Hello, I’m the author. I’ve been forced to write an afterword for the second half of the Bunko edition of GOTH. The deadline is tomorrow, and I haven’t written a thing. Instead, I’ve spent the day returning DVDs to Tsutaya, eating a natto set at Sukiya, putting away my kotatsu, and generally procrastinating—much like the astonishing amount of cleaning one does before exams. Like I mentioned in the afterword for the first half, I was asked to write something interesting and funny. This is my own fault for once actively trying to write that kind of afterword. I have no idea how to stop.
The book known as GOTH was awarded the Honkaku Mystery Award. This afterword will begin by talking about that prize.
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I know little about the publishing industry and had no idea what kind of prizes actually existed in Japan. So when GOTH won the Honkaku Mystery Award, the first thing that went through my head was surprise that such a prize existed in the first place. The Honkaku Mystery Award was created by the Honkaku Mystery Writer’s Club and is given to the best Honkaku Mystery novel published that year.
“Honkaku Mystery? What’s that?” many of you are probably thinking. Everyone I knew in college certainly did. Honkaku Mystery is a subgenre of mystery focusing on deductions, tricks, and the surprising moment in which the truth is revealed. Kindaichi Case Files or Case Closed probably qualify (the actual definition seems to vary from person to person, so I’m not really sure about this … ).
GOTH does have a few tricks and deductions. I believe it was these elements that allowed a light novel to receive the Honkaku Mystery Award. When I wrote GOTH, I was making a deliberate effort to incorporate elements of Honkaku Mysteries in it. I even believed I was trying to write a Honkaku Mystery (but only at first). I decided to do so because I wanted light novel readers to understand what was so interesting about mysteries.
When I was a teenager, a friend of mine, K-san, brought a book called Slayers to my house. That was when I began reading voraciously. Before that time, I had read fewer than ten novels a year; but after Slayers, I read every light novel I could get my hands on. I won’t attempt to define the term “light novel” here, but they tend to have manga-style covers and illustrations as a big selling point. I’m not at all sure that the term had been created at the time, but Slayers is what we would call a light novel. I also read Zanyaruma no Kensi, Sword World, and Tamago no Ouji: Kairuroddo no Kunan. I would go to the store almost every day and pour over Sneaker Bunko’s green spines or Fujimi Fantasy Bunko’s yellow or blue spines. For five years at technical school, I had no friends, but there was a classmate with whom I could talk about light novels once every three days or so, which was one of the few saving graces.
Then one day I was reading a gaming magazine, and I found a column saying, basically, that light novels weren’t considered proper books, but trashy things that only a child would read. Oh. I’d had no idea, but the world of publishing frowned on light novels. This came as quite a shock. I was sixteen, though, and no matter how furious I was at the lack of respect given to light novels, there was nothing I could do to change that. And it made little difference to my life what the world thought of them. Shortly after that, I fell in love with mysteries and read a bunch of mystery novels. Light novels and mystery novels are the two pillars of my reading experience.
One day, I looked at the word processor in my room and had an idea. “I should practice typing while I still have time. But if I’m doing that, I might as well write words that mean something … like a novel. It would be nice if I could make a living writing novels or manga. If I write constantly, I might be able to write something good by the time I’m thirty.” And a few twists and turns later, I was a published writer. Once I began writing professionally, something unexpected happened: I was constantly running up against the problem of how light novels were looked down upon, something I had assumed would never actually affect my life. If I were to describe all the light novel discrimination I’ve been a victim of, this would become an extremely brutal essay, so I shall not.
Anyway. As I read both light novels and mysteries in college for some reason, I joined the sci-fi club. There I made my first friends in five years. When we talked about books, I discovered that they all read nothing but light novels. I was somewhat horrified to discover that even though they were remarkably intelligent, well educated, articulate, and confident of their passion for books, they only read light novels. But they were a future I might have been part of. There must be plenty of people in Japan who are surrounded by people like them, who read only light novels and never realize there are many other kinds of books in the store.
Right! I would write a mystery light novel! Then people who had read only light novels would be exposed to the joys of mysteries and break out of their reading niche! With that in mind, I began writing GOTH.
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Then, that fateful day …
“A phone call arrived at the editorial desk informing us that you have won the Honkaku Mystery Award … Does that ring a bell?” asked my editor, A-san. Her voice, emerging from my cell phone, sounded rather perplexed. Of course. She had gone to work like always and was doing her job as usual, when suddenly the phone rang and she’d been informed that a book she’d edited had won an award; most people would assume it was a practical joke.
At the time, I was in Shibuya Station. “Oh … now that you mention it, I did get a letter about that.”
“They appear to be looking for you. Come to Kadokawa Shoten at once.”
As I later learned, what I did that day was rather an unusual course of action for a prize candidate to take on the day the winner was announced. Most people apparently sit around with their editors, swallowing nervously and jumping every time the phone rings, thinking, “The results are in!” only to have it be a wrong number and find themselves asked to deliver tendon and soba.
I went to Kadokawa Shoten, up to the floor that housed the anime and manga division, which oversees Sneaker Bunko, and all the editors bowed to me, congratulating me on my award. Award? Uh … huh? While I was still reeling, I was thrown into a taxi and driven away.
We got out of the taxi in front of a strange building and rode the elevator up, and a huge crowd of people turned toward me at once. I wanted to run away. I was led along helplessly to a sort of conference room packed with people and TV cameras, and I was forced to stand in front of them. A microphone was placed before me, and someone asked me how I felt.
Award? Uh … huh? My head was still spinning, but I was convinced that if Tokyo people knew they had me rattled, I would be forced to put my stamp on a number of dubious documents, be introduced to dubious friends, and be promised profits that were unlikely to materialize, so I pretended to be calm and answered. There were loads of people with cameras pointed at me, with flashes going off like strobe lights, and I felt like a criminal being dragged out of a patrol car. I wanted to bow my head, tears in my eyes, apologize, and promise not to do it again. Nevertheless, I managed to survive the post-award interview and was able to calm down enough to look around me—but the more I looked, the more famous mystery novelists I saw in the crowd. Yikes! Time to go! But before I could run, people started handing me business cards, and I had to make polite conversations. One of the cards handed to me said Hideo Uyama, which terrified me.
“Th-this is the Uyama-san … !”
I stared in awe at the man who’d handed me the card, but before I managed to recover enough to speak, I was swallowed up by the crowd again. Eventually I escaped, went home, and lay in bed trembling, still in a state of shock.
And that is basically all I have to say about the day GOTH won the Honkaku Mystery Award; however, I think Uyama-san deserves a little more explanation. Uyama-san is the famous Kodansha editor who created the Shin Honkaku Mystery boom, and without him, there would have been far fewer Honkaku mysteries, I never would have read any mysteries of quality, and GOTH never would have been written. There are few opportunities in life to meet with people who have changed history, which is why I was so terrified when he gave me his card.