Tokyo Girlfriend Guide

Chapter 860: Xiaomei: I'm sorry, Kobayashi-san, but Hojo-sensei is really handsome

It has only been a few days since Hojo Kyosuke won the highest award in the Japanese mystery literature world, and the news is still spreading in newspapers, magazines and on the Internet. Awards in the literary world are like this. Although writers have a high social status, to be honest, not many people pay attention to these awards every day.

Often after the award ceremony, various media outlets will report on it non-stop, and then people around you will spread the news in the form of "Have you heard? Mr. Hojo won the Mystery Association Award."

People who used to not read novels would go to convenience stores and bookstores to buy magazines in the morning, and when they saw a novel "dressed up" with various honors written on it, they would pay a little attention to it and see that it was the winner of this year's Mystery Writers Association Award. They would immediately understand:

Oh, it turns out that the new king of mystery novels has ascended the throne.

Then put it together with the comic magazine, or cover it on the pornographic magazine to cover it up.

As early as the 1980s and 1990s in Japan, almost 99% of IT workers were readers of comic magazines. The number of readers who buy magazines and readers who buy other books overlaps greatly, and the "science" attribute of mystery novels themselves makes them a favorite work of this group of people.

In short, the Neon Mystery Writers Association Awards, which took place less than half a week ago, finally reached their climax today, the second day after the release of Hojo Kyosuke's new manga.

And with the addition of the new comic, this new event, the trend is getting worse and worse.

Hojo Kyosuke's mystery novel "The Dreams and Death of Writer K", which caused crazy debate between the pros and cons during the award judging period, is also being discussed by all parties.

Asahi Shimbun, an old acquaintance with whom he had a very pleasant cooperation, spared no words of praise in its newspaper and its weekly magazine, directly and clearly proclaiming that Hojo Kyosuke had created a new genre of mystery novels:

"Quasi-reasoning!"

These outrageous words and titles came from an old acquaintance of Hojo Kyosuke, the ace critic of the Asahi Shimbun, professor of the Faculty of Literature at the University of Tokyo, and well-known translator and novelist Futami Jiraiya.

The day after the award ceremony, the morning edition of Asahi Shimbun directly published his article:

"...Congratulations to Mr. Hojo Kyousuke for winning the 68th Neon Mystery Writers Association Award. It's well deserved..."

First of all, there was a series of congratulations and praises. The old man said proudly that he had foreseen this day long ago. He also mentioned the Sankei Shimbun and their writer Motohiro Matsumoto, and listed the other party's previous comments, criticizing the other party's poor cultural accomplishment.

After feeling proud of himself for a while, he began to seriously discuss Hojo Kyosuke and his award-winning work.

“…Although the winning work is Hojo-sensei’s debut novel “The Devotion of Suspect X”, what I want to discuss with you is Hojo-sensei’s second mystery novel “The Dream and Death of Writer K”. Because we often use the term “flash in the pan” to describe writers who reach the peak of their careers but then become obscurity. A single success does not mean anything, and a single piece of evidence is not clear.

At that time, there were many angles to the discussion on whether Hojo-sensei could win the Mystery Association Award. Some said he lacked experience, and some said his novels were too good to be considered as serious literature. But those who knew a little about the inside story knew that the real difficulty was that the judges who held the right to vote were actually considering the nature of the work "The Devotion of Suspect X" itself.

Is this novel a classical mystery? Or a social mystery? Or is it simply not a mystery novel?

Or is it that Hojo Kyosuke actually has a heart of an orthodox school, but lacks the ability so he has to turn to the social school, and thus comes up with this kind of weird thing?

The judges naturally consider things from a different perspective than the average reader. If they can’t see a person’s true face, they won’t easily cast their vote…”

Futami Jiraiya is indeed a critic himself. He relies on his status as a university professor and a well-known cultural figure to reveal some of the judges' secrets. He knows what readers like to read. If he honestly analyzes the advantages of the works of Hojo Kyosuke's opponents and how he won the award... Who would like to read such a thing?

It has to be something explosive, either a secret or shocking.

"…But we know that when public opinion and the situation were very unfavorable to Mr. Hojo, he directly and resolutely published his second mystery novel "The Dream and Death of Writer K"

I don't know what other people think about this, except for me. I stood at the door of the bookstore and looked at the poster of this new book. I seemed to hear the voice of Mr. Hojo in my ear: "Come on, don't you want to know who I am and what my books are like? How can you read only one book? Read one more!"

As I said at the beginning, to evaluate a writer, you must never just look at one of his works, because doing so will only give you a short-lived evaluation at best.

But when I read The Dreams and Death of Writer K for the first time, I had only one thought in my mind:

"Great, it's Mr. Hojo, the Japanese mystery world is saved!"

This is Mr. Hojo's response to all criticisms and the best proof of his own literary level.

Next, I will solemnly introduce to you a brand new genre that was born from the corpse of the orthodox school and emerged amid the exclamations of the social school - "Hojo Mystery"! !

It has the most original tricks, but at the same time reasoning is used as a tool to portray characters and advance the plot. The focus is on the social level.

Before I explain the details of "Hojo Mystery" to you, I have to emphasize that although this is a new genre, it is not a genre that anyone can easily learn. Because both the requirements for tricks and the design of plots and characters are very strict. In short:

If you can write such excellent tricks as in Hojo's two works, then there is no need to spend so much time on character creation and plot design. Conversely, if you can create such excellent characters and design such profound plots, there is no need to write mystery novels.

I have something to say, although it may offend some people, I just can't help but say it:

Hojo Kyosuke, genius is his name and willfulness is his middle name.

These two mystery novels, especially the second one, contain three perfect tricks in a row. It is so willful and reckless, it is simply a show of skill..."

The Japanese never stop talking until they are shocking. Although there is no advertising law in Japan, people have long been accustomed to all kinds of "world's first" gimmicks and are no strangers to all kinds of exaggerated nicknames, there are not many people who talk nonsense like Futami Jiraiya.

A new genre of mystery fiction, the founder of which is comparable to Seicho Matsumoto...

Such outrageous remarks would be considered as despicable flattery if readers had not watched the TV Asahi program and knew that Futami Jiraiya and Hojo Kyosuke did have a good personal relationship.

Fortunately, this article was published after the award ceremony. If it was published before, Hojo Kyosuke would have immediately sent Xisaki to kill the opponent. After all, the Japanese society hates this kind of thing the most. Don't think that everyone respects Matsumoto Seicho now, but go back to the time when he debuted and take a look.

It seemed that Jiraiya Futami had anticipated this scene a long time ago, so he dropped the bombshell that day and didn't say anything after explaining the "Hojo reasoning". Until today, the day after the release of Hojo Kyosuke's new manga "Detective Conan", he appeared in an evening program on TV Asahi.

The program begins with an interview with a passerby, the interviewee's pseudonym is "Xiao Lin"

Xiaolin: I was sleeping this morning, actually it wasn’t morning, I remember it was already 1pm. Speaking of which, it’s really comfortable to sleep at home instead of going out on vacation, it’s a complete enjoyment, on the contrary, those who go out to play, every time they return to the company after vacation, they look like their kidneys are overdrawn, it’s really…

Reporter: Um, Kobayashi-san, Kobayashi-san!

Xiaolin: Oh, oh, I forgot to mention the main thing. Anyway, I was enjoying my nap at 1:00 p.m. during the Golden Week. Actually, I have been sleeping since last night!

Reporter: Mr. Kobayashi! Everyone knows that no one invited you out to play during the Golden Week, and you have been sleeping at home out of boredom. Now, please get down to business!

Kobayashi-san, whose face was covered with mosaics, was obviously stunned, and then he immediately started yelling, saying that he had a lot of friends, and although they never left the house, they all played together on the Internet. To be honest, the distance between them was more than tens of millions of miles, and just saying a word was like taking a trip, okay!

Then he talked about a lot of happy past events between him and netizens, which made the reporter apologize repeatedly and almost caused a broadcast accident. In fact, this kind of interview is very relaxed. It is just a show effect. Maybe the passers-by being interviewed are played by TV station staff.

After a while of noise, Xiaolin finally started to talk about business.

Xiaolin: Anyway, I was exhausted from fighting with my friends in Wolf Valley last night. I was sleeping very happily when I was suddenly woken up by a phone call. You will never guess who called me!

Reporter: Is this an overtime call from the company?

Kobayashi: ...No! It's the cutest girl in our department, Mi-san!

Reporter: Oh, so Xiao Meisang called to ask you to go back to the company to work overtime?

Kobayashi: I know you are implying something to me, you bastard. You think an ordinary person like me would never receive a call from a beautiful girl in the company for personal matters during the holidays.

Reporter: No, no, no, I absolutely don’t mean that.

Xiaolin: But it doesn’t matter, because you guessed wrong! Xiaomei didn’t talk about the company at all after she called me.

Reporter: Could it be... ?

Kobayashi: Xiaomei has been talking about Hojo-sensei.

Reporter: Hahahahahahaha——

Xiao Lin: Are you laughing at me? I don't want to interview anymore, and I don't want the supermarket coupons anymore. You bastard, go interview yourself!

Reporter: No, no, no, please rest assured, Mr. Kobayashi. We journalists have professional ethics and have received professional training. We will not laugh even if we really want to, unless...

Kobayashi: Unless?

Reporter: Unless a cute female colleague from the company calls me on the weekend, she ends up talking about another boy. Hahahahahahaha…

Xiaolin: Stick it off! Are you looking for trouble, bastard?

The two of them started to make a scene again. This kind of TV show is like that. It's not prime time. It relies on rubbish to attract viewership and sell ads. For example, the content of this episode, maybe the ad will be "Want to be invited to drink by your female colleagues on the weekend? xx perfume, the perfect scent that will never be rejected by women!"

Moral ethics have nothing to do with media people.

After the reporter promised to give him another shopping voucher, Kobayashi returned to the camera.

Xiaolin: After the call was connected, Xiaomei asked me directly if I was a mystery fan. I was ecstatic at the time, thinking that Xiaomei might also like me secretly, otherwise how could she know that I like mystery novels? But just when I wanted to show off my extensive knowledge of mystery, I heard Xiaomei ask me, "Xiaolin, if you are a mystery fan, you must have read "Detective Conan"! Ah, I never knew that mystery comics were so interesting!"

I was stunned. When I heard about "Detective Conan", I was wondering why I had never heard of this mystery novel. But... mystery comics? What is that? Can mystery comics be considered mystery?

My dignity and persistence as a mystery fan made me unable to tolerate Xiaomei's tarnishing of "reasoning", and I immediately prepared to reprimand her severely.

On TV, Xiao Lin waved his arms and spoke passionately. The audience could understand his feelings, after all, this is how the circle works.

Reporter: But...?

Hearing this question, Xiao Lin immediately lowered his head and his tone became a hundred times weaker.

Xiaolin: But... Xiaomei is so cute! I tell you, it's not that I have no moral integrity, but you don't know how cute Xiaomei is! Since Xiaomei joined our department, I have never bought coffee by myself! Because every morning the delivery man would bring more than ten cups of coffee sent by Xiaomei's admirers!

So, as I listened to Xiaomei's voice over there, I couldn't help but think that, compared to detective novels, the orthodoxy of reasoning is indeed in comics.

While listening to Xiaomei's excited discussion of "Detective Conan", I quickly turned on my computer and started searching, but found that it was a comic that had just started serialization and there was not much specific content on the Internet. I immediately ran downstairs and bought a copy of "Weekly Shonen High".

Finally, I can happily chat with my little sister.

Reporter: Congratulations, Mr. Kobayashi. Common interests and hobbies are the first step to building a relationship!

Kobayashi: Yes, that's what I thought at the time. I was watching "Detective Conan" very quickly, thinking that with so many mystery novels I've read and so many murder methods I know, I will definitely be able to impress Xiaomei.

Reporter: But...?

Xiao Lin: You bastard? Are you laughing at me again? How can there be so many twists and turns? Do you think you are writing a novel? Why are there so many twists and turns? I want to kill you. Do you really look down on me and think I am not worthy of Xiao Mei?

Reporter: Yes.

Xiaolin: Okay, I know you don't look down on me, but you are not allowed to talk anymore... Hmm? Wait? What did you say?

Reporter: I said please continue.

Xiaolin: After reading Detective Conan, I actually think it is a pretty good mystery manga, and it is indeed worthy of being the work of Mr. Hojo. Then I asked Xiaomei what she thought was good about it. Then do you know what Xiaomei said?

At this time, Xiaolin's voice began to cry:

She said: Kudo Shinichi is so handsome, Xiaolan is so beautiful, Conan is so cute, and even Maori Kogoro is so handsome. (End of this chapter)