Otsuichi


Otsuichi is the pen name of Hirotaka Adachi is a Japanese writer and filmmaker. He is a member of the Mystery Writers of Japan and the Honkaku Mystery Writers Club of Japan.
He made his debut with Summer, Fireworks and My Corpse while still in high school. Major works include the novel Goth, which was adapted into a comic and a feature film and the Zoo short story collections which were also adapted into a feature film. Goth won the 2003 Honkaku Mystery Award.
Tokyopop has published English-language translations of his short story collection Calling You, the novel Goth and the comic adaptations of both. Another short story, "F-Sensei's Pocket", appears in the English edition of the literary magazine Faust.

Career

Otsuichi was born on October 21, 1978, in Tanushimaru, Fukuoka Prefecture, the eldest son of a family of four with his parents and two older sisters. He attended Kawai Elementary School and during his later years there, he became overweight, surpassing 60 kilograms. This led to Otsuichi getting bullied and gaining an inferiority complex, which he used playing video games alone to deal with. After Kawai, he attended Kurume Shiritsu Tanushimaru Junior High School. At the age of 14, he decided to go on a diet, and was elected class president in the third year of junior high school. Despite this, he still felt inferior to his classmates.
In 1994, he entered the National Institute of Technology, Kurume College. Despite calling the 5 years at the college "the gloomiest in all of his life," during summer vacation when he was around 15 years old, he read the first volume of the light novel series Slayers by Hajime Kanzaka which he borrowed from a friend and discovered his love of reading, and began dabbling into the world of light novels and manga. For the next year and a half, Otsuichi read as many light novels as he could get his hands on either from friends or his older sisters, while also encountering mystery novels such as Takemaru Abiko's Satsuriku ni taru Yamai, Yukito Ayatsuji's The Decagon House Murders and Sōji Shimada's Detective Kiyoshi Mitarai series.
He started writing his own novels when he was 16 years old. To qualify for the Fujimi Fantasia Novel Awards, Otsuichi starting writing an isekai fantasy novel, but feeling that it was not going well, he decided to rewrite the setting to a rural town nearby where he grew up. This reworked novel was called Summer, Fireworks and My Corpse and it won the 6th ''JUMP Novel Grand Prix award in 1996 after a strong endorsement from Kaoru Kurimoto, making his official debut at only 17 years old.
In 1999, he graduated from the National Institute of Technology, Kurume College, and transferred to the Department of Ecology Engineering, Toyohashi University of Technology, and started living on his own in Toyohashi, Aichi Prefecture. At university, he belonged to a science fiction research group.
In 2002, Otsuichi graduated from Toyohashi University. This year, one of his most known work, Goth, was published and the following year, it won the 3rd Honkaku Mystery Award. In 2003, he moved from Toyohashi to the vicinity of Tokyo's Gakugei-daigaku Station, and a few months later to the vicinity of Musashi-Nakahara Station in Kawasaki, Kanagawa Prefecture.
At that time, Otsuichi was invited by an editor to watch the sound editing of Mamoru Oshii's Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence''. There, he met Oshii's daughter Tomoe Oshii who was a writer for the film, and the two later got married in 2006. In February 2007, they moved from Kawasaki. In 2010, the couple had a child together.

Style and influence in the field

In his early career, Otsuichi's works could be described as mainly short stories with interesting ideas and heartwarming light novels. Furthermore, some of his early work were horror or sad stories, named Black Otsuichi and White Otsuichi respectively. However, Goth, one of the work he is most known for, was a highly acclaimed mystery novel, even winning the Honkaku Mystery Award.
Under the name Otsuichi, his work has been published mainly by Shueisha, Kadokawa Shoten, and Gentosha.
Describing his writing process, Otsuichi says he first decides on the storyline and then creates characters to match it. In addition, he adopted movie scriptwriting techniques from a book called Shinario Nyūmon shortly after his debut. In particular, his stories tend to have a turning point at the midpoint and many of his works are divide into four or even sixteen parts.
His wife, Tomoe Oshii, says that Otsuichi is "not obsessed with either novels or movies ." Otsuichi himself says that he "just enjoys working on his works as they take shape."
In 2012, Kono Mystery ga Sugoi! ''Award of Excellence'' winner Hitsuji Tomoi self-described himself as a "serious Otsuichi fan" and said that reading and studying Otsuichi's work inspired him to become a novelist.

Otsuichi and light novels

Light novels have a peculiar position in the publishing world, according to Otsuichi. "None of the editors I've known read light novels." This is connected to how light novels are perceived as lesser compared to other forms of literature, a fact which Otsuichi only learned after becoming active in the publishing industry. When he debuted, there were no awards for light novels.
Otsuichi wrote and published Goth as a light novel to introduce people who only read light novels to the mystery genre in the hope of expanding the horizons of readers to other forms of literature.

Works in English translation

  • Calling You, trans. Agnes Yoshida
  • * Calling You
  • * Kiz/Kids
  • * Flower Song
  • Goth, trans. Andrew Cunningham
  • Zoo, trans. Terry Gallagher
  • * Zoo
  • * In a Falling Airplane
  • * The White House in the Cold Forest
  • * Find the Blood!
  • * In a Park at Twlilight, a Long Time Ago
  • * Wardrobe
  • * Song of the Sunny Spot
  • * Kazari and Yoko
  • * SO-Far
  • * Words of God
  • * Seven Rooms
  • Summer, Fireworks, and My Corpse, trans. Nathan Collins
  • * Summer, Fireworks, and My Corpse
  • * Yuko
  • * Black Fairy Tale
  • Summer, Fireworks, and My Corpse, trans. Nathan Collins
  • * Summer, Fireworks, and My Corpse
  • * Yuko
  • Black Fairy Tale, trans. Nathan Collins
;Short story
  • F-sensei's Pocket, trans. Andrew Cunningham, illustrated by Takeshi Obata
  • Where the Wind Blows, trans. Andrew Cunningham, illustrated by Takeshi Obata
  • Firestarter Yukawa, trans. Matt Treyvaud, illustrated by KEI written under the name Eiichi Nakata

    Awards and nominations

;Japanese Awards
  • 1996 – Weekly Shōnen Jump Novel Award: Summer, Fireworks, and My Corpse
  • 2003 – Honkaku Mystery Award for Best Fiction: Goth
  • 2004 – Nominee for Yamamoto Shūgorō Prize: Zoo
;U.S. Award
  • 2009 – Nominee for Shirley Jackson Award for Single-Author Collection: ''Zoo''

    Novels or short story collections

  • Summer, Fireworks and My Corpse
  • * Summer, Fireworks and My Corpse
  • * Yuko
  • Tentei Yōko
  • * A Masked Ball – Or, the appearance and disappearance of the bathroom smoker
  • * Tentei Yōko
  • Ishi no Me /Heimen Inu
  • * Ishi no Me
  • * Hajime
  • * Blue
  • * Heimen Inu
  • Shissō Holiday
  • * Happiness is a Warm Kitty
  • * Shissō Holiday
  • Calling You
  • * Calling You
  • * Kiz/Kids
  • * Flower Song
  • Ankoku Dowa
  • Shinizokonai no Ao
  • Kurai tokoro de machiawase
  • Goth Wristcut Case – the winner of the 3rd Honkaku Mystery Award
  • * Goth
  • * Wristcut
  • * Dog
  • * Twins
  • * Grave
  • * Voice
  • Goth Yoru no Shō
  • * Goth
  • * Dog
  • * Twins
  • Goth Boku no Shō
  • * Wristcut
  • * Grave
  • * Voice
  • Samishisa no Shūhasū
  • * Mirai Yoho Ashita, Harereba ii
  • * Te o Nigiru dorobō no Monogatari
  • * Film no naka no Shōjo
  • * Ushinawareta Monogatari
  • Zoo
  • * Kazari to Yōko
  • * Ketsueki wo Sagase!
  • * Hidamari no Shi
  • * So-far
  • * Tsumetai Mori no Shiroi Ie
  • * Closet
  • * Kami no Kotoba
  • * Zoo
  • * Seven Rooms
  • * Ochiru hikoki no Naka de
  • Zoo 1
  • * Kazari to Yōko
  • * Seven Rooms
  • * So-far
  • * Hidamari no Shi
  • * Zoo
  • Zoo 2
  • * Ketsueki wo Sagase!
  • * Tsumetai Mori no Shiroi Ie
  • * Closet
  • * Kami no Kotoba
  • * Ochiru Hikoki no Naka de
  • * Mukashi Yuhi no Kōen de
  • Ushinawareru Monogatari
  • * Calling You
  • * Ushinawareru Monogatari
  • * Kiz/Kids
  • * Te wo Nigiru Dorobō no Monogatari
  • * Happiness is a Warm Kitty
  • * Maria no Yubi
  • * Boku no Kashikoi Pantsu-kun
  • * Usokano
  • '''Gun and Chocolate'''

    Picture book

  • '''Kutsushita o Kakuse!'''

    Essays

  • Shosei Monogatari
  • * Collection of essays written for the web
  • Toruko Nikki ~ Dame Ningen Sakka Trio no Datsuryoku Tabi Nikki~
  • * Serialized on the web, heavily revised; in tandem with Shinji Sadakane and Makoto Matsubara.

    Uncollected Stories

  • Ugoku Omocha
  • Tsuma no Denwa
  • Kamikakushi
  • Shufuku sareta Mizu
  • Kaidan
  • F-Sensei no Pocket
  • Kodomo ha Tōku ni Itta
  • Dare ni mo Tsuzukanai
  • * A relay novel written with Takekuni Kitayama, Yuya Sato, Tatsuhiko Takimoto and Nisio Isin.
  • Mado ni fuku Kaze
  • Kono ko no e wa Mikansei
  • '''Utopia'''

    Manga

  • Hajime
  • * Script. Art by Takeshi Obata. Two part short story, appeared in Jump in 2003.
  • Misshitsu Kanojo
  • * Planning. Not published, but his plot in script for was distributed at performances.
  • Shonen Shojo Horyuki
  • * Script. Art by Usamaru Furuya.