junbungaku.com!

junbungaku.com!

junbungaku.com!

I’m still trying to figure out the design aspects of it, so it looks a little plain at the moment (I really like using the Presswork theme even though it seems to be kind of broken, since I can’t get the menu and logo to stay put) but it’ll do for now.

Thanks again for visiting. Look forward to everything you love about Junbungaku at the new site.

Love,

Will

junbungaku.com

Ishihara Shintaro, while currently the governor of Tokyo and a member of the Akutagawa Prize selection committee, has also had a long career as both actor and novelist, even winning the Akutagawa himself with his work 太陽の季節(“Season of the Sun”). He is also…not afraid to speak his mind, to put it nicely. (You can learn more about him in this fascinating article about him at Neojaponisme.)

In an interview on the 6th, he complained about the deficiencies of today’s young writers saying that in all of the works he’s reading as a judge of the Akutagawa Prize, he “can’t feel the heart and soul” of the works, that “there’s no reality that reflects one’s own life” in them, and that they are not “genuine.”

“It pains me to read them, as they’re nothing but works of idiocy,” the sourpuss states. The winner will be announced on the 17th!

“Thoughts on Descent” by Itsuki Hiroyuki, appearing here at number six, is a surprisingly morbid book. From Amazon: “Europe and America are crumbling. You, who live pretending not to know the world is crumbling, how will you live?” So we’ve polluted the sky and earth and water with nuclear waste and pesticides for half a century. Can we bounce back? Is there such thing as rebirth? Can we reach the top again? The author thinks we can, BUT WE’VE GOT TO REDEFINE THE SUMMIT. Or something like that.

Number 7′s “The Power of Communication 2″ is exactly what it sounds like—a sequel to a book that helps you learn how to talk, listen, and write more effectively. The first book has even bounced back onto the list to 11.

The only new fiction this week comes in at 15, with that latest volume of that weird vocaloid music video-inspired light novel series Daughters of Evil: Red Praeludium book that we covered in last week’s New Release list…

1. かいけつゾロリ　はなよめとゾロリじょう “The Incredible Zorori: The Bride and Zorori-ette,” Hara Yutaka and Sakue

2. 人生がときめく片づけの魔法 “The Magic of Cleaning Up for a Thriving Life” Kondo Marie

3. 謎解きはディナーのあとで（2）“The Mystery Will Be Solved After Dinner 2,” Higashigawa Tokuya

4. モンスターハンター３Ｇ　３ＤＳ版　GREAT　TRIAL　BOOK, Monster Hunter 3G 3DS Version Great Trial Book

5. 采配 “The Baton of Command,” Ochiai Hiromitsu

6. 下山の思想 “Thoughts on Descent,” Itsuki Hiroyuki

7. 伝える力２ “The Power of Communication 2″ Ikegami Akira

8. 体脂肪計タニタの社員食堂　５００ｋｃａｌのまんぷく定食 “Tanita’s Body Fat Plan Cafeteria: Meals to Fill You Up in 500 Calories,” Tanita

9. 恋物語 “Love Story,” Nisio Isin

10. 謎解きはディナーのあとで “The Mystery Will be Solved After Dinner,” Higashigawa Tokuya

Full list here.

“Sea of Eyeballs” was featured in one of our New Release lists back in November. Hemmi Yo is also an award winning novelist, and his novel Gush is available in English translation from Counterpoint. Hemmi is also apparently the first person to win the Takami Jun award after also winning the Akutagawa Prize.

Because of the disruption from last year’s earthquake and tsunami, last year’s winner Kim Shijon, a Korean zainichi poet, will also be honored at this year’s awards ceremony

The manuscript is made up of two chapters of a work called 食卓と寝台 (“The Table and the Bed”) and consists of 57 handwritten pages. It was obtained last January from an antiquarian bookstore in the Kanda neighborhood of Tokyo (obviously). It appears to share a lot of similarities with another of Takeshi’s published works, なまけもの (“The Lazy Person”), so it could be the work that inspired it. The original manuscript will be on display at the Takeshi Kaiko Memorial Museum in Kanagawa and the text will be published for the first time in the July issue of Bungakukai.

Takeshi Kaiko, who passed away in 1989, was an Akutagawa, Mainichi, and Kikuchi Kan Prize winning novelist and essayist. He was also a war correspondent during the Vietnam War. He has a couple works available in English translation, including Darkness in Summer and Five Thousand Runaways.

Here’s the description, straight from Amazon/the publisher:

The war on terror exploded, literally, the day Sarajevo was destroyed by a homemade nuclear device. The leading democracies transformed into total surveillance states, and the developing world has drowned under a wave of genocides. The mysterious American John Paul seems to be behind the collapse of the world system, and it’s up to intelligence agent Clavis Shepherd to track John Paul across the wreckage of civilizations, and to find the true heart of darkness—a genocidal organ.

This brings Japanese literary releases to 15 for 2012, though I assume there is more to come.

Akutagawa Prize:

Ishida Sen: きなりの雲  “Clouds of Unbleached Cloth”  (Gunzo 10)
Enjoe Toh: 道化師の蝶 “The Clown’s Butterfly” (Gunzo 7)
Tanaka Shin’ya: 共喰い  “Eating Each Other” (Subaru 10)
Hirokoji Naoki: まちなか  “Downtown” (Bungakukai 8)
Yoshii Maya: 七月のばか “July Fool” (Bungakukai 11)

[Haven't read any of these obviously, but I've become fascinated with Enjoe Toh recently—I have a copy of これはペンです coming to me hopefully soon—so I kind of hope he wins, even though it's for no real good reason.]

Naoki Prize:

Ito Jun: 城を噛ませた男 “Make Him Attack the Castle”
Utano Shogo: 春から夏、やがて冬  “After Spring, Summer, Before Long, Winter”
Onda Riku: 夢違 “Unfulfilled Prophecy“
Sakuragai Shino: ラブレス “Loveless”
Hamuro Rin: 蜩ノ記 “Chronicle of the Evening Cicadas”
Mayama Jin: コラプティオ “Corruptio”

[I've covered three of the Naoki Prize finalists in the New Release lists. Anyone remember which ones?]

The winners of the respective prizes will be announced on January 17th.

GREE is a social networking service (a la Facebook), larger even than MIXI. Apparently a year ago (Wikipedia article so take it with a grain of salt), it was Japan’s largest social networking platform, but Facebook has taken off in a pretty big way in Japan lately, so I wonder if this is still the case. GREE is accessed through cell phones and is mostly used to play games.

Obviously, Kadokawa is offering primarily light novels and manga through this newly launched service,  a free Android app called BOOK☆WALKER for GREE. This is the first time e-books have been available through GREE.

Kadokawa has been aggressively pushing e-books as of late; see their recent team up with Nico Nico Douga in pursuit of one of e-book’s latest trends: social reading.

[Again, sorry for the delay and shortage of articles this week. I currently don't have regular access to internet or time to work on the blog when I do. Also, I might as well point out that there will be no bestseller list this week, since Tohan doesn't have one.]

Anyway, onwards and upwards:

私の愛した男について           “Regarding the Man I Love”
田口ランディ                             Taguchi Randy

A collection of four stories from the author of Outlet.

口紅のとき                                “Lipstick Time”
角田光代/上田義彦                   Kakuta Mitsuyo/ Ueda Yoshihiko (Photos)

A new novella by the very popular and surprisingly prolific author of The Eighth Day. Only hint to the plot is that “lipstick = drama” since lipstick always seems to be present at important and dramatic moments in life.

悪ノ娘　赤のプラエルディウム       “Daughters of Evil: Red Praeludium”
悪ノＰ                                                    Evil P

The third volume in a series of novels based on the music videos for a group of songs “sung” by Kagamine Rin (that crazy vocaloid nonsense). Look, there’s a whole Wikipedia article on it. I can’t be bothered to explain this craziness.

まちがい      “The Mistake”
辻仁成            Tsuji Jinsei

The owner of a high quality salon applies for a loan from a rich businessman friend. The catch? The friend wants to “have relations” with his wife in exchange.

BONUS!

幾千の夜、昨日の月           “Thousands of Nights, Yesterday’s Moon”
角田光代                                  Kakuta Mitsuyo

I’m cheating a bit. This is a collection of essays, which I don’t normally include, but I’m adding it because Kakuta has had an insane amount of work come out in the last few weeks—well, five separate books in the last four weeks, which is still very, very frequent. Go ahead, go back and check. It’s kind of crazy.