The editorial department of Shinchōsha, seven o'clock in the morning.
When Kobayashi Tomoaki pushed open the office door, he froze on the spot.
Beneath the fax machine on the desk lay a stack of paper a full ten centimeters thick.
The printer was still working, spitting out one sheet after another.
It made a steady "clack-clack" sound.
He walked over and picked up the topmost sheet.
It was an order form.
From a bookstore in Osaka.
He picked up another.
Kyoto.
Another.
Nagoya.
Sapporo. Sendai...
From every corner of the country, they came fluttering in like snowflakes.
"This…"
He rubbed his eyes, making sure he hadn't misread.
Just then, footsteps came from behind him.
An editor walked in, holding a fresh copy of the Asahi Shimbun.
"Editor Kobayashi, have you seen this?"
Kobayashi Tomoaki took the newspaper and glanced at the culture section beneath the front page.
[No Longer Human Surges Against the Trend—First-Week Sales Set a New Record High for Shinchō]
"In a single day yesterday, nationwide sales broke one hundred and thirty thousand copies."
"And today's figures are still climbing."
Kobayashi Tomoaki gripped the newspaper, his hands trembling slightly.
One hundred and thirty thousand copies.
In one day.
He had been in this business for many years, and he had never seen anything like it.
Ever since that amusing piece of news on the second day—the one in Tokyo about someone using a copy of Shinchō as a weapon to catch and injure an adulterer—made the headline section, it had driven sales of both Shinchō and No Longer Human that very day.
By rights, the second day's sales should have counted as the normal first-day sales.
The first day, due to the special circumstances, didn't count.
Normally the first day is the highest-selling day, after which sales decline a little more with each passing day.
But this time, for various reasons, it produced a surge against the trend.
The fact that Shinchōsha had also distributed stock early on, from the whole of Tokyo Metropolis out to large and mid-sized cities like Osaka, Kyoto, and Nagoya, was the most important reason as well.
Yet he had never imagined that even after distributing nationwide, sales would remain so robust.
This was still mainly thanks to all the coverage from the major newspapers over these past few days.
For example, the Yomiuri Shimbun praised the literary value and social impact of No Longer Human, affirming the contributions and advocacy of Shinchōsha and the Dassai-ya master toward social charity, public welfare, and disadvantaged groups.
The Asahi Shimbun, in its culture section, invited numerous literature professors from renowned universities, literary critics, and famous authors to offer all sorts of assessments of the literary style and depth of Tsushima Kagami's No Longer Human and the earlier work The Setting Sun.
And they reached the conclusion that No Longer Human and The Setting Sun had pioneered an entirely new literary school.
Many prominent figures in the literary and educational worlds expressed their hope to engage in deeper exchanges with this mysterious author about the discussion of the works' school of literature.
The Mainichi Shimbun, like the Asahi Shimbun, affirmed the positive influence No Longer Human had stirred in society, but at the same time cautioned that some of the negative influences in its content should be taken seriously, calling for more positive and uplifting promotion.
The Sankei Shimbun, as if it had taken promotional fees from both Shinchōsha and Tsushima Kagami, opened by proclaiming that the [Dassai-ya] master had already ascended to the rank of national author, and went so far as to declare that the government ought to bestow upon such an author the title of national teacher.
The Nihon Keizai Shimbun more professionally analyzed the impact of No Longer Human on the publishing industry—whether it could serve as a shot of adrenaline for the already half-dead physical publishing trade.
In short, with all the buzz both great and small piling up,
No Longer Human had already become the must-discuss topic for the citizens of Tokyo over their tea and after their meals today. What?!
You actually haven't read No Longer Human?
My, that really shows you have no taste.
Oh my!
You say you disdain to read No Longer Human?
Then you really do think yourself above it all.
...
The editorial department of Shinchōsha, five o'clock in the afternoon.
Kobayashi Tomoaki stared at the latest data statistics report.
[Cumulative Sales of the November Issue of Shinchō]
November 1 (release day): 20,000 copies (morning) + 3,600 copies (afternoon)
November 2: 70,000 copies
November 3: 90,000 copies
November 4: 110,000 copies
November 5: 130,000 copies
Today, even before the five o'clock cutoff this afternoon, it had already broken 150,000 copies.
And it was still climbing.
Kobayashi Tomoaki rubbed his eyes and read it over again.
That's right.
One hundred and fifty thousand copies?
Since the company's founding, the highest first-week sales for a single issue of any magazine had never been as high as these five days!
He suddenly recalled five days ago, when he had been sitting right here.
Staring at the figures showing only a little over three thousand copies sold that afternoon, he had been utterly stunned.
Though he'd had confidence that it was merely an unusual phenomenon, not a sign that the book itself was no good.
And the result?
If the physical publishing industry is already a sunset trade, then pure literature has already got one foot in the coffin.
Who could have imagined that five days later it would become the best-selling issue in Shinchōsha's history.
"Editor Kobayashi."
A colleague's voice came from behind him.
Kobayashi Tomoaki turned around.
A department head from the marketing division stood in the doorway, holding a document, a smile on his face.
"The printing plant says the fifth print run of two hundred thousand copies can be distributed by tomorrow morning."
Kobayashi Tomoaki was taken aback.
"The fifth run? Didn't we just add the fourth?"
"The fourth run has already sold out."
Kobayashi Tomoaki's mouth fell open.
The marketing head walked over and patted him on the shoulder.
"Editor Kobayashi really does have a discerning eye for talent."
Kobayashi Tomoaki didn't quite know what to say.
It was true that he had been the one to discover Tsushima Kagami.
But for things to reach such a state in just a few months—
that surely had nothing to do with him anymore.
In the end, all he could do was say, both gratified and helpless,
"It's all the Dassai-ya master's own ability."
The marketing head walked to the window and looked at the endless stream of people on the street below.
"You know what?"
"Just now, down on the street, I saw a high school student holding a copy of our magazine."
"He was standing at the roadside reading it, so absorbed that he almost got hit by a bicycle."
He chuckled.
"The cyclist cursed at him, and he didn't even lift his head."
"He just held up the magazine and apologized like that."
"And my daughter tells me that at her high school, almost everyone has a copy of Shinchō now."
"All just to read No Longer Human."
"It's spreading even more outrageously than Hear the Wind Sing did back then."
"I even saw the president today—he was over the moon."
How could he not be happy?
The student market they had always craved had finally caught fire across the campuses this time.
No longer would they have to fret day after day, brows knit, over Kōdansha's Gunzō and its Hear the Wind Sing.
Kobayashi Tomoaki silently quipped to himself.
"Yeah, today I even saw the editor-in-chief humming a little tune in his office."
"This is all thanks to young Kagami too."
"If he came to the marketing department, he'd be a real talent there as well."
The marketing head said with a smile too.
This went back to noon on the second day, when Shinchō started selling hot again.
The planning department had been thinking about how to seize this opportunity to see whether they could break Shinchō into the student demographic.
And it was just then that Kobayashi Tomoaki made a point of calling Tsushima Kagami to share the good news.
So they happened to get to talking about this initiative.
As it turned out, Tsushima Kagami came up with an idea.
He suggested Shinchōsha advertise not only in bookstores, but also in all the leisure and entertainment venues that students frequented.
And the advertising slogan would be: [Shocking—this book is both healing and depressing. Minors, do not read!]
As a result, whether middle schoolers or high schoolers, whether out of their rebellious phase or contrarian psychology—
the air around them was already saturated every day with all kinds of talk about No Longer Human, laying down an emotional foundation for them.
And now, after a promotional slogan like that was rolled out,
you say minors aren't allowed to read it, so they won't?
Hmph, then I simply have to buy it and take a couple of looks.
The result was that whether students fell for it out of contrarian psychology, or were students who already had good literary reading habits, or were just students who wanted to cherry-pick a few classic lines to pose as artsy types—
No Longer Human became the must-have status read that every one of these students carried.
If you don't read No Longer Human, you're a total loser!
There was rather a feeling that if you haven't read No Longer Human, then meeting me is like a frog at the bottom of a well gazing at the moon in the sky; but if you have read No Longer Human, then meeting me is like a tiny ant beholding the boundless blue heaven.
And Tsushima Kagami's pen name, Master of Dassai-ya, was gaining ever greater prestige throughout the entire student population and society at large—whether lower, middle, or upper class.
There were even more and more people sending letters and making phone calls, and even privately questioning Shinchōsha's senior management, asking who exactly the Dassai-ya master himself really was.
And the calls for the author to reveal his identity grew louder and louder.
____
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