of women.”[3] Decline and decay are prominent themes of The Makioka Sisters and are emphasized by the repetition of certain events.

The succession of Yukiko's suitors, the Makiokas’ yearly cherry-viewing excursions, and the increasing severity of illness in the novel form a pattern of “decline-in-repetition”.

[4] In reaction to this decline, the characters long for an idealized past—they attempt to remain connected to their past through yearly rituals and observances.

[5] The Makiokas’ adherence to these rituals connects them to the traditions of the merchant class from the Edo period and reflects Tanizaki's belief that the Edo-period culture had been preserved in Osaka.

"Tokyo's poverty, bleakness, and disorder serve to set off Ashiya's harmonious integration of tradition, modernity, and cosmopolitanism".

[8] The unfavorable comparison of Tokyo to Kansai "in the context of the war years, [is] a subversive reminder of the nonmilitary roots of Japanese culture and a sort of 'secret history' of Japan from 1936 to 1941".

In 1944, Tanizaki published 248 copies of a privately printed edition of Book One, with financial backing from Chūō Kōron; this was, again, censured by the military.

[13] Donald Barr of The New York Times compared and contrasted the English translation of the novel with Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen.

[15] Time stated that the book had "a heroism that [...] bends to the winds of fate like a reed and, never breaking, wins the subtler triumph of endurance.

"[16] Time stated that significant portions of the book "are dull enough to make U.S. readers wonder if they are not in the hands of the Japanese sandman.