Any bad otaku immersed in idol culture and otaku culture, but also an avid sci-fi fan, will likely have thought about merging idols and hard sci-fi at least once, and dreamed of pulling off that perfect crime. But it was Gengen Kusano who actually did it. Born in 1990, he is still in his twenties, and many from his generation must be gnashing their teeth, wailing, “I should have written that!” If I had been in his generation, I’m absolutely certain I would be one of them.
The opinions voiced by the Sci-fi Contest jury were certainly not all negative ones. The critic Hiroshi Azuma said, “Personally, I gave it full marks,” and “It’s certainly stupid sci-fi, but the pacing of the writing makes it fun. The space theory and neural network design were appealing.” The writer Issui Ogawa said, “This is more sci-fi than any other work here,” and “A flower grown from the breeding ground of idol culture matured on the internet, nourished by the vines of sci-fi until it bloomed — only in sci-fi could you attempt something so insane.” I’m sure the fans who cast their Seiun Award votes for this title would nod their heads in agreement.
Finally, the book version of Last and First Idol is the first short story collection Gengen Kusano has released as an author. In addition to the title story, it collects two additional short stories, both of which follow up on the concept of fusing otaku culture with hard sci-fi.
The second piece, Evolution Girls, is about an adult woman named Youko Sasajima, a whale in a mobile game named Evolution Girls (Evo Gals for short) based on anthropomorphized prehistoric creatures. She gets hit by a truck and reborn in the world of the game. Following on the heels of Last and First Idol, this was originally published as an ebook in 2017. (Evo Gals itself resembles the 2017 smash hit anime Kemono Friends. Kusano has also written an essay titled, “Why Kemono Friends is Amaaazing Sci-fi!” https://cakes.mu/posts/15376.)
But the world Youko is reborn in is like Evo Gals, yet not Evo Gals. When these Girls pull on the gacha they obtain organs like microtubules and mitochondria; evolving their own bodies, they feed off each other, with only the fittest surviving. Youko pulls on the gacha in exchange for her “health, lifespan, volition, and existence,” transforming herself into a bizarre monster. The content could be described as a variation on the themes of Last and First Idol, but with a mobile game as its subject he brings in battles against and alongside other Girls. Gengen Kusano gave an interview to SF Magazine in which he advocated for calling the genre ‘widescreen yuri baroque,’ claiming that the work closest to it was Puella Magi Madoka Magica. Compared with his previous work, the yuri elements are more thickly applied, a sign the author is putting into practice what he preaches. But the work is not just yuri; it is also widescreen and baroque; much like his debut work, the scale is enormous and it concludes by explaining the relationship between mobile games, free will, and the universe itself. To riff on a line from the anime in question, “I want to eliminate all mobile games before they’re born. All mobile games in the universe, in the past and in the future, with my own hand.” There are many (myself included) who have blown themselves up on gacha so many times yet remain addicted to mobile games, and this story worms its way into our hearts like a religious text preaching gospel. Gengen Kusano really has his thumb on his own people.
The third story, which appears here for the first time, is Dark Seiyuu. Following idols, mobile games (and Friends) this story, as the title says, is seiyuu themed — as if to go, what else could complete the trio? In a world where the universe is filled with aether, and gravity only exists in limited locations, seiyuu have become beings able to pull limitless energy from the aether. Genetic manipulation has resulted in them having a bizarre external organ, the laryngeal sac, and they’re treated like livestock or spaceship parts. As always, a grim setting, but the story itself revolves around a seiyuu named Akane, who is killing other seiyuu and stealing their sacs so she can become the ultimate seiyuu, and the mysterious figure who stands before her, the Dark Seiyuu. One of the most spectacular sequences involves the scene just after their fight, where the Earth’s gravity fails; quite a shocking twist. It carefully simulates what would happen if gravity suddenly ceased to exist, describing the awful spectacle of a 500 meter per second wind wiping all trace of civilization away. My brain let out a happy shriek.
After narrowly escaping Earth with her kouhai seiyuu Sachii, Akane chases the Dark Seiyuu (while pursued by bounty hunters) out into space, and one strange gadget after another shows up, from seiyuu nuclear fusion bombs to space fish living in the aether space; a space opera-like world view filled with all manner of strange things that’s a delight to read.
And here, too, it ends by explaining that the Dark Seiyuu’s origins lie in dark matter, revealing the secrets behind the (in story) physics mystery of the origins of gravity, and wraps up all the seiyuu stuff with a neat bow. His talent is impressive indeed.
Idols, mobile games, Friends, and seiyuu...
The stories in this book vividly incorporate topics that have been all the rage in otaku circles the last few years. In a decade or more, we’ll be able to read this work as a product of its time.
Gengen Kusano has speed on his side. After all, in modern otaku culture content is born and forgotten with dizzying speed, and he’s an active consumer of it all. Yet he does not stop there, but filters it through himself, producing stories entirely his own that incorporate what he’s absorbed. I’m sure there are many who bathe in the vast floods of otaku culture, and many who seek out worlds as far removed from their own as imaginable, but talents who can handle both at once are rare indeed.
Where will Gengen Kusano take us in the future? For all he’s written about the grotesque evolutions of mankind, I can’t help but see him as undergoing an evolution of his own. According to that interview with SF Magazine, he’s planning a novel that would combine Jainism and Singularity, and I’m looking forward to seeing how this young talent, through that work, evolves beyond anything I can imagine.
January, 2018