by Otaro Maijo
Remind me to kill him someday.
And when he’s dead and going off to cross his own River Styx, remind me not to save him. Though I suppose you have to have psychic powers like his to write on those cliffs anyway.
The Nogawa is really narrow, and it has all these short little bridges going across. As we get close to the next one, I seriously consider turning and crossing to the other side to show him how pissed off I am…but then I don’t. For now anyway, this side I’m on with Tansetsu is the right side.
Otaro Maijo (1973-) is a novelist from Fukui, where most of his stories take place. Most of the illustrations in his novels were drawn by himself. He debuted with his mystery novel, Kemuri ka tsuchi ka kuimono (Smoke, Soil, or Food), with which he won the Mephisto Prize. He started writing pure literature with Kuma no basho (Place of the Bear), which was nominated for the Mishima Yukio Prize. Then in 2003, he won the Mishima Yukio Prize for Asura Girl.
Haikasoru
The Future is Japanese
Phantasm Japan
–Edited by Haikasoru
The secret history of the most famous secret agent in the world. A bunny costume that reveals the truth in our souls. The unsettling notion that Japan itself may be a dream. The tastiest meal you’ll never have, a fedora-wearing neckbeard’s deadly date with a yokai, and the worst work shift anyone—human or not—has ever lived through. Welcome to Phantasm Japan.
Edge of Tomorrow (Movie Tie-in Edition)
–Hiroshi Sakurazaka
When the alien Mimics invade, Keiji Kiriya is just one of many recruits shoved into a suit of battle armor called a Jacket and sent out to kill. Keiji dies on the battlefield, only to be reborn each morning to fight and die again and again. On his 158th iteration, he gets a message from a mysterious ally—the female soldier known as the Full Metal Bitch. Is she the key to Keiji’s escape or his final death? Now a major motion picture starring Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt!
Apparitions: Ghosts of Old Edo
–Miyuki Miyabe
In old Edo, the past was never forgotten. It lived alongside the present in dark corners and in the shadows. In these tales, award-winning author Miyuki Miyabe explores the ghosts of early modern Japan and the spaces of the living world—workplaces, families, and the human soul—that they inhabit. Written with a journalistic eye and a fantasist’s heart, Apparitions brings the restless dead, and those who encounter them, to life.
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