I am a literary giant in Japan

Chapter 179: "The Last Song" is released, but no one is interested

Shinichiro Azuma didn't think that Hidetoshi Kitagawa had any means to punish him.

In his eyes, this new novelist who has been the best-selling novelist in Japanese literature in the past two years is not much different from the adults who revolve around him.

At best, they are just richer and have a higher social status than other adults.

He recorded such an interview program with the TV station just to promote his new book.

Think about it too.

After all, his own novel "Jue Ge" is about to be published in June. Even the best-selling novelist in 1995 would want to take advantage of his popularity!
The only things that made Kitagawa Hideo feel unhappy in his interview were those passages related to the Juvenile Law.

"What do you think about age limits? For example, at what age can you smoke and drink?"

On TV, Kitagawa Hide suddenly asked the host this.

This was probably not a question originally included in the interview program script. The female host was obviously stunned for a moment, and then the answer came out of her mouth.

"Twenty years old."

Every Japanese knows it.

In Japan, the Juvenile Law clearly stipulates that people are considered adults at the age of 20.

"Yes, twenty."

Kitagawa Hide took over the conversation, then smiled and said a series of thought-provoking words.
“So we always see at the annual coming-of-age ceremony that the first thing the young guys do after they become adults is to drink like crazy.

So why do they have to drink like crazy at this time?

Have you ever thought about this question?

If there is no rule that 'you can only drink alcohol when you are 20 years old', would young adults still drink so much?
The answer is obviously no, right? "

Kitagawa Hide's words stunned the female host, and she was unable to respond for a while.

He did not wait for the female host to respond, but continued with a smile: "But the law only allows people over the age of 20 to drink, it does not advocate drinking at the age of 20.

Despite this, young people generally feel that at this age, they have to drink even if they don’t want to, as if they would suffer a loss if they don’t drink. Isn’t it obvious that the age limit has played a role in promoting this mentality? "

“I am not old enough, so even if I do something bad, I will not be punished by law.

I'm not old enough, and if I don't do something, I'll be at a big disadvantage.

If our Juvenile Law encourages this mentality and encourages these juvenile offenders to commit crimes, then doesn’t this law need to be adjusted and modified? "

Kitagawa Hide asked soul-searching questions in the talk show.

He cleverly found this entry point when the "Drunken Rose Saint War" cases were rampant.

If he were to do the same as those who gritted their teeth and repeatedly stressed the need to sanction and severely punish Shinichiro Azuma, he would soon be swept away by public opinion and succumb to the trend of the times.

After all, he is not the high-ranking "number one in the world" who has the right to influence members of the House and Senate.

But now, Kitagawa Hidekazu, like those media outlets that have directed their criticism at the education system, has swung his sword towards the unreasonable Juvenile Law, which perfectly fits the image of Japanese writers who participate in politics.

Such remarks criticizing current affairs and the legal system can easily gain public support, and his status as a best-selling author is like a get-out-of-jail-free ticket. Political figures can only agree with him, recognize him, and absolutely cannot refute him.

In Japan, politicians and chaebols have the highest power, but also the worst reputations and the lowest public support.

They can do whatever they want out of the sight of this country, but they cannot confront groups that have extremely high national support.

Otherwise, if they lose and their reputation is completely ruined, their political career and business life will also be ruined.

Therefore, to some extent, people like literary masters are the nemesis of politicians and financial groups.

Such a character cannot be assassinated easily.

If Kitagawa Hide had just been interviewed and criticized a certain party or a certain system, and he became famous that evening, then the opposition he criticized would become notorious that evening.

The truth of the matter no longer matters at that point.

Some competitors will use this incident to fiercely attack those who are criticized.

There are so many things that can be exploited when a celebrity dies unexpectedly, and no matter who it is, once they are involved in such a thing, their career will basically be over.

Therefore, whether you are a Kitagawa hater or a Kitagawa fan, everyone hopes that Mr. Kitagawa will live a long life and stand like a monument in the Japanese literary world.

This is why politicians and financial groups like to cooperate and marry with literary masters, why politicians have been assassinated and financial group leaders have been arrested by the Special Investigation Department, but few literary masters have died accidentally. Shinichiro Tou naturally could not appreciate the subtlety of Kitagawa Hide's "curve to save the country" strategy, but instinctively felt unhappy.

But thinking back, isn't he just like those adults, who can't do anything to themselves and can only point their fingers at the country, society, and the law?
After the TSB special interview program was broadcast, the public’s expectations for "Confessions" were immediately raised to the maximum.

The outrageous behavior and arrogant attitude of boy A (Azuma Shinichiro) make people hate him very much.

One abusive letter after another was sent to the Kokubunji City Family Court, but the Metropolitan Police Department and the Kokubunji City Police Station, which were initially criticized by the public for their ineffectiveness, had their reputation reversed and received understanding and praise from many people.

The relieved Superintendent General Hara Bunbei personally called his brother-in-law Machimura Nobutaka, who was the Vice Minister of Education at the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, and praised Mr. Kitagawa Hide who rushed out to help them divert the fire when the situation was at its worst.

The Metropolitan Police Department accepted the favor and naturally started to secretly promote Kitagawa Hide's new book.

"Confessions" has not yet started serialization, but Kawaide Shobo has already made many banners and posters and posted them in various bookstores.

At the end of May.

People who came to the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department for business were shocked to find that in the lobby of the Metropolitan Police Department headquarters, next to the department's mascot PIPO-kun (a cartoon mouse), there was a huge trailer poster for the novel "Confessions".

Even Kitagawa Hide's personal poster was placed next to PIPO-kun.

The Metropolitan Police Department is already weird enough.

A cartoon mouse is placed as a mascot in the lobby of a national violent institution. Even though it doesn't seem so out of place in Japan, a country where anime is rampant, it does seriously disrupt the style of painting here.

it's good now.

Next to the cartoon mouse, on the left and right, are illustrations of a popular new writer and a poster of his new book.

The Tokyo Police Headquarters is made to look like an advertising bookstore.

Kitagawa Hide didn't know that he had passively become one of the mascots of the Metropolitan Police Department.

After writing the opening of "Confessions", he had been discussing with Rena Saito every day in the cafe about how to revise it and how to make as many readers as possible fall into the book at first sight without destroying the POV perspective writing technique.

In addition, the filming of "No Longer Human" was officially completed, and he had to take time to visit the crew to comfort the main creative team and then attend the closing ceremony.

The physical book of "Paradise Lost" was officially launched in bookstores across the country at the end of May. The price of each book is 500 yen, which is extremely affordable.

Therefore, the first print day broke the previous record of "Border" in one fell swoop, setting a new record for the first print day sales of pure literature physical books this year and in the past thirty years, with a total of about 27.3 copies sold.

In addition, "Paradise Lost" also became Kitagawa Hide's first novel to be officially published and sold overseas.

"Frontiers" was published in English in the United States with the assistance of the Autry family, but only a few bookstores put it on the shelves, and the final sales were only average.

As of early June, "Border" has sold about 3 copies in the United States. For a book published overseas, this result is a terrible result, but "Border" itself belongs to Japanese pure literature, and the sales of this category overseas are catastrophic. This result actually shocked the Japanese literary world a little.

Even the top-ranked novel in the world, Ichiro Tanizaki's "The Devil's Tattoo", only sold about 10 copies in the United States after being nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature.

In this comparison, Kitagawa Hide's "Border" can be said to be one-third of "Devil's Tattoo", which naturally caused a heated discussion in the Japanese literary world.

But poor sales are bad, and the failure of "Border" also gave those literary critics who were pessimistic about Kitagawa Hide an outlet to vent.

Therefore, Kawaide Shobo spent a huge amount of money and contacted overseas publishing houses. Not only did they translate "Paradise Lost" into English, they also paid for a refined translation into French, and published it simultaneously in Britain, the United States, France and other places. This fact suddenly became a big joke in the literary world recently.

They do not deny Kitagawa Hide's popularity and money-making ability in Japan, and they have even begun to slowly affirm his literary talent and status, but they absolutely do not think that Kitagawa Hide has the ability to publish overseas and compete for overseas literary awards!
There was a lot of discussion about what was happening overseas, but the sales data and award submissions could not be fed back to Japan immediately, and these things were soon overwhelmed by the publication of "Ze Ge: The Serial Child Abuse Case" in early June.

Due to the special nature of this book, not many bookstores are willing to cooperate with Ota Japan and put it on the shelves. Among the thousands of bookstores in Tokyo, only less than a thousand are willing to put the murderer's autobiography on the shelves.

6 month 2 day.

Having just finished filming "No Longer Human", Jabami Rei, who had a rare break, made an appointment with her friends from the Kitagawa fan club and arrived at the entrance of Maruzen Marunouchi Bookstore early, wanting to see what the juvenile delinquent could write.

There were many readers with such curiosity, and many of them had gathered in the bookstore at this time, but they were surprised to see a huge billboard at the door.

The billboards were promoting "Confessions", which was officially serialized on June 6th, but for the book "Ze Ge: Serial Child Harm Incidents", the store manager had clearly written on a red banner on the glass window outside the store:

Our store does not sell this book, and like Mr. Kitagawa, we firmly boycott everything related to juvenile delinquents!
Jabami Rei then remembered that the store manager seemed to be a fanatical fan of Kitagawa Hide, so she had to rush to Kinokuniya Bookstore in Kokubunji City with Yumeko and the others.

They entered the subway talking and laughing. They had clear thoughts about the book "Jue Ge: Serial Child Abuse Cases".

Just see what's going on.

No matter how well the book is written by the juvenile offender, I will never spend money to buy it, and I will also firmly resist anyone around me from buying this book!
You can be curious and you can watch it, but you must never spend money to support this kind of underage scum, otherwise it would be the greatest disrespect to the dead!

At the same time, countless readers who had the same idea flocked to bookstores selling "Jue Ge".

(End of this chapter)