Chapter 4

Commentary nigozyu “A work that is not for everyone and divides readers.” Occasionally, there are novels sold under that kind of tagline. In practice, stories produced outside of mainstream trends play a significant role in expanding the breadth of genres available on the market. I would say it’s even more preferable for such works to win a Newcomer Award, as this one did. That is because there are already plenty of talented, well-renowned authors creating novels that stick to mainstream trends. However, at the same time, I find myself thinking the following: “A work that is not for everyone and divides readers”—do those words not also serve as an excuse to silence criticism of a piece’s quality? “This novel is not for everyone, so it’s perfectly natural if it fails to reach a large audience.” “Even if it doesn’t resonate with nine out of ten readers, it’s fine if it deeply resonates with the remaining one.” As someone with the responsibility to delight as many people as possible by introducing works of entertainment into the world, I find those beliefs and attitudes to be somewhat insincere. “It’s fine if this work reaches even one person who needs it…”—it shouldn’t be. When penning a work of entertainment, there is no reason to slack off on trying to delight as many readers as possible. Now, taking that into consideration, how should this light novel—one that sharply divided judges of the MF Bunko J Newcomer Award—be assessed? At the very least, I believe it has not sacrificed quality for the sake of being branded divisive. From the introduction all the way through to the final sentence, I felt a prevailing intention of wanting to entertain as many readers as possible. For example, this novel does not rely on the impact of overly grotesque descriptions typical of death-game stories. Rather, it intentionally leaves shocking scenes to the reader’s imagination and, in some instances, makes use of a unique mechanism in the Preservation Treatment to avoid unnecessarily graphic depictions, thereby reducing instinctive responses of disgust in readers. This work has also been written with the visuals of a light novel in mind, with girls participating in death games wearing maid outfits or bunny-girl costumes. So much contributes to raising the quality of this novel—a speedy tempo that keeps the reader on the edge of their seat, a moderate amount of perspective switching, a nonlinear narrative to build on the story within this single volume, and so on. It is sharpened in the ways it should be, without compromising the story, world-building, structure, or prose. So, then, how will this work be received by the world? I suspect it will truly divide readers. There is likely only one major element that will draw mixed opinions—the protagonist, Yuki. Will readers accept her or not? I look forward to seeing lively discussions among a wide range of readers over social media and other websites.