Chapter 118 Kenjiro Oe's Move and the Preview of His Confession

The article is signed by Kenzaburo Oe, a leading figure in contemporary Japanese literature and a literary giant known for his critiques of the government and reflections on society.

This literary master, who usually keeps a low profile, unusually responded to the press releases from conservative media outlets such as the Sankei Shimbun by name in an extremely sharp and even somewhat sarcastic tone.

"In the past two days, I have seen comments such as 'a double award-winning genius has fallen' and 'compromising with vulgarity'."

In the opening of his article, Kenzaburo Oe delivers a resounding slap in the face: "But after reading these heart-wrenching words, only one question remains in my mind—did the critics who wrote these articles actually finish reading those three books?"

"They keep saying that this is cheap supernatural tales and low-level sensory stimulation. However, any reader with a little patience will find that in the second part, Kitahara-kun has already smashed the supernatural shell of the previous work to pieces and turned it into a virus deduction based on rigorous biology and pathology."

"In the third installment, he completely overturned the worldview, elevating the story to a hard science fiction that explores virtual reality, life calculation, and existentialism."

In this column of less than a thousand words, Kenzaburo Oe demonstrates the keen insight and overwhelming literary skill of a top literary master.

"Using the shell of folklore and supernatural tales to package cutting-edge science fiction and philosophical speculation."

"This is not a compromise with vulgarity, but rather a great and ambitious expansion of the narrative structure of contemporary Japanese literature."

"When a writer has begun to use computer code and the human gene pool to deduce the despair of modern people, those self-proclaimed aloof traditional literati are still whining about clichés in their ivory towers."

At the end of the article, this literary giant pointed the finger at the mastermind behind the scenes, delivering a fatal blow: "If this kind of creative ambition that transcends the times is called 'degeneration,' then it can only prove that those who rush to write press releases to criticize without even finishing reading the original work are not only arrogant and ignorant, but are also becoming the most pathetic mouthpieces for the bureaucrats of Xiaguan."

Kenzaburo Oe's column was like a bombshell dropped on the Japanese public discourse.

The readers were the first to get excited.

Those book fans who stayed up all night, immersed in the virtual reality experience of "Ring", have finally received the most authoritative endorsement.

That morning, the reader hotlines of major conservative newspapers were completely overwhelmed with calls.

The voice on the other end of the phone was no longer a simple complaint from the lower class, but rather an undisguised mockery that blatantly outraged the writer's intelligence: "Does your newspaper's columnist even have difficulty reading? He can't even distinguish between hard science fiction and ghost stories, so how does he have the nerve to take his paycheck?"

"Please tell that critic who criticized Kitahara-sensei that before becoming a lackey of the Ministry of Finance next time, at least take a look at the cover of the second volume. You don't even know that Sadako was resurrected through viral DNA replication, and you dare to talk about literature?"

This kind of precise "plagiarism check" and ridicule from the reader level, based on the original setting, is ten thousand times more damaging than simple insults.

Meanwhile, in every corner of the Japanese literary world, those traditional writers and critics who were jumping the gun just two days ago are now experiencing an ordeal worse than death.

In a high-end apartment in Tokyo, a veteran commentator who had published a scathing article in the Sankei Shimbun the day before stood pale as a sheet of paper, clutching the day's Asahi Shimbun in his hand.

Kenzaburo Oe's comment, "I haven't even finished reading the original work," was like an invisible slap across his face.

Because what Grandpa Dajiang said was right. He had indeed only read the first two chapters of the first part of "The Ring" and, based on stereotypes and official instructions, arrogantly wrote that denouncing article.

In the Japanese literary world, being publicly branded as "unlearned and incompetent" by a literary giant of Kenzaburo Oe's caliber is tantamount to a direct death sentence for one's profession.

Which reputable publishing house will hire an "illiterate person who doesn't even read books" to write book reviews in the future?

At that moment, cold sweat poured down his forehead. He scrambled to the landline in the living room and, with trembling fingers, dialed the number of a familiar editor.

"Hey? It's me! Take down that follow-up column I was supposed to post tomorrow! Take it down immediately, no matter what the reason!"

The editor on the other end of the phone said in an icy tone, "I'm sorry, the editor-in-chief decided this morning to suspend your column indefinitely."

"The newspaper's hotline is now overwhelmed by readers' complaints. We can't let the public think that we've hired a fraudster who hasn't even finished reading a book before writing press releases."

Hearing the cold dial tone on the phone, the critic slumped to the messy floor, filled with deep regret.

He suddenly realized that in order to cater to the lofty political demands of the Ministry of Finance bureaucrats and to vent his pitiful jealousy of his colleagues, he had provoked an unshakeable monster.

Politicians in the Ministry of Finance can simply switch departments and continue serving, but intellectuals like him, who are always at the forefront wielding their pens, become political cannon fodder, ruthlessly discarded.

His literary reputation, painstakingly built up throughout his life, has been completely ruined by this dead end of "ignorance and incompetence."

However, this is not an isolated case.

Within a single day, this attack, meticulously planned by the Ministry of Finance, transformed into a massive, earth-shattering purge of traditional intellectuals.

Those old-school writers who were just days ago raising champagne and clinking glasses in high-class salons in Ginza to celebrate Kitahara Iwa's impending downfall are now experiencing fear.

Because the punishment comes not only from public ridicule, but also from the real financial backlash in the market.

Faced with outraged complaints from readers, bookstore managers across Japan made an extremely decisive industry split. They removed all physical books by these "anti-Kitahara" authors from prominent locations in bookstores overnight and ruthlessly packed them up and returned them to the publishers.

The empty booths were unsurprisingly filled with sequels to "The Ring".

In the face of both social death and a precipitous drop in royalties, these self-proclaimed intellectuals slunk away in disgrace.

Some people even went so far as to pull strings and contact the media overnight, shamelessly issuing some illogical "clarification statements" in an attempt to distance themselves from the wave of attacks.

Some people argued in interviews that "their original words were maliciously altered by the editor."

Some even shamelessly changed their tune, claiming that "the reason they wrote that article was to use harsh criticism to spur on young geniuses."

This clumsy attempt at changing faces not only failed to clear their names, but also allowed the entire Japanese public to witness the ridiculous and grotesque behavior of these traditional intellectuals who were opportunistic and two-faced.

While intellectuals can easily swallow their pride and play word games to shift blame and protect themselves, conservative media outlets that print these foolish words in black and white have no way out but to play dumb.

Because the backlash from the real money market is far more chilling and deadly than the ridicule from the literary world.

That afternoon, the same scene was playing out in the top-floor conference rooms of both the Sankei Shimbun headquarters and the Koun Koron headquarters.

The atmosphere in the meeting room was as cold as an icebox.

The planning department director pushed open the door, sweating profusely, clutching a stack of freshly printed faxes tightly in his hand, his voice trembling: "President, the public relations departments of Toyota and Sony just called."

"They demanded... an immediate halt to this quarter's cooperation."

The company president, seated at the head of the table, frowned: "The reason?"

"The other party's attitude was surprisingly tough and consistent."

The planning director swallowed hard, forcing a smile, and repeated, "They said they wanted to immediately remove their entire page of GG from next to our culture section!"

"They absolutely cannot allow their brand image to be printed alongside an article by a complete idiot who hasn't even read a book, and they certainly don't want to offend tens of millions of angry consumers across Japan because of this nonsensical press release!"

These words were like a resounding slap in the face to every executive in the conference room.

However, the bad news had only just begun.

Before the executives could even process the panic of sponsors withdrawing their funding, the head of the distribution department stood up, his face ashen, and whispered, "A wave of reader cancellations has broken out."

He pointed down to the customer service center and said, "In just four hours since Kenzaburo Oe's column was published, we have received more than 12,000 unsubscribe calls."

"The fax machine has jammed three times due to overheating, and all of them are requests to terminate the annual subscription."

boom!

The president slammed his hand on the conference table, making the coffee cup vibrate loudly.

He pointed at the editor-in-chief of the culture section, who was sitting at the end of the long table, and roared, "Is this what you meant by 'cooperating with the Ministry of Finance to give young writers a warning'?! Look at the mess you've made!"

The editor-in-chief of the culture section wiped the cold sweat from his forehead, his face pale, and tried to explain, "President, this is a direct hint from Xiaguan... If we don't take any action, the government's inside information and official subsidies will be..."

"Can the Ministry of Finance's hints feed us?!"

The president interrupted him mercilessly, spitting as he spoke: "If a politician has angered the public, he can simply transfer to another department and continue serving as an official!"

"Will the bureaucrats at the Ministry of Finance make up for the hundreds of millions of yen in losses incurred by Toyota and Sony withdrawing from the market?! Will they pay the salaries of the 12,000 readers who cancelled their subscriptions?!"

The editor-in-chief was so scolded that he shrank back and couldn't utter a single word.

At this moment, the iron fist of capital ruthlessly shattered the hypocrisy of political flattery.

The president took a deep breath, suppressing his panic, and issued a humiliating, death order to the entire conference room of senior executives: "Starting with tomorrow's morning paper, not a single negative comment about Kitahara Iwao and 'The Ring' is allowed to appear!"

"Remove all planned follow-up critiques and replace them with weather forecasts or pet care tips!"

He gritted his teeth and gave the final instruction: "Also, absolutely no one is allowed to respond to Kenzaburo Oe's article. Play dead to the very end!"

Under the dual pressure of reader cancellations and GG's withdrawal of investment, these usually high-and-mighty media executives are now like ducks with their necks being strangled.

They tacitly swallowed all the bitter pills, turning a deaf ear to the news that night and the following day, not daring to utter a single harsh word to save face.

This conspiracy by the Ministry of Finance has become a laughing stock throughout Japan.

Meanwhile, in Kasumigaseki's office.

The high-ranking officials of the Ministry of Finance looked at the still-soaring sales figures of "The Ring" and Kenzaburo Oe's column, their faces suddenly turned ashen, and they fell into a long silence.

They finally realized a thorny fact.

In early 1990s Japan, Kitahara Iwa was no longer just a writer, nor was he a pushover who could be easily smeared by official mouthpieces.

His absolute strength in textual innovation has not only conquered the giants of pure literature, but the grassroots public opinion he represents has also become the strongest armor.

Politicians' condescending moral blackmail and outdated media manipulation are utterly defeated in the face of absolute talent and fervent public opinion.

While the bureaucrats of Xiaguan were still licking their wounds and processing this crushing defeat, the truly astute film and television industry giants had already turned their attention away from this pointless political farce.

In the eyes of top-tier capital, a writer who can withstand the strangulation of the state apparatus and in turn manipulate the emotions of the entire Japanese people is no longer just a money-printing machine, but a super gold vein waiting to be mined.

This carnival of words is destined to transcend the boundaries of paper and spread wildly into the visual realm, where its destructive power is even more terrifying and its audience is even wider.

Time moved to the end of February.

Tokyo, top floor of the Kadokawa Shoten headquarters building.

On the top floor of this building, there is a private screening room that is never open to the public.

Soundproof walls, professional-grade projection equipment, and a small auditorium with only sixteen seats—this is where Kadokawa Pictures conducts its final internal review of all its theatrical films before their official release.

Tonight, this usually empty room is full of people.

Haruki Kadokawa sat in the center of the second row, holding a cigar that was already half-burnt, but he hadn't put it to his lips for the past twenty minutes.

Sitting next to Haruki Kadokawa were Kadokawa's production director, distribution manager, and two key executives responsible for theatrical scheduling.

Before them, on the screen that took up the entire wall, the final cut of the movie version of "Confessions" had just finished playing.

The screen then went dark.

The lights in the screening room turned on automatically, but the brightness was set to the lowest level, with only a dim, yellowish glow.

No one speaks.

The air was thick with smoke and a deathly stillness that made it hard to breathe.

Haruki Kadokawa leaned back in his chair, the ash from the cigar in his hand almost falling off, but he was completely unaware of it.

His back was wet. Not because the screening room was too warm. It was cold sweat.

The production manager sitting next to him was in the same state.

This veteran filmmaker, who had worked at Kadokawa Pictures for nearly twenty years and had seen hundreds of internal screenings, now had his hands tightly clasped on his knees, his ten fingers clenched so tightly that his knuckles turned white.

Ichikawa Kun did something that defied common sense.

This 80-year-old Showa-era master, after taking on the directorial reins of "Confessions," completely abandoned the gentle and elegant visual style he had cultivated over the past few decades.

Instead, a cold, hard, gloomy, and morbid aesthetic, precise down to the millimeter, has emerged.

The entire film's color tone is firmly suppressed in a suffocating gray-blue.

The fluorescent lights in the classroom emitted a pale, lifeless glow; the walls of the corridor were perpetually covered with an invisible layer of dampness; and the sky outside the window was a consistently gloomy, leaden gray that made one's mood sink.

With this visual tone, Ichikawa Kun used an almost cruel restraint, stripping away all sentimental background music, to bring Kitahara Iwao's despairing junior high school classroom to the screen exactly as it was written.

What sent chills down the spines of everyone in the screening room was Yasuko Sawaguchi.

Yasuko Sawaguchi is recognized throughout Japan as a "pure and innocent beauty".

That face, once regarded by countless people as a "symbol of purity," was completely stripped of its established screen persona by Ichikawa Kun in this film.

As Yuko Moriguchi, she wore a dark suit without any decoration, standing on the cold and gloomy classroom platform. Her makeup was very light, and her hair was neatly tied back. She looked even more dignified than usual.

But when she spoke, only the faint sound of the projector running remained in the screening room.

Her tone wasn't mechanically flat; rather, it was a chilling tenderness.

There were no furious accusations, nor any heartbreaking cries.

Rather, it is an absolute coldness that comes from the complete compression and crystallization of all the sticky hatred and despair after the heart has died, a sorrow beyond compare.

She maintained the most proper demeanor of a middle school teacher, and the curve of her lips could even be described as gentle.

With a soft, slow voice, almost like telling a bedtime story to a child, she told the students in front of her how her daughter had died.

The murderer was sitting in the classroom, and she had already added something to the two murderers' milk.

When the line, "I added the blood of an AIDS patient to the milk of those two people," was casually uttered by Yasuko Sawaguchi on her dignified and gentle face.

The production manager in the screening room subconsciously shifted his sitting posture, but his back involuntarily tensed up.

Extreme poise and extreme malice fit together perfectly on the same face, creating a tearing sensation that is extremely unsettling.

This is Ichikawa Kun's most ruthless move.

It doesn't use any gory scenes or startling sound effects to scare people, but rather uses an absolutely calm and restrained approach to quietly break down the audience's psychological defenses.

Your rational mind knows perfectly well that her vigilante justice is wrong, but looking at that calm face and listening to that emotionless voice, you feel no aversion towards her whatsoever, and even secretly anticipate a more ruthless revenge.

This sense of immersion, which makes the audience unconsciously abandon their own moral stance, is what makes the whole play so unsettling.

After the screen went dark, the silence in the screening room lasted for nearly two minutes.

Finally, the head of the distribution department, sitting to Kadokawa Haruki's left, broke the silence.

His voice was a little dry: "This movie... is too brutal."

He carefully considered his words before continuing, "Ichikawa-sensei's audiovisual skills are undoubtedly textbook-level, and Sawaguchi Yasuko's performance is even more... I can't even find the words to describe it. But precisely because of this, I'm very worried."

He looked at Haruki Kadokawa, his eyes full of worry, and said, "The social atmosphere is already tense enough."

"This film not only touches on crime and school bullying, but also tears families apart."

"These topics were sensitive enough even in the peaceful and prosperous times before the bubble burst, let alone now."

"If the censorship by the Film Commission tightens, or if the authorities use this as an excuse to make trouble, this film may not even be able to be shown in theaters."

The production manager nodded, looking troubled, and said, "Besides, Yasuko Sawaguchi's line... to be honest, if it's shown uncut, her pure image built up over the years will instantly collapse. Her agency, Toho, will probably protest too—"

"so……"

Haruki Kadokawa stubbed out his burnt-out cigar in the ashtray next to the armrest, his gaze slowly sweeping across the faces of the several executives before he spoke: "You mean, in order to cope with censorship and public opinion risks, we should appropriately reduce some of the more extreme content?"

There was a hint of hesitation in his voice when he said that.

Haruki Kadokawa is a businessman. He knows that the quality of this film is beyond doubt, but he also knows how risky it is for such a sharp work to be forced into theaters without any compromise, at a time when the government is extremely sensitive to public opinion.

He was just about to continue speaking.

"I won't cut it."

Two voices rang out simultaneously in the same second.

The person who spoke was sitting in the two adjacent seats in the very center of the second row.

Kitahara Iwa and Ichikawa Kun.

The original author and director, who are nearly half a century apart in age, did not even exchange a glance, but the words they uttered were exactly the same, and their tones were identical.

Decisive, with absolutely no room for negotiation.

As soon as he finished speaking, the screening room fell silent for a moment.

"President Kadokawa."

Ichikawa Kun's voice wasn't loud, but it was exceptionally clear in the quiet screening room: "Not a single frame can be moved."

He slightly raised his hand and pointed to the darkened screen.

"Every second of this film is in its proper place. If you cut a single line or remove a pause, its suffocating power would be lost."

Haruki Kadokawa remained silent, watching the unyielding eighty-year-old director, before turning his gaze to Iwao Kitahara sitting beside him.

As the original author, Kitahara Iwao did not add any persuasive words, but simply leaned back in his chair and looked at the blank screen.

Kitahara Iwao thought Ichikawa Kun's version of the confession was indeed quite good.

Haruki Kadokawa stared at the two of them for a few seconds, then suddenly smiled silently.

This most famous business tycoon in the Japanese entertainment industry completed the final calculation of risks and benefits in just a few seconds.

"Okay, I won't cut it."

Haruki Kadokawa turned around, looked at the still worried production and distribution executives behind him, and said in the decisive tone of a zaibatsu leader, "Did you hear what Ichikawa-sensei said?"

"Don't change a single frame, just submit this version for review."

Upon hearing this, the head of the distribution department forced a smile and said, "But president, what if the censorship body gets in the way..."

"If things get stuck, go do public relations! Go smooth things over! That's your job for tomorrow!"

Haruki Kadokawa interrupted him without hesitation, his gaze cold and hard: "Starting tomorrow, Kadokawa Pictures will pour all its promotional resources into this film without reservation."

"Buy up every available space, from TV trailers and newspaper front pages to even the handrails on the Yamanote Line trains."

He braced his hands on the backs of the chairs in the front row, surveyed the entire audience, and made the final decision: "If we're going to subvert the public's values, let's do it thoroughly. Make sure this movie is crammed into every cinema in Japan, not a second less."