I am a literary giant in Japan

Chapter 252 We fight all the way, not to change the world, but to prevent the world from changing us
“Are there really so many readers who buy Literature and Art?!”

Shinchosha headquarters building, editorial office area, and editor-in-chief's office.

The usually calm editor-in-chief couldn't help but become suspicious after looking at the latest first-day data handed over by his secretary.

According to a survey conducted by Shinchosha's marketing department, there are 6183 publishing houses of all sizes in the Japanese publishing industry.

其中资本超50亿円的有88家，100亿円以上的有57家，像河出书房、新潮社这种资本已经超过300亿円的也有21家。

These publishers own a total of 10879 different magazines.

And these magazines cover almost all topics and fields.

From fashion and lifestyle to technology and culture to politics and economics, you can find hundreds of different categories of magazines on almost any topic you can think of.

In addition, at the end of 1995, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology and the Ministry of Finance also released another authoritative statistical data.

Among the 2 million Japanese people, about 4000 million are in the pure literature market, and about 800 million of them buy an average of one pure literature magazine per month.

That is to say, one out of every five Japanese people reads pure literature, and one out of every five of these people is a highly sticky paying reader.

These statistics look good, but when you consider the fierce competition in Japan's publishing industry, you will soon find that more than 1 magazines can only share 800 million paying readers.

On average, a magazine has only 800 readers!
This is one of the reasons why companies open and close every day in the Japanese publishing industry.

In this line of business, if you don't have real skills and don't have one or two writers who are well-known in the Japanese literary world, you will basically close down within a few months.

From the perspective of these data, the December 1996 issue of "Wenyi" sold 12 copies on the first day of printing in the Tokyo area, which is simply a miracle!
This is equivalent to occupying almost 4% of the market share on the first day of sales. Other magazines will have no chance of survival!

"Under normal circumstances, the number of regular readers of Literature and Art is not that high, probably around 50."

The young female secretary tilted her head and recalled carefully, then whispered to him,
“The reason why the products have sold so well in recent times is probably due to the siphon effect brought about by Mr. Beichuan’s personal fame.

This can be easily seen by comparing the monthly sales of "Wenyi" when Kitagawa's novels were not serialized. "

Professional data analysts have pointed out before that this group of readers in Japan's pure literature circle is very strange.

Most magazine readers like to choose a magazine and subscribe to it for many years. Even if the authors always change jobs between publishers, it does not affect their payment habits at all.

But readers of pure literary magazines are just the opposite.

When reading a book, they prefer to recognize the author rather than the magazine.

Once their favorite writers leave a publishing house, they will defect at the speed of light and immediately become the core of another publishing house.

This phenomenon is more obvious in Kitagawa Hide.

His departure almost directly led to the decline of "Qun Xiang", which had originally had the hope of maintaining its third place and striving for first place, to a second-rate magazine, and it has not been able to recover to this day.

His arrival also allowed Kawaide Shobo to leap from the last place to a top-tier magazine that could compete with Shincho.

Having said that, data is just data after all. When Kitagawa Hide's guillotine-like blade did not actually fall on their heads, no one could truly feel the horror of that man.

Now, after truly witnessing Kitagawa Hide's abnormal personal appeal, the editor-in-chief of Shinchosha just wants to suffocate himself by burying his head in a block of tofu.

I originally thought that the first-day sales of 24 copies of "Forever No. 23.6" had made me invincible.

Now in comparison, it has clearly become the best stepping stone!
He also began to worry about something even more terrible.

The data released by Kawaide Shobo does not seem to include daily sales data in remote areas such as Shikoku Island.

Even though those places are poor, it shouldn't be difficult for them to sell tens of thousands of copies together, right?

At the very least, the number has reached 31.4 copies. If we just increase the sales a little bit, wouldn’t it be easy to exceed 36.5 copies?
"They must want to break Mr. Tanizaki's record and trample us under their feet!"

The editor-in-chief was sweating all over.

The thought that such a historic moment of humiliation would happen during his term of office made him want to die.

No matter what he thought, the matter was done. On December 1996, 12, people on the streets were enthusiastically discussing the short stories published in the latest issue of "Wenyi".

The speed at which word-of-mouth spread of "The Dancing Girl of Izu" exceeded everyone's imagination.

The literature sections of major online forums were flooded with it almost overnight!
Unlike long novels that have a very long serialization period, short stories are only a short length and readers can finish reading them in just a few minutes.

Whether it is good or bad, you can make a conclusion on the spot.

At this time, "The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle" and "Killing Commendatore" which had not been completely completed yet still had the possibility of having a bad ending, and those literary critics did not dare to exaggerate too much - after all, it was not without precedent. A great writer once wrote a shocking masterpiece that started high but ended low.

Nearly 70% of the first part of the book is regarded as a classic by readers, but the remaining 30% is simply thrown into the reader's pocket, making everyone feel disgusted.

But "The Dancing Girl of Izu" is different!

Although Mr. Kitagawa said that the entire collection of short stories consists of twelve pieces, and six of them have not been published yet, the short stories are not related to each other. If you want to brag about it, it won't cause any trouble if you only brag about the published ones.

For a time, many well-known literary review magazines and newspapers, led by Impression, which aimed to support the development of pure literature and short stories, published dozens of book reviews of The Dancing Girl of Izu.

These magazines and newspapers are quite famous in the literary criticism circle, and the review manuscripts are written by a group of well-known literary critics.

In the past, these people liked to find out Beichuan Xiu's little problems and scold him non-stop, wishing they could bite off a piece of flesh from him.

This time, even the offline literary critics controlled by print media unexpectedly gave "The Dancing Girl of Izu" unanimous praise, with some even going so far as to directly give it a hateful five-star rating, calling it "the best short story in the history of Japanese literary circles."

This is not the end. Netizens who control the online literary criticism circle also posted book reviews of varying lengths. For each of the six short stories, there were thousands of people analyzing its brilliance and moving points word by word.

The attention attracted by literary reviews spread across Japan like ripples in a lake, quickly sweeping across all parts of the country and all fields.

Many people who like to watch melons but hardly read books are attracted by the title of "The Dancing Girl of Izu".

Before this, Izu was just a third-rate resort city that was not well-known in the country. In order to revitalize the local economy, the Izu City Government also organized a long-distance marathon to stimulate consumption. However, the final effect was mediocre and of little use.

Who would have thought that the great achievements that these local officials had been trying so hard to accomplish, generation after generation, could be accomplished by a short story of less than 20,000 words!
Also becoming famous were the dancing girls and geishas, ​​the long-ignored insurance fraud group, the mining industry controlled by the chaebols, and so on.

After reading these five novels, the Chinese people could not help but ask the same question: "Do such poor places still exist in our country?"

The 10-year-old dancer has been forced to have three abortions. The circus is full of girls who are no older than 25. There are also many people who can't make yen a month, while the minimum wage for office workers in Tokyo is almost yen.
Is my country really so magical, or have I been raised in a greenhouse and know nothing? People's livelihood issues, economic issues, and medical issues are the three major issues that Ryutaro Hashimoto promised to solve during his term of office when he first took office.

it's good now.

Kitagawa Hide wrote six novels with a total of no more than 5 words, which directly put all three mountains on his head!

There are many chain reactions generated by "The Dancing Girl of Izu".

For example, the Izu Circus mentioned in "A Scene from the Festival of Spirits" was quickly controlled by the local police.

The police thoroughly investigated the financial situation of the circus leader Yi Zuo and also inquired about the current situation of the circus members.

Don't ask, don't know, I'm startled when I ask.

The real situation of the Imasaku Circus is even worse than the content of the novel written by Mr. Kitagawa.

Head of the Izu Group was suspected of trafficking and luring minors, misappropriating company funds, and using his position to violate employees. He was sentenced for multiple crimes and was directly brought to the Izu City Court. He will soon be handed over to the prosecutor's team from Tokyo for interrogation.

This incident caused such a big fuss, firstly because the social impact of "The Dancing Girl of Izu" was too great. It was impossible for the Izu City Government to enjoy the dividends given by Mr. Kitagawa while turning a blind eye to such things.

In fact, there are at least 800 such circuses in remote areas, if not a thousand. These people are not excessive, and they usually don't care at all.

But not anymore.

In just a few days, the December issue of "Wenyi" sold more than 12 million copies, and local TV stations took turns broadcasting and praising "The Dancing Girl of Izu".

If you keep pretending to be stupid, it means you don't want the official hat anymore!

on the other hand.

The Yizu Circus is indeed a bit outrageous.

Until the head of the group Yi Zuo was arrested, there were still many girls who had been successfully brainwashed defending him. Among them, the new top star Guang Zi even intended to attack the police.

She thought they had cut off her means of livelihood and ruined her bright future.

People felt deeply distressed when they thought that she was just a girl under the age of eighteen and how innocent she had once been in "A Scene from the Conjuring of the Dead".

This also invisibly elevates the purpose and depth of the novel.

But the final result is still good.

Guangzi was quickly controlled by the police and sent to the special treatment area of ​​the juvenile reformatory for psychological counseling.

It is said that after watching "A Scene from the Requiem" and listening to the phone call from Teacher Kitagawa, Guangzi burst into tears and gradually walked out of the shadow of Izuku.

At the request of Mr. Kitagawa, after completing psychological counseling, Guangzi will be transformed and start a new life in a new adoptive family.

When people learned about this, they felt relieved and felt that this was where the Juvenile Law should be used!
Other than that.

The pastor's driver and his daughter, who were suspected of multiple insurance frauds and intentional homicide, were also sent to prison.

They never imagined that by simply inviting Kitagawa Hiderai to attend a funeral, they ended up inviting the real God of Judgement!
Under such great social pressure, no one dared to continue to protect the father and daughter, and those officials who had financial transactions with them were also dismissed one after another.

Kitagawa Hide has not received the final result of the two yet, but he believes that the law will give justice to the six "sons-in-law" who were defrauded of insurance.

In addition, the mining business, which has long been monopolized by major financial groups, has finally come into the public eye.

But this stuff is complicated.

Just like the coal mining business in a neighboring province, the conflicts of interest are so huge that they even involve politicians from the Liberal Democratic Party and several opposition parties.

It's not something that can be changed by just a novel.

If it weren't for Kitagawa Hide's great fame and high social status, "People in the Mine" written by him would have almost disappeared from the public eye forever like the banned movie "Yrcy" next door.

However, this novel is not completely without gain.

The old woman who lost her son and daughter-in-law, as well as the miners in the mining area where they worked, still received a certain amount of financial compensation.

For this article "People in the Mine", Hide Kitagawa hopes that one day it will be as good as the Korean movie "The Crucible".

Even if I can't change anything now, maybe I can achieve my wish one day in the future.

"We fight all the way, not to change the world, but to prevent the world from changing us."

This is the core idea that Hide Kitagawa wants to convey to readers through these novels.

At last.

Because "The Dancing Girl of Izu" tells a hazy story of first love, and taking into account Kaoruko's age and current situation, Kitagawa Hide completely omitted her name in the final revised version and directly replaced it with the general image of "dancing girl".

In the novel, Eikichi, the aunt geisha, Chiyoko, Yuriko and others were also replaced by brother, mother, sister and younger sister respectively.

This makes the character of "dancing girl Kaoru" in the novel somewhat vague, but it also further enhances the overall theme of the novel.

Yasunari Kawabata's "The Dancing Girl of Izu" is essentially about his first love with Kaoruko.

Kitagawa Hide's "The Dancing Girl of Izu" focuses more on the regrettable love affair brought about by the identity difference between "I", a modern urbanite, and "the dancing girl", a geisha from a remote area.

For a time, with the popularity of "The Dancing Girl of Izu", the images of Izu and dancing girl became the most frequently mentioned words both online and offline.

The novel became a huge hit, and people like Shizuko Kawaide and Rena Saito finally felt relieved, but some people were extremely worried.

Naoki Momota, who was originally carefully working on "Eternal 24", suddenly lost his enthusiasm.

He stayed in the study of the villa for a long time without coming out.

No matter who knocks on the door or who calls, he will neither see them nor answer them!
"'The Dancing Girl of Izu'. What a joke! What kind of short story should I write to surpass this kind of work?"

Naoki Momota held his head in his hands, falling into deep despair.

(End of this chapter)