A Review of Kara no Kyoukai

Kara no Kyoukai (Kara no Kyoukai) is a long adventure novel authored by Kinoko Nasu, the scenario writer for TYPE-MOON, which became famous through its games Tsukihime and Fate/stay night. In 2008, TYPE-MOON announced that the novel would be adapted into a 7-part featured film.

Below is a review of the novel from the website Libra: Constellation of Aleksey, translated by Sarah Neufeld:

The Demon that Dwells in the Void
- Kasai Kiyoshi and "Kara no Kyoukai" Nasu Kinoko

When I started reading the debut work of the much-talked about new author, "Kara no Kyoukai" (Nasu Kinoko, Kodansha Novels), I was suddenly dragged down by the "style." Just because it's the work of an "unknown (to readers) new author" which received "extraordinary consideration" in the form of a long commentary which spans both volumes from Kasai Kiyoshi, the veteran critic who founded his own school, that doesn't mean it received particularly severe evaluation. On the contrary, since Nasu Kinoko seemed to have received Kasai Kiyoshi's confidence (or maybe been caught up by him), I thought, "He can do no wrong." So, whether or not Nasu had ability worthy of "extraordinary consideration," I hadn't the slightest intention of hitting him hard...But, as I said, the style suddenly just got to me.

To be blunt, the writing is bad.

It looks like nothing more than your average doujinshi work; the style is rough, and, as I was reading it, I found myself resisting it very strongly. Really, I found myself worrying whether I'd be able to get through both volumes.

I'm fully aware that there are those who like the writing in Nasu Kinoko's "Kara no Kyoukai" and those who do not, so, before the fact, I am writing the following (from "Dark Ripple Effect"):

After checking around a few pages, such as the "Trial Read" page on Kodansha's home page, and Amazon.com's "Kara no Kyoukai" parts one and two pages, it seems that the opinions about "Kara no Kyoukai" can be divided into two very distinct positions: "The characters stand out, it has a unique world view, and is absolutely terrific;" and "The style is pedantic, the writing was hard to read, and it didn't work for me."

The 'pedantic style and hard-to-read writing' evaluation makes sense if you consider that Nasu is a fan of Kasai Kiyoshi and Takemoto Kenji. After all, Kasai and Takemoto themselves were often accused of "poor writing" in their early years. It follows that the theory of those who champion it, that those who hold the opinion that Nasu's writing is hard to read, probably do so "because they aren't used to really reading," may not be entirely mistaken. "Good writing," to those who read only for entertainment probably means, first and foremost, "being easy to read (high readability)," but it isn't that simple. Precisely because it's language with strong character, which the average person would find "hard to read (aka: poor writing)," a world which can publicize most certainly exists, and because of that the world of literature is also quite profound.

That's what I wrote, and (while I avoided declaring a decision), if I had to say, the essay was written from the side of Nasu's supporters.

However, upon reading about the first 10 pages of the beginning of "Kara no Kyoukai," my opinion quite decisively dropped to the "Nasu Kinoko's style is bad" position.

Of course, this evaluation is limited to "style," and is neither a comprehensive evaluation of "Kara no Kyoukai," nor a commentary on "Nasu Kinoko's ability and potential," etc., etc. Even if I say the style is bad, if one compares it to the writing in Utano Shougo's debut work "The Long House Murder" (Utano's "Thinking of You in the Season of Leafing Cherry Trees" won the Japanese Mystery Writer's Association Prize the other day), you could say it's several levels higher. Just as Utano later underwent a surprisingly fast growth, while Nasu Kinoko continues to write novels, his writing will almost certainly also ripen and rapidly improve.

However, at this point in time, the indisguiseable truth is that, from an objective point of view, I could say nothing else than that "Nasu Kinoko's style is bad."

Of course, there's not much point in claiming, from my own point of view, that something is good or bad. So, next, I am going to give some examples, and add in explanations.

(1) One of the characters in the work, Kokutou Mikiya (in a first-person short piece), gives an account of his encounter with a "jumping" suicide; this is displayed before the first section of the first chapter (pg. 8). After "I" relates the circumstances surrounding his coming across it, and the state of the unnatural corpse, he notes his impression of the corpse:

"That series of images gave me the illusion of a flower pressed in a folio, flattened between old pages."

To put it simply, he's saying that the corpse which had been flung to earth and smooshed flat "looked like a pressed flower, caught between the pages of an old book." However, this terribly stiff sentence is far too childish, and the only impression it gives me is that "it's just like doujinshi writing." Especially that "flattened between old pages" bit, as it's probably supposed to mean "flattened between the pages of an old book," the placement of the adjective "old" is odd. Also, he doesn't use "book" or "volume," writing only "folio," which immediately brings to mind an association with "folios, pictures and near-antiques," that in itself renders it inappropriate. In addition, using the expression the corpse "gave him the illusion" of a pressed flower, when it really just "reminded him of one," is so overblown it makes it almost funny.

(2) In the start of the first section of the first chapter (pg. 9)

"On a night at the very beginning of August, with no previous notice, Mikiya came by.
'Good evening. You seem lazy as always, Shiki.'
The sudden visitor stood in the entryway door, giving a dull greeting with a smile.
'Actually, on my way here, I stumbled across an accident. A girl jumped from the roof of a building, killed herself. I'd heard there were lots of them happening lately, but I never thought to encounter one. ----- Here; for the refrigerator.'"

First off, the expression "On a night at the very beginning of August" is probably intended to mean "On the night (of a certain day) at the very beginning of August." The abbreviated expression, while not exactly wrong, sort of gives the impression of "the night which became August (or September, etc.)," and it doesn't seem a very appropriate abbreviation. Thanks to that, the whole piece is given an air of being a bit out of tune.

In addition, Kokutou Mikiya's lines at this point really should be delivered separately, but are instead all bundled together, so it feels very "explanatory." In situations such as the great detective giving the solution to the mystery (his lines at that point), "explanatory" lines aren't disadvantageous, but having lines that seem "explanatory" in an everyday conversation (small talk) such as this can safely be called a mistake, as far as dialogue in a novel is concerned.

(3) The speech (in first-person) of Ryougi Shiki, upon introducing Kokutou Mikiya (pg. 10):

"A rarity who'd maintained his student appearance to the point of being boring, in the midst of the present-day youngsters of a multitude of trends which appear one after the other, in full sprint, only to rampage and go extinct."

Here, the object of all this description is only vaguely indicated. In short, let's take "a multitude of trends which appear one after the other in full sprint, only to rampage and go extinct" to mean "present-day youngsters." The writer probably meant to have "a multitude of trends which appear one after the other in full sprint, only to rampage and go extinct" to modify "present-day," but it really doesn't read that way. If we were to modify the section to reflect the author's intent, it would probably read something like this:

"A rarity who'd maintained his student appearance to the point of being boring, in the midst of the youngsters living in this present day of a multitude of trends which appear one after the other, in full sprint, only to rampage and go extinct."

(4) The conversation about the "jumping suicide" (pg. 12):

"'Jumping.'
'Huh----? Ah, sorry, I wasn't listening.'
'A jumping suicide. Does that count as an accident, Mikiya?'
The meaningless mumble brought Mikiya, who'd fallen silent, back to himself. Then, almost idiotically straightforward, he began to think seriously about the question.
'Mmm, well, it's definitely a sort of accident, but... I don't know, what would they call it? It was a suicide, so someone's obviously dead. However, since it was by her own will, the responsibility rests solely with her. It's just, falling from a high place is always called an 'accident', so-----'
'It wasn't a murder, and it wasn't an accidental death. Things like that really are vague. If you're going to kill yourself, why not just choose a way that won't cause trouble for anybody?'"

I couldn't figure out what they were arguing about right off. However, to make a long story short, the author doesn't know the meaning of the word "accident." Since he doesn't know, he has the characters in his book conduct a pointless argument about whether a "jumping suicide" is an "accident" or not. He seems to be suggesting that the argument has some deep philosophical meaning about it.

An "accident" is "(often stated as 'having no reason') an obstacle or hindrance." In short, it's "a hindrance that's developed without reason," so "a jumping suicide" is, with no room for argument, not an "accident." There is a vagueness about whether or not suicide deaths are "deliberate," and this clearly separates them from deaths in which the deceased's will had no part, such as "accidental," "death due to negligence" or "death by sickness."

The author separates the existence or non-existence of deliberation in a "jumping suicide" from "the phenomenon of falling from a high place." The former evaluates this in terms of "non-accidental," while the latter leans towards the "accidental," which is why there's a cryptic line like: "It wasn't a murder, and it wasn't an accidental death. Vague, huh."

However, and I shouldn't even have to say this, a "jumping suicide" is not "murder," but "suicide," and is not an accidental death but a self-inflicted one. Whether someone jumps from a high place, or tries to strangle themselves, both methods are simply variations of suicide, nothing more.

Since this is so, there's nothing "vague" about, "It wasn't murder, and it wasn't accidental death." The "vague" thing here is the author's grasp of Japanese.

(5) The beginning of the second section in the first chapter (pg. 14)

"On a night leaning towards the end of August, I decided to go for a walk."

The awkwardness of this bit comes from the same source as the previous ones, a vagueness of subject. If we try putting this in a normally readable form, we get:

"On a certain night, towards the end of August, I decided to go for a walk."

I don't think that the appeal of the original sentence is damaged by the rewrite. I don't think the original sentence was appealing enough to warrant that kind of awkwardness to begin with.

(6) A description of the scenery during the walk (pg. 14)

"For the end of summer, the outside air was chilly. The last train had long since departed, and the town was silent.

Silent, and cold, and deserted: it looked like an unfamiliar dead town."

That "dead town" (死骸 / shigai) is probably meant as a poetic turn, to conjure images of both "dead body" (死骸 / shigai) and "residential district" (死骸 / shigai). Still, using "looked like" on something like that, which no one's ever seen, doesn't mean much. I can only evaluate this as an almost childish "abuse of fancy."

While I'm on the subject, since this description takes place during a walk, saying "the outside air" isn't really necessary, and is practically overdoing it. In addition, "the outside air was chilly" can also be taken to mean "the outside air (itself) feels chilly." Of course, the correct way to phrase it would be "(to me) the outside air was (cold enough that I felt) chilly." In which case, it would be better to phrase it like this:

"Although it was the end of summer, the outside air carried a chill." Or, "For the end of summer, the outside air felt practically chilly." In the former, "to me" has been cut; in the latter, "cold enough." Of course, as I indicated in the beginning, a simpler "For the end of summer, it was chilly" would suffice. "For the end of summer, the outside air felt chilly" would be fine, too.

(7) Another description of the scenery during the same walk (pg. 14)

"Even on a walk in the dead of night, I met someone.
Someone who hurried past, averting their gaze.
Someone vague in front of a vending machine.
A countless host of people, gathered in the light from a convenience store."

You can't say "a countless host of people" in Japanese. Here, "many" (people) is enough. The phrase "a countless host" is a phrase with mistaken emphasis, like "limitless somethings" or "uncountable somethings." "Countless" carries the same nuance as "limitless" and "uncountable," and means that there are "too many to count (or measure)," so emphasizing "host" on top of its original meaning is pointless. In short, you can try multiplying infinity, but it's not going to get any bigger than it already is. Expressions such as "ultimately infinite" and "so innumerable you can't count it" are meaninglessly excessive adjectives, and are very close to being adjectival contradictions; the aforementioned is the same.

These are all strange phrases I found in the first ten pages or less of the book (and they're only the ones that really stuck out). If it's like this so far, having expectations for the rest of the book is probably out of the question, and telling someone not to worry about whether they'll make it through this huge work (totaling two volumes and 850 pages) is also stretching the possible.

As I've said before, since the author is still young, let's just put up with the style being bad. As for the rest of the work, if it has appeal as a novel, I feel no reluctance with valuing it by that. However, since it's safe to say that I discovered it while still reading the first ten pages of the book, I think it's necessary for me to state the factual evaluation that "(Nasu Kinoko's) style is bad." This was, contrary to my predictions, not on the level of "a matter of taste."

I have already given examples and testified to the fact that the writing in "Kara no Kyoukai" is ruinously bad. However, at that point, I had read only the first ten pages of "Kara no Kyoukai."

Not sure whether I should say, "for that reason" or "in spite of it," but at any rate, at that point, as this is a debut novel from a new author and was an instant bestseller, I thought I'd better try to read all the way through to the end and then evaluate it properly. (After all, the promotional copy on the book bands of volumes one and two reads respectively: "This it is! A masterpiece among masterpieces, announcing the advent of a new movement in fiction!" and "This is it! The appearance of the origin of a new movement in fiction!")

However, that will lasted until I'd read to page 30 of the book, then failed completely. The ruinously bad writing, combined with the shallowness of the author's thinking abilities that were displayed in the writing power, made it impossible for me to take any more reading.

While I hate Kasai Kiyoshi's snobbishness, I have not the slightest reason to hate Nasu Kinoko. I hope I'm not petty enough or sectarian enough to take things out on Nasu Kinoko just because he's an author who debuted after gaining Kasai Kiyoshi's backing. However, I can only evaluate bad things as bad and lost causes as lost causes. This is a previous discussion of Kasai Kiyoshi, etcetera.

Why is Kasai Kiyoshi flattering a work of this level? Granted, it's true that this work is an exceptional success for a doujinshi novel and, in that sense, it has appealed in some way to a certain set of people. However, for anyone (Kasai Kiyoshi included) who has regularly read books of a certain caliber, isn't the writing in "Kara no Kyoukai" too bad to handle? Or isn't discussing this work without mentioning the awfulness of its writing biased criticism? Since it is a "commentary," some hold the opinion that it isn't necessary to bring up the work's failings (or, possibly, that one can't do so), but even if that's so, how much meaning can there be in the existence of a commentary so painfully forced?

In any case, I would like to explore the the negative criticism that was never mentioned in Kasai Kiyoshi's commentary on "Kara no Kyoukai" a little bit more here, as well as its meaning.

Previously, excluding the table of contents and the title pages, I examined the section beginning on page 9 (the start of the actual story) and ending at the break in the chapter on page 17, and discussed the "strange places" which caught my eye. Taking up where I left off, I will go to the end of section two of chapter one, on page 33. That's as far as I read before I gave the whole thing up.

(8) Scenic description. (pg. 17)

"Well-mannered buildings of the same height stood in a line in the road. The fronts of the buildings were all window glass, and now reflected only the moonlight."

There is no way the buildings are lined up in the road. They are lined up "along" the road. Also, since this is a scene about walking down a street of buildings in the dead of night, you probably don't need "the road" in the first place. Nobody is going to automatically imagine that the buildings are lined up in the forest or rice paddies. In short, "Well-mannered buildings of the same height stood in a line" is more than enough.

"The fronts of the buildings were all window glass" ......I can tell what he's trying to say, but it's not real Japanese. What the author is aiming for is "the building's walls were made entirely of glass," and, since "the wall" is made of glass, the installations known as "windows" don't exist in it. This means that describing the glass in a glass wall as "window glass" is the mistake.

(9) Unclear description (pg. 17)

"Just then ----------a boring shadow was projected onto my retinas. A person-shaped silhouette rose into my field of vision."

What on earth is a "boring shadow?" Of course there are, as an exception to the rule, "interesting shadows," but shadows aren't usually funny or interesting, so there's almost nobody who would write such meaningless Japanese as a "boring shadow." As far as novelists are concerned, it's probably safe to say there isn't one who would.

(10) Description of a doll (pg. 20)

"It was a doll of amazingly elaborate workmanship such as to hound morality to its limits. The thing was like a person frozen in time, and, simultaneously, it presented quite clearly that it was a human shape which would never move. It was a form obviously inhuman, but at the same time, it could not be seen as anything but human.

A person who seemed, even now, on the point of coming back to life. At the same time, a doll who had never possessed life. A thing inanimate, yet in a place a human could never reach.

I was captivated by that antinomy."

This author loves "antinomies" (** "antinomy" = "conflict of laws" in Philosophy). However, what he calls "antinomies" are generally not "antinomies," only "muddled logic." The author's illogicality has already been pointed out, in the "suicide-accidental death-murder" argument.

In the debate centered on this doll, a similar confusion of logic due to a confusion of words can be seen. However, this is shamelessly left right in front of readers as a "suggestive" debate. This error is clearly visible in the almost unintelligible sentences, written in embarrassing Japanese: "It was a doll of amazingly elaborate workmanship such as to hound morality to its limits" and "A thing inanimate, yet in a place a human could never reach."

"It was a doll of amazingly elaborate workmanship such as to hound morality to its limits." Correct this to Japanese which makes sense normally (logically), and it might read:

(A) It was a doll of amazingly elaborate workmanship, which hounded morality to its limits.
(B) It was a doll of amazingly elaborate workmanship, hounding morality to its limits.
(C) It was a doll of such elaborate workmanship, one might think morality hounded to its limits.

The expression "such as to hound" was, like the former "countless host," brought about by a contradiction in logic.

By the way, we can dispose of the question of why "making a doll exactly like a human being" might have anything to do with "morality" by saying that making dolls is presuming to copy "the work of the gods."

However, I must say I find it very doubtful whether the author was consciously aware of that when he wrote: "It was a doll of amazingly elaborate workmanship such as to hound morality to its limits." On the contrary, I feel that he might have been unconsciously tracing the worn-out phrase "doll-making is an immoral, sensuous act brimming with seduction."

Reasoning from this writer's level of logic, "suggestive" expressions like this may be of value, simply because of the vagueness stemming from their "suggestiveness" lacking in substance. In short, being "meaningless (lacking substance)" may result in the mistake (delusion) of their being "overestimated" from an illogical reader's point of view.
Said in the style of Kyougoku Natsuhiko: "The box was empty. Inside it, spirits welled. By 'spirits,' I mean a vacuum. ------I was, for some reason, exhausted."

(11) Kokutou Mikiya's opinion on the actions of the police with regard to the series of jumping suicides. (pg. 23)

"......I mean, they haven't released the suicide notes, you know? Six people--or is it eight? With that many people, you'd think at least one could've released a note, but they're keeping them tight under wraps. Isn't that a cover-up?"

I don't think this confused logic is due to Kokutou Mikiya's being written as a particularly dim bulb. The problem lies with the writer.

When someone commits suicide and leaves a note, the police almost never make the contents of that note public. This has nothing to do with the number of incidents. It is because it would be a pointless invasion of the individual's privacy.
If the police do make the note public, it is because that suicide is in doubt. In other words, it only means that, when it is unsure whether a suicide might have been a murder in disguise, the reliability of the note becomes an issue; it may be brought up in court as material evidence and, in the process, the media may publicize the contents.

As this is so, in cases where the deaths are clearly suicides, the police would never make the suicide's note public. Even if the deceased's family did, in response to requests from the media, the police could not do so on their own initiative. Since this is not a problem of numbers, "Six people--or is it eight? With that many people, you'd think at least one could've released a note" would not be the question.

Of course, "not making something public" and "keeping things under wraps" are not the same thing in the same way that "not publicizing" and "cover-up" mean different things. An obvious comment, but the writer isn't making this distinction. For that reason, Kokutou Mikiya, who, as a main character and the story's narrator, should hold the reader's sympathies and not say things which make him look like an idiot.

Also, in the sentence "Six people -- or is it eight? With that many people, you'd think at least one could've released a note," the subject is vague. Whether the "one" who should be doing the releasing is among the police or the suicides. Of course, since the suicides, being deceased, will not be publicizing anything, either the police or the surviving family members will have to do the releasing. Taken in context, it's clear that he's talking about the police. However, in the sentence:

"Six people--or is it eight? With that many people, you'd think at least one could've released a note"

...no matter how you read it, it says that the "suicides" will be the ones making things public. So the sentence really should read:

"Six people -- or is it eight? With that many people, you'd think at least one of them would've left something like a note, but (the police) are keeping them under wraps. Isn't that a cover-up?"

However, since even the existence of the notes hasn't been made public, this debate couldn't exist from the beginning. In short, the author mixed up the problems of the notes' existence and the notes' release, and is only making the conversation "suggestive". This is even clearer later, when Kokutou Mikiya delivers the line:

"......Could it be, not that the suicide notes aren't being released, but that they never left any to begin with?"

At this point, as we realize that Kokutou Mikiya hadn't realized it himself, this scene is supposed to emphasize Aozaki Touko's sharpness of wit. However, Touko's explanation is also impressively illogical, almost enough to bring associations to a scene from "Dogura-Magura." (**An insanely confusing surrealist novel by Yumeno Kyusaku written in 1935. While it has never been translated into English, there's a good review of the movie version here: http://www.thegline.com/dvd-of-the-week/2004/04-02-2004.htm, and a capsule synopsis of the book in the English "Yumeno Kyusaku" article on Wikipedia.) As she says:

"I'm saying there's a connection there. Or maybe 'similarity' is the better term. In most of the eight cases, there were several people on the scene who witnessed that the deceased jumped on her own accord, and no problems have been uncovered in any of the girls' lives. None of them were doing drugs, or under the influence of some weird cult. There is no doubt that they were extremely individualistic, impulsive suicides provoked by some insecurity in themselves. So you see, there aren't any words they wanted to leave, and the police don't consider that similarity important."

I really have no idea what "so you see" is supposed to mean. There is absolutely nothing demonstrated here.
Not finding a clear motive for suicide is an extremely ordinary thing. For that reason, although there are "exceptional cases" where a suicide note is left, containing a coherent explanation of the reason for suicide, there are countless cases of suicides with no note left and no reason declared. It's said that even Akutagawa Ryuunosuke committed suicide over "a vague feeling of unease."

According to Aozaki Touko, the victims' deaths equaling nothing other than suicides because of the fact that "No problems have been uncovered in any of the girls' lives. None of them were doing drugs, or under the influence of some weird cult." Additionally, she asserts that "There is no doubt that they were extremely individualistic, impulsive suicides provoked by some insecurity in themselves."

Just because the reason for suicide hasn't been discovered doesn't mean it might not be something clear-cut, like having embezzled money from their company, or losing a lover or being betrayed by a friend. How can she airily assert that "there's no doubt that they were impulsive suicides provoked by some insecurity in themselves"?

The answer is that the author thought that would make it easier for the incidents to be played up as "suggestive," and that the decisive tone would give readers the mistaken impression that Aozaki Touko is smart. In short, we could say that the intelligence level of the readers envisioned by the author is very low. From my point of view, Aozaki Touko is stupidity itself.

(12) Kokutou Mikiya's inner thoughts concerning Aozaki Touko's words (pg. 24)

"I wonder why there were no suicide notes. People won't kill themselves without a note.

In the extreme argument, a suicide note is a lingering attachment to this life. When people who don't hold death as good find themselves pushed into committing suicide, what they leave behind as their reason is the suicide note.

Suicides without suicide notes.

Not needing to write a suicide note. That means not holding any opinion whatsoever on this world, being able to disappear cleanly. That itself is the perfect suicide. The perfect suicide is one where a note doesn't exist in the first place, and where even the death itself is not made clear.

And a jumping suicide is not a perfect one.

Dying a death others can see itself becomes a suicide note. Isn't that an action you take because there's something you want to leave, something you want to make clear? If so, the logic is that a suicide note was left, in some form.

So then what happens. If, even so, there's no trace of anything like a suicide note having existed ---- Did some third person carry off the girls' suicide notes? No, that would mean they stopped being suicides.

Then what? I can think of only one reason.

In short, those were, in the purest sense of the word, 'accidents.'

Those girls never planned to die. In that case, there was no need for them to write a suicide note."

"I wonder why there were no suicide notes." ------He's taking Aozaki Touko's groundless conclusion as fact. Moron.

"People won't kill themselves without a note." ------ It's practically the opposite. People don't commit suicide because there's a suicide note. This is a question of whether people who killed themselves wrote or did not write notes. It isn't simply that Kokutou Mikiya is dim. He has no concept of the law of cause and effect. As a result, there's no way to expect him to think logically.

I physically can't make myself feel like writing a point-by-point analysis of the nonsense Kokutou Mikiya thinks to himself here. The people who can understand will do so whether I explain it or not, and the people who don't understand wouldn't understand the explanation either.

However, if I explain in rough terms, Kokutou Mikiya's thoughts have switched the "extreme argument" for the "standard;" his individual impressions and hypothesis have somehow turned into concrete definitions, and in the end he's deluded into holding mere ideas as convictions and drawing his conclusions from them. The very definition of "benighted."

I wonder if maybe Kasai Kiyoshi didn't really read this book. That would be fortunate, if true, but as it appears that wasn't the case, things become even more frightening. Has something gone wrong with Kasai's head?

(13) Ryougi Shiki's view on "flight" (pg. 25)

"In the past, there has never been anyone who attempted to fly by human power alone and succeeded. The word 'flight' and the word 'fall' are linked. However, the more a person is charmed by the sky, the more lacking they are in that truth."

"In the past, there has never been anyone who attempted to fly by human power alone and succeeded."---- Meaning unclear.

"To fly by human power alone"... Does "by human power alone" mean "with no other propulsion used," or does it mean "flight with absolutely no tools other than the human body"?

You don't need me to tell you this, but humans can fly without "propulsion." Flight by hang glider is an excellent example of unpropelled flight. Or is Ryougi Shiki saying that, as hang gliders have been used, it can't be said that people have flown "by human power alone?" If so, I'm very aware that that's impossible. It wasn't possible in the past, and won't be in the future. You can't even get a discussion out of it.

"The word 'flight' and the word 'fall' are linked" --- This is not Japanese and it makes me sick. This statement snapped a forceful paragraph right in two.

"The word 'flight' and the word 'fall' are linked" ----This is going to give me a headache. I could even say it's going to make me nauseated.

If he's writing this, then he was probably trying to say:

* The word 'flight' and the word 'fall' are inextricably paired.
* Flight and falling are allied as concepts.

"However, the more a person is charmed by the sky, the more lacking they are in that truth." ----- Again, shouldn't have to say, but what is more lacking the more one is charmed by the sky is, not the "fact," but the "consciousness" that "flight and falling are inextricably paired." That is why they do, in fact, "fall".

(14) Aozaki Touko's explanation concerning the ground (pg. 32)

"However, even the ground you think of as level is an uncertain angle."

"The ground" is in no way an angle, either certain or uncertain. If he's saying that, then, shouldn't it read: "However, even the ground you think of as level has, strictly speaking, some angles to it."

With this, I think I've given more than enough proof of "the ruinously bad writing, and the shallowness of the author's powers of reasoning which shows itself in the writing." What do you think?

In any case, as there are this many things which catch you up in only the first 30 pages, I think you probably understand why I've given up reading both volumes (about 850 pages) all the way through, and why I don't think we can expect much from an author like this.

As you can see, I'm not prejudiced against him because he's a new author recommended by Kasai Kiyoshi. This story goes back much farther than that.

Now then, I think I've given ample proof of the "ruinously bad writing, and the shallowness of the author's powers of reasoning which shows itself in that writing" of "Kara no Kyoukai" via concrete criticisms. This novel was most certainly written in a style and with reasoning that doesn't bear reading.

However, at the very beginning of his long "commentary," which spans both volumes, Kasai Kiyoshi writes:

"'Border of Emptiness,' will most certainly give a jolt to a number of readers of adventure fiction, including the readers of the neighboring mystery and sci-fi genres. You see, in this work lurks a power which will shatter the stagnation of the adventure genre. As a discussion of the premise for this 'Border of Emptiness' which has broken open a new horizon for the adventure genre, let me first inspect the process of the rise and fall of '80s adventure novels." (First volume, pg. 409)

I shouldn't have to say this, but at the stage when Kasai Kiyoshi wrote this "commentary," the only track record "Kara no Kyoukai" had was that it sold exceptionally well for a doujinshi novel. Therefore, this "breaking open of a new horizon for the adventure genre" which Kasai mentions, must mean it possesses a content-related newness which has broken through, meaning that this has been decided on Kasai's (personal) evaluation and nothing more, so we can't really say it has "broken open a new horizon for the adventure genre." That was still, at the time this commentary was written, only a possibility which existed only in the mind of Kasai Kiyoshi. In short, it's still "lurking." While he wrote that it had "broken open a new horizon for the adventure genre" as though it was fact, it's all right to look at this bit of Kasai Kiyoshi's review as "falsified history."

Among those who have read this commentary, from this claim of Kasai Kiyoshi's, as though as a result of "Kara no Kyoukai" having "broken open a new horizon for the adventure genre," as though the next "new adventure" novels are produced as a border, he calls the notion of the "'80s adventure novels" boom into action --- I assume the number of those who saw a similar "illusion" in it are not few.

As I've already indicated, if the popularity of "Kara no Kyoukai" is being supported by readers who absolutely don't notice its poorness of style and illogicality, I must say that the possibility of such readers taking the hypothesis, interpretation and illusion sketched by Kasai Kiyoshi's commentary as pure fact is fairly high. That too might have been reasoned out and hoped for by Kasai Kiyoshi himself, as he wrote this commentary.

The commentaries written by Kasai Kiyoshi for each volume (first and last) are titled:

First volume: The Power of Imagination in the Mountain People and Falsified History
Last volume: The Transfiguration of "Reality" and the Emptying of Borders

As is also stated in the previous quote, the first commentary "Discusses the premise of 'Border of Emptiness' via an inspection of the process of the rise and fall of '80s adventure novels" and the second commentary theorizes the individuality of "Kara no Kyoukai" through a Kasai Kiyoshi-style "introduction to '80s adventure novels."

In "The Power of Imagination in the Mountain People and Falsified History," the introduction to '80s adventure novels, Kasai Kiyoshi explains the boom which supported said '80s adventure novels:

"In the 1960s, Mishima Yukio's fiction of the emperor's imaginary reascendance, subsequently dismantled in the '70s by the left wing, intersected marvelously with the subconscious cravings of the consumer state of the'80s. First of all by the fictional recentralization of the emperor, and second by making the best use of the power of imagination inherent to the "mountain people" (Note: Mountain people are people who lived in Japan before the Japanese arrived, and continued to exist on the fringes of society, in the mountains, not mingling with the Japanese. They were sometimes feared as "oni.") and to falsified history, it was only natural that the adventure novel, part of a story system centered on escape, created an unprecedented boom. However, the prosperity of the adventure novel genre ended along with the '80s.

In January of 1989, confronted with the death of Emperor Showa, the '80s adventure novels stalled suddenly and continued to idle. The demonic image of the generalissimo whose imperial army had repeatedly slaughtered large numbers in the occupied territories of East Asia had acted as a support to the power of imagination held in the adventure genre. The biological extinction of the Emperor-Showa-as-demon-king dealt adventure novels a blow so serious as to be almost irreparable, since they had set up the emperor in the role of the greatest and most evil nemesis.

Mutually contradicting desires, such as diversification and assimilation, centralization and decentralization, continued to capture the masses of a high-level consumer society in the 1990s. After the stalling of adventure novels which centered on the might of the capital and the 'People who would not be conquered', (Note: The people who fought the founding of Yamato, the first central governing entity of Japan, lost and were consigned to the mountains; see prior note regarding "mountain people." They were dubbed "Earth Spiders,"or Tsuchigumo, by the winners. Because of this, it's thought that their limbs may have been longer than the Japanese norm and they may have been a larger people in general.) it was detective novels, with their structure of 'mystery/solution,' which drew the desires of the reading public. In this system of storytelling, centralization is provided by the criminal (who brings 'mystery'), and decentralization by the detective with his 'solution,' and in the ten years since its inception at Emperor Showa's death, it has acquired a following which surpasses that of the adventure novels of the '80s." (First volume, pgs. 430-431)

I see; quite the well-made hypothesis. I mean, in storytelling terms, it's a well-drawn picture.
Certainly, this excerpt illustrates the point:

"The high-level capitalist principle (the completed form of the capitalist principle, which profits from the dissolution of differences) transforms the perpendicular differences of a stratified society into the horizontal, level differences of a combined middle-class society. The vigorous capitalism of the '80s advanced the 'dissolution of the consumer class,' making a combined middle-class society a reality. However, the consolidated middle class of the '80s was also the perfected hell of mediocrity and assimilation which Mishima Yukio had foreseen. Humans cannot long tolerate the mediocrity of being the same as everyone else." (First volume, pg. 429)

Under those circumstances, in striving to claim their own individuality, people became possessed by various things. Many of those are what are known as "brand-name" goods, and many people bet on the illusion that the authority of the brand somehow ensures the individuality of its wearer. The beings known as "otakus" (fans of something to the point of geekdom) may be the products of a similar psychological phenomenon. Both "objects" and "information" are consciously used to accentuate the difference between oneself and other people, since they thoroughly preserve one's status as a non-average being. ----- Of course, there's no need for me to point out to you that this "desire for difference" rests largely on one's personal safety remaining guaranteed, and that the setting apart of oneself from others operates on the assumption that one is always in the superior position.

In any case, in the commentary for "Kara no Kyoukai," Kasai Kiyoshi claims that the lure of "brand names" and other such steps towards individualism could not completely resolve this "desire towards difference." What caught the remainder of that desire (with excellent timing) was "...The adventure genre, a system of story-telling centered on escape, first by fictionally recentralizing the emperor, and second by making expert use of the power of imagination inherent to 'the mountain people' and falsified history."

Kasai Kiyoshi's argument is that the adventure genre's big boom in the '80s was a result of its safe, convenient system. First, the emperor was introduced as the absolute division, thus bringing back an undulating story-like quality to the completely monotonous hell of mediocrity and assimilation. Then, as the oppressive division inherent in the emperor would cause problems were it to stabilize, the system brought in its polar opposites, the mountain people and falsified history, and pitted them against the emperor, thus neutralizing and decentralizing the situation.

Kasai Kiyoshi's argument is constructed by way of three hypotheses. These are:

1. A theory about conditions in the '80s
2. The theory about "the emperor's fictional centralization"
3. The theory about the rise to power of "the power of imagination of the mountain people and falsified history."

I can, for the most part, approve of (1) and (3). As far as (1) is concerned, as one who lived through the 1980s, I know what the climate at the time felt like. As for (3), as is symbolically shown by the results of Yamaguchi Masao and others' "Study of Cultured Humankind" (also quoted in Kasai Kiyoshi's commentary) and similar works, there is a tendency for "Those who are focused on becoming prosperous (to) share a sort of fear of those who are, by contrast, poor and with those whose minds are not set on centralization. At the same time, though, they are fascinated by them."

In short, it's possible that those in the middle of the prosperity of a vigorous capitalist society, who fear the poor and the eccentrics somewhere in their minds, might simultaneously be drawn to them. On the one hand, they, who take pride in their prosperity, fear an attack by such people. On the other hand, while these others are poor, they are also free and individualistic, and in fact have no need to agonize over their own "individuality." It's possible that prosperous people may, in a way, idolize that sort of lifestyle. (In fact, a book called "Thoughts on Poverty" became a best seller.) Simply because of that, it isn't hard to imagine that the novel readers of the '80s, themselves right in the middle of the prosperity of a vigorous capitalist society, tried to psychologically assimilate with the people who would not be conquered symbolized by the mountain people and their ilk.

In the world of imagination, leaving "real life" smack in the middle of the prosperity of a vigorous capitalist society, they, as a "wild (contra-societal)" existence free of that world, could zoom around the world (across borders) at will, sometimes becoming a hero who fought and crushed the "enemies (evil)" which sought to capture and "socialize" that existence.

If one thinks about it this way, the "emperor's imaginary ascendance" mentioned by Kasai Kiyoshi lacks almost all logic as an explanation of the boom in adventure novels in the '80s.

In actuality, although I can't say I was a fan of "adventure novels" in particular, I was a minor part of the young reading demographic of the '80s and an avid reader of Aramata Hiroshi's "Tale of the Imperial City." I seem to recall that to me, back then, the emperor was someone who rarely regained consciousness, an existence who had only the barest trace of an influence on everyday life.

As it was also written in "Tale of the Imperial City," what made the existence of the emperor loom so large in the eyes of the Japanese people might have been the worsening of his illness, since every day the news reports on his worsening condition were repeated over and over. Up until then, to most of the citizens (excluding parts of the left and right wings), the emperor had been nothing more than a kind-looking old man called 'the emperor;' for good or ill, he was cut out of all war memories ("After the war was long past," etc.), and was absolutely not the type of person to awaken "demon king" natures.

In that sense, I can only see the second element of Kasai Kiyoshi's claim (the one about "the emperor's imaginary ascendance" occurring in the '80s) as being very dubious. I think he made too much of a story.

Certainly, with only its first and third elements, the argument lacks focus as a picture or hypothesis, and it gets very hard to call it an appealing hypothesis, even as flattery. What we are asking about here, though, is the contents of the present, concrete meaning of the boom of '80s adventure novels, not the appealing meaning attached to it after the fact.

However, as I've pointed out numerous times before, Kasai Kiyoshi is too much of a critic to be a novelist, and too much of a novelist to be a critic. In short, he gives too much priority to meaning and significance in novels, and they become novels too full of themselves, with no accompanying substance. Criticism is meant to dig out the immediate inner truth from the immediate object of criticism, and criticism which has expelled that duty and aims only to charm the audience (be accepted by the audience) becomes obvious. In short, it lacks the original intent to strive for loyalty to"the truth of the object of criticism, and the tendency to worry about constructing criticism (hypothesis) as entertainment becomes conspicuous.

It is also conspicuous in Kasai Kiyoshi's argument as to the superiority of "legitimate mysteries" (Note: Legitimate mysteries are those which concentrate on puzzles and the detective's solving of them; purely intellectual, with no supernatural intrusions.) set in the present day over "legitimate mysteries set in the years between the world wars," which took place between Nov. 1918 to Sept. of 1939, based on the theory of a large number of deaths (of which many have already voiced criticism). Certainly, if mysteries (relegated to a corner of subculture) were given significance by being bound up in current world history and current thought (which previously had had no connection to them), fans of mysteries, which had outwardly had no authority whatsoever, would certainly rejoice, and would probably support the movement. However, since Kasai Kiyoshi began this maneuver after the new legitimate mystery boom had been established, the implication that he was arbitrarily currying favor and committing to the boom is undeniable.

Also, in reality, when the decline of this new full-dress mystery boom began to show, Kasai Kiyoshi suggestively noted the new arrival of a boom in adventure novels with the appearance of "Kara no Kyoukai." In that essay, without a second thought, he coolly declares the significance of full-dress mystery novels that he'd previously heaped so much praise upon, to be this:

Mutually contradicting desires, such as diversification and assimilation, centralization and decentralization, continued to capture the masses of a high-level consumer society in the 1990s. After the stalling of adventure novels which centered on the might of the capital and the 'People who would not be conquered,' it was detective novels, with their structure of 'mystery/solution,' which drew the desires of the reading public. In this system of storytelling, centralization is provided by the criminal (who brings 'mystery'), and decentralization by the detective with his 'solution,' and in the ten years since its inception at Emperor Showa's death, it has acquired a following which surpasses that of the adventure novels of the '80s."

As he tells it here, the significance of the "full-dress mystery" is merely this: "When adventure novels became ineffective due to the extinction of Emperor Showa, what appeared to fill the gap were mystery novels: more "complete," or in other words, self-contained, onanistic devices."

What on earth made Kasai Kiyoshi turn so cool when he spoke about legitimate mystery novels? ---That would be because, in order to really proclaim the coming of "the ruler of a new era," one must dispose of the "aged king." In short, if new legitimate mysteries were what stepped up to take the place of the naturally declining '80s adventure novels, then the appearance of the next king (the new adventure novels) rests solidly on the supposition that new legitimate mysteries are a thing of the past, and that supposition must be made clear.

Of course, in the commentary for "Kara no Kyoukai," Kasai Kiyoshi does not talk directly about the death of the new legitimate mystery boom. However, if these new mystery novels are being presented as possessing a more complete form of the capacity for dissolution of "mutually contradicting desires, such as diversification and assimilation, centralization and decentralization," which the '80s adventure novels had, then:

"Among the boundaries drawn by '80s adventure novels, there is nothing like the incredibly complex inflection seen here (* in "Kara no Kyoukai"). This boundary state of the fringe in opposition to the center, the extraordinary versus the ordinary, gave me a very clear concept of its existence as a boundary. The heroine, being a character composed of multiple layers of boundary-like elements folded in on each other, is an almost complete departure from the "New Academism" of the '80s, represented in Yamaguchi Masao's cultural theory. What we must examine now is, not borders as expressed in boundary theories, but borders made vacant, in short, 'Borders of Emptiness.'" (Last volume, pg. 460)

If we take this to be Kasai Kiyoshi's current point of view, it means that new full-dress mysteries must be considered a thing of the past as soon as possible.

However, even this hypothesis, which seems plausible at first glance, really has its roots in the makeshift purpose of "self-preservation," and has put the cart before the horse. The fact that it is only "after-the-fact sophistry" and has reversed cause and effect should be quite clear to those who have watched Kasai Kiyoshi's movements up until now.

What I mean is this: the end of the road for the new legitimate mystery boom did not wait for the appearance of "Kara no Kyoukai," but had been felt and spoken of as established fact among many involved in the business for the past few years. On this topic, in "What Kasai Kiyoshi really wanted," I write:

"In the midst of rumors of a deadlock in "legitimate mysteries," continued long since the debut of Ayatsuji Yukito, he (*Kasai Kiyoshi) has extended 'the probe known as understanding' to Maijou Outarou, Nishio Ishin, Satou Yuuya and other, similar young "new sensation" writers who are supported by teenage readers as well, predicting the further prolonged life of "legitimate mystery novels."

Holland/Midorigawa Ran's (Note: Two different screen names for the same person; the latter has been used by them as a pen name in writing doujinshi books.) explanation here means approximately the same thing:

"I believe that Kasai-san's approach (trick to draw people in = recruit)to the generation after 'Seiryouin Ryuusui' [* This seems to be the title of a novel] is, frankly, a situational decision Kasai-san made upon realizing that "the winds of the era" are no longer in the bounds of "new legitimate [mysteries]."

Starting with Norizuki Rintarou-san, the "new legitimate" people (and especially those from the first-generation mystery club) have always held the position that genuine mysteries are superior to all other genres (to begin with, 'illegitimate' mysteries don't count as mysteries)." For this reason, no matter which way the winds of current public opinion blew, they themselves were "legitimate men," pure and simple; I don't believe they would have had any qualms about letting themselves die along with "(the era of new) legitimate mysteries."

But, as Enshu-sama and Harapyon-sama have pointed out on numerous occasions, Kasai-san is a person "who has always swum between the waves of trends." He has not the slightest intention of dying with "legitimate mysteries." (This most likely applies to members of "detective novel research clubs" as well, and they will probably also, little by little, broaden their horizons of genres to critique, and are only waiting for "an opportunity to switch over." ----- I feel that this setting up of the "new adventure" movement as "a wave everyone must catch" is also due to awareness of that crisis.)

For that reason, Satou Yuuya, Nishio Ishin and Maijou Outarou (those writers known as the generation after "Seiryouin Ryuusei"), are probably pretty worried about Kasai-san's general coolness towards the "Legitimate mystery above all" principle, which he has theoretically supported in the past, and about his keeping a set distance between them and himself.

(A Tentative Attempt at Generational Theory (2))

Parenthetically, my current perceptions differ from what they were when I wrote the above "What Kasai Kiyoshi Really Wanted," and are now closer to the previously quoted Midorigawa Ran's.

In short, Kasai Kiyoshi did not approach the young authors of the post-"Seiryouin Ryuusei" generation with the intent of prolonging the life of legitimate mystery novels, but was already scheming to prolong his own life, and attempting to do just that. ---By which I mean that the probability that Kasai Kiyoshi had already, in his own mind, discarded "new genuine mysteries" is high.

It may be for that very reason that Kasai Kiyoshi stopped limiting his sphere of approach to young mystery writers, expanding it to include all young writers of "Genre X." And what subsequently appeared as a natural result of that action was this practically excessive support of Nasu Kinoko (held up as a new adventure writer) and his debut work:

"'Border of Emptiness' will most certainly give a jolt to a number of readers of adventure fiction, including the readers of the neighboring mystery and sci-fi genres. You see, in this work lurks a power which will shatter the stagnation of the adventure genre. 'Border of Emptiness' has broken open a new horizon for the adventure novel."

In short, to return to the original topic, Kasai's argument – that '80s adventure novels were a device for canceling "mutually contradicting desires, such as diversification and assimilation, centralization and decentralization," that the new mystery novels were a more complete form of the same device and that "Kara no Kyoukai" has fundamentally surpassed both of them – is, in practice, "reasoning after the fact." It's nothing more than accepting the truth of the decline of new legitimate mysteries, fiddling with it from behind and making a fiction out of it, while attempting to reap a crop which is not yet ripe.

He used this trick of "lending a hand after all the work's been done" quite skillfully in switching from '80s adventure novels to the new legitimate mysteries. This time, he made use of his past experience and tried using that trick a tad bit early. This is the real meaning behind his backing Nasu Kinoko's "Border of Eternity" to excess.

In short, to put it another way, "Kara no Kyoukai" has only been used as a device to prolong Kasai Kiyoshi's life.

At the time of this marvelous intersection of Kasai Kiyoshi's hidden agenda and Kodansha Novels' business strategy, what they conveniently found was none other than "Kara no Kyoukai," in the form of Nasu Kinoko. In short, it was vital that Nasu Kinoko become "the new star of the era," heavily fictionalized or not. Just then, something like a new talent audition, "Find the Ishihara Yuujiro for the 21st Century!" had been carried out with much fanfare.

It didn't matter how much or how little ability a newbie picked up in such a search actually possessed. They needed, first and foremost, to set up the absolute maximum ruckus in the surroundings, give him excessive advertisement and production and preferential treatment, and make the world realize (or be deceived into thinking) that he was a "star (talent)." In direct opposition to the attitude, "He's got talent, so he'll make waves even if we leave him alone," they tried to make people think "even a black crow is white." This "sales push," which almost leaves the actual writer behind, is the true meaning of these "curious movements" surrounding Nasu Kinoko's debut. (For example, "Printing the debut work of a new, unknown author in a deluxe limited edition, before the printing of the normal edition" and "Having Kasai Kiyoshi, a critic known as a giant of the mystery world, pen an exceptionally long commentary covering both volumes".)

Kodansha's novel sales had been showing a tendency to accompany the new legitimate mystery trend in its decline. They calculated that, should this go well, Kodansha would probably be able to make a recovery with this "New Adventure" brand, and that Kasai Kiyoshi would be seen as a brilliant, farseeing critic (not to mention one who well understands the new generation). He might even manage to shoulder the same position - that of a "sectarian critic" - for "New Adventure" which he'd taken when shouldering the new legitimate mystery boom.

Of course, Kasai Kiyoshi would probably deny this reading of mine as "groundless suspicion," as he did at the time when the hidden political tendencies which we can sense from his commitment to Satou Yuuya were keenly pointed out by Azuma Hiroki (Assembled Correspondence, "In A World Turning Animalistic").

Kasai Kiyoshi, as his grounds for calling Azuma Hiroki's theory "Kasai Kiyoshi = Hard-to-cross Partisan," uses this:

"I am dumbstruck, or petrified, at exactly what sort of mental circuitry could produce this sort of delusion and groundless suspicion. Are there, somewhere in my background, scars from 'being caught up in a sectarian battle in the "reviewing world?'" However, Azuma-kun has simply been deluded into believing that the morbidity of the "octopus trap" (narrow jar) of current thought undoubtedly pervades other small worlds in the same way. If we compare, for example, the small world of genuine mysteries with the small world of current thought, I feel the former to be much less stuffy and suffocating. This difference is not simply a problem of the personalities or characters of its members, but something rather more structural. To put it simply, it is a fact that book sales sometimes run a single figure, occasionally two figures, different. Whether it has come under "the rasp of the market" or not makes a decisive difference. Unlike the unique world where, in addition to being professionals, living by selling merchandise to an audience, almost all of the writers are "amateur writers" working as college professors, we are not given the leeway to wage "sectarian battles" among ourselves."

(From the aforementioned Assembled Correspondence, Kasai Kiyoshi, First & Second Dispatch, "Soliloquies of an 'incompetent' speechmaker," from pg. 163)

In this way, he tried to deny Azuma Hiroki's opinion on the grounds of the small scale of the "small world of current thought" with which Azuma was affiliated.

However, if it's "world scales" we're talking about, in my previous "What Kasai Kiyoshi Really Wanted," I said:

"Kasai once looked down on the 'small world of current thought' which Azuma was affiliated to, calling it an 'octopus trap,' and declaring that the 'small world of legitimate mysteries' which he was currently affiliated with was, 'when compared with the small world of current thought, (...) much less stuffy and suffocating.'" And his basis for saying so? "To put it simply, it is a fact that book sales sometimes run a single figure, often two figures, different." This is much like the proverbial pot calling the kettle black, and seems to demonstrate perfectly the constricted vision of a human living in the "small world of literature = octopus trap." One has to wonder just how much Kasai Kiyoshi is earning from that "celebrity" of his.

Kasai himself is, at present, affiliated with "legitimate mysteries," the mainstream of the Japanese literary entertainment world. He may well be proud of being a critical leader in that world, but if we leave out the incredibly limited "popular writers" such as Kyougoku Natsuhiko, Mori Hiroshi and Arisugawa Arisu, the fact that the annual yearly income of genuine mystery writers isn't all that much fits into the category of common knowledge as far as those who know even a little about the present literary world are concerned.
So, might not his laughing at the non-lucrative "small world of current thought (=criticism)" while ignoring his own reality be nothing more than "sectarian" and "shameless impudence?"

To go even farther, in a debate with Shimada Souji, Kasai Kiyoshi once declared that he had switched from "mystery" to "sci-fi / action-adventure" because had been no response to his mystery works. His "early-career masterpieces" ("Bye-bye, Angel," "Summer Apocalypse" and "Rose Woman") hadn't sold all that well and hadn't gotten much of a response. In short, we can say that, at the time, Kasai Kiyoshi was an "amateur writer," untouched by "the rasp of the market," and the "scars" from that time made him the "literary society politician with major direction" he is today. In short, as regards Azuma Hiroki, Kasai Kiyoshi most likely thought "because I am this way, he must be too."

In any case, my honest feeling on the subject is that a "popular writer" (who writes for a living) whose work, in actual circulation numbers, doesn't even reach the feet of "erotic manga" and "erotic doujinshi," and only rarely has a print run of 10,000 copies (the majority of Kasai Kiyoshi's books are never reprinted), has forgotten his place and is "talking pretty big for someone in his shoes, the friggin' idiot."

And, as I ridiculed him above, he was physically in no place to talk about someone else that way.

Currently, Kasai Kiyoshi is boosting the debut work of a new author whose only track record is having sold exceptionally well as a "doujinshi" novel. He begins the commentary to the first volume of "Kara no Kyoukai" by thoroughly raving about it:

"The publication of the Kodansha Novels edition of 'Border of Emptiness' is an event which bears notice.

Nasu Kinoko first appeared before us at the Winter 2000 Comiket (** Large doujinshi convention/sale), as the author of the novel-game "Tsukihime". The huge sensation created by "Tsukihime" (which surpassed the doujin game level both in quality and quantity) among the Comiket-style otaku culture is fresh in my memory.

Between 1998 and 99, before the release of "Tsukihime", Nasu serialized a novel on his homepage, "Bamboo Broom". Adding in the ending, which was sold at Comiket, he pulled the whole thing together into a long novel and self-published 'Kara no Kyoukai' in December of 2001. Following on the heels of the beautiful girl adventure game "Tsukihime", this new type of adventure novel, "Kara no Kyoukai", also acquired an unprecedentedly large following of readers, irregardless of the limitations inherent in independent sales at Comiket and Doujin shops." (First volume, pg. 408)

The eloquent touches "event", "huge sensation" and "unprecedentedly large following" may, indeed - when taken in the context of the fast-paced and sloppily made world of beautiful-girl games (doujin games included) - actually be true. However, whether that is enough to ensure that it has the substance to cross genre boundaries is another question entirely, and that is where one wants the prudent statements of a critic. For example, these things he calls "event", "huge sensation" and "unprecedentedly large following", even if limited to the publishing world, exist in spades, every single year (in bestsellers like "Shouting Love at the Center of the World"). However, Kasai Kiyoshi has never praised any of those works on their popularity as unconditionally as he praises this one. -----That is to say, this is the sort of arbitrariness one would expect from a swindler, "the ability to toss out your old opinion (stance) with a casual face".

Kasai Kiyoshi's basis for boosting a new author this far is, in the end, nothing more than "numbers". No matter how you reason it out, insomuch as Nasu Kinoko has "sold" far better than Kasai Kiyoshi's works, he ranks above Kasai Kiyoshi, and "Kara no Kyoukai" outranks "The Philosopher's Sealed Room". In the end, this sort of bald-faced "push" is possible simply because Kasai has been captured by what I must call "the worship of numbers".

Still, there are probably many who doubt that a writer such as Kasai Kiyoshi, who's left such a substantial track record, would prostrate himself to "numbers" now, at this late date. This is a perfectly natural doubt.

Nevertheless, as I wrote in the previously referenced "What Kasai Kiyoshi Really Wanted", if one is aware of the bitter gall that Kasai Kiyoshi, as a "non-selling writer", has tasted up until now, and the trauma stemming from it, this becomes much easier to understand.

For example, as I detailed in the above paper, because Kasai Kiyoshi was obsessed - a "sectarian ideologue" - over new legitimate mysteries, he held a set position as a writer. However, Kasai had practically no easily understandable "medals" (literary awards), and his position didn't change the fact that, as a writer, he didn't sell. For that very reason, he not only developed the "Detective Novel Research Club" [** A group established in July of 1995 by those with ties to the mystery review prize; there were 27 committee members in July of 2006] and started up the "Legitimate Mystery Club", but also began the "Legitimate Mystery Grand Prize" in the form of a literary award hosted by these groups. In doing this, he schemed to strengthen the supremacy of this "legitimate mystery" world to which he belonged in the world of literary mysteries, as well to one day take that prize for himself, gaining both "honor and sales" at one blow.

However, it's already too late. The literary awards are in disarray, and the present "Year's Best Ten Books" were inundated at year's end. When the new volume in Kasai's flagship series and the work which he'd put all his strength into, "The Oedipus Syndrome" (Koubunsha), took first place in the "2003 Genuine Mystery Best Ten" (Harashobou) (which is written and edited by the "Detective Novel Research Club" of which Kasai himself is leader), and after even that was extended beyond those limits and the book chosen for the "Genuine Mystery Grand Prize", it barely managed to get one extra printing. He failed absolutely to get the results he'd hoped for.

This harsh truth showed itself in reality in the circulation numbers of the work which took the next year's "Legitimate Mystery Grand Prize", Utano Shougo's "To Think of You in the Season of Leafing Cherry Trees" (Bungeishunjyuu). This work was received well immediately after publication, and had a terrifically high reputation among the grassroots aficionados of mystery books (such as bookstores and the like), but that had no effect on its sales. However, even that unfortunate work, thanks to its being sighted in insane places right from the start, was chosen fairly for first place in "2004 Publications - This Mystery is Awesome!" (Takarajimasha) and "2004 Genuine Mystery Best 10". It acquired both the Legitimate Mystery Grand Prize and the Japanese Mystery Writers Association Prize, and was taken up both in name and fact, far and wide, as that year's "best mystery", becoming a widely known work even in general circles.

However, even though a suitable number of editions were printed as a result, since the sales of this masterpiece are stalled at around 110,000 (Reading and Sales News, 6/18/2004 - "Results of Prize Somehow Resemble the Mystery World"), we can extrapolate the probable sales trend of Kasai Kiyoshi's much less well-known "The Oedipus Syndrome". (While the results aren't in yet, "The Oedipus Syndrome" is on its third printing. On the other hand, "Leafing Cherry Trees" is, as of 5/30/04, on its thirteenth.)

In short, from having had this experience, Kasai Kiyoshi has probably come face to face with the fact that he can no longer survive (preserve face) as a "merchant of literature" by adhering to (or standing by) legitimate mysteries. What to do, then? The answer, which has made itself clear from his previous experience, was to "switch saddles to a promising genre".

In that case, which destination should be chosen for this "switch"? This was a tough problem, with survival hanging in the balance. At that point, what caught Kasai Kiyoshi's eye right away were novels related to "Genre X (next-generation otaku-style culture, such as anime, manga, light novels, figures, etc.)", which he'd noticed in his dealings with legitimate mysteries.

However, no matter how popular things in that neighborhood were lately, it was obvious that Kasai Kiyoshi would never manage to commit to "World-type" novels [** A genre where the protagonist (individual or a small group) has the power to change the world in his or her hands. "Tsukihime", "RahXephon" and "Haruhi" are given as examples.] or "romance" novels, as his personality was incompatible with both. So, when he looked for something close to his conventional "sphere of action" to switch over to, "mystery" was out, "spy/conspiracy" novels were also out, and what remained by default was "adventure novels".

In short, Kasai Kiyoshi writes a long commentary for it, has this new author Nasu Kinoko, whom he'd given his highest blessing, write a recommendation essay for the pocket edition of his own older adventure novel "Vampire War", and has the same illustrator who did "Kara no Kyoukai" draw the cover for "Vampire War". As we can see from this, he doesn't plan merely to be seen as someone who well understands and is an ideologue for new adventure novels, but to piggyback on the popularity of game writers like Nasu Kinoko and TYPE-MOON, and to soon be an "active adventure novelist" who supports the boom.

Therefore, the idea that there is a component of epochal inevitability in new adventure novels is a lie. Certainly there may be some epochal inevitability in the popularity of "Genre X" as a whole, but even in Genre X, the reason "adventure novels" are specifically being focused on this time is not because "the era demanded it in particular" but because of "Kasai Kiyoshi's personal convenience".

In real life, if someone took one single work (the debut work of a new author, at that), and claimed "From this point, a second boom in adventure novels will arise", if no other omens preceded that statement, most people wouldn't quite have "felt" it. That is as it should be, since the assertion "From this point, a second boom in adventure novels will arise" really meant nothing more than "From this point, we will raise a second boom in adventure novels. We had sure better, because we'll be in trouble if we don't".

In order to make it quite clear that my interpretation of all this has not been "groundless suspicion", let me give one more example. It has to do with the doubt I expressed when I was analyzing the style in "Kara no Kyoukai":

"Why is Kasai Kiyoshi flattering a work of this level? Granted, it's true that this work is an exceptional success for a doujinshi novel, and, in that sense, it has appealed in some way to a certain set of people. However, for anyone (Kasai Kiyoshi included) who has regularly read books of a certain caliber, isn't the writing in "Kara no Kyoukai" too bad to handle? Or isn't discussing this work without mentioning the awfulness of its writing biased criticism? Since it is a "commentary", some hold the opinion that it isn't necessary to bring up the work's failings (or, possibly, that one can't do so), but even if that's so, how much meaning can there be in the existence of a commentary so painfully forced?"

(* Note: The top is "Kodansha Pocket Edition", by TYPE-MOON's Take. The bottom is the "Kadokawa Novels Edition" first edition, by Ourai Noriyoshi)

Certainly, Kasai Kiyoshi is a critic who is picky about "meaning" and "significance". However, that outlook is not synonymous with disregarding the actual style. Kasai himself, being a novelist in his own right, must know full well that a novel begins with its writing, and he himself has said so.

Specifically, take Kasai's "Okajima Futari" argument. This "Okajima Futari" argument, "For what reason did I become a mystery writer?" (included in "Divergence in Imitation") in analyzing the collaborative writing team known as "Okajima Futari", also takes on the universal "secret of how novelists are created". However, in this review, what is presented as the most important factor of the "secret of how novelists are created" is this problem: "The substance of a novel is made clear in its actual transformation into text. The things called "plot", "idea" and "subject" are nothing more than the triggers for the novel, and can hold only secondary meaning."

"Even if a 'story' has been thought through so carefully it's been memorized (the author has put the meaning of 'plot' into 'story', and is using it accordingly), it may not be considered as equal to a novel, and so is no more than a type of raw information. And, although I'm sure I need not repeat this, 'information and novels are two completely different things'."

The "author" in this paragraph is the author of the autobiographical long essay "A Strange Couple: A Chronicle of the Ups and Downs of Okajima Futari" as well as being one half of the Okajima Futari duo, Inoue Yumehito. Parenthetically, Inoue is of the same generation as Kasai, is very close friends with Kasai, and is his business partner in their "e-NOVELS" enterprise. [* In Japanese, "a strange couple" is "Okashi na Futari", so it's a bit of a pun on their name, "Okajima Futari"]

"(* Journalism takes communicating data objectively as its goal, and is dependant on data; in contrast,) we must overturn that logic in the case of novels. Trick versus story, story versus plot, plot versus details, etc., etc. the 'object being described' is completely dependant on the 'results of description'. The question, 'What sort of clothes is this woman wearing?', although it's probably a compelling detail to the writer, cannot in itself be a final dimension. The significance (data) of 'A woman wearing red clothes' can lend itself to an endless multitude of varying sentences as a result of the simile. From that limitless multitude of choices, the writer must choose just one sentence.

The objectivity surrounding information, significance and 'data' cannot become the basis for any choice. The writer must start from scratch, and must enact desperate leaps without any objective reason whatsoever. Were that a relaxed gathering of subjectivity, how easy it would be! ---If a writer could justify himself by saying, I thought it 'good'. Therefore I chose that sentence. However, in spite of everything, works of literature are objective things. We may have no choice but to say that they are things which absolutely must have objective value. The harshest, all but impossible position is constantly being forced upon a writer when he, without any objective basis whatsoever, must subjectively choose that something is objectively good. That is of a different nature entirely from journalism, holding a peculiar significance to the act of novel writing. There are very few newspaper and magazine journalists who have tasted the extraordinary difficulty of being unable to write even though they have 'data'. However, the novelists who have, for that same reason, gone insane, killed themselves, or - if not going that far - have at least broken their pen, are innumerable." (pgs. 167~168)

That may be hard for mystery maniacs to understand - since taking out only the "trick", and discussing its "peculiar appeal" is possible (at least for those mystery maniacs who have that unique custom) – but the view of novels which Kasai Kiyoshi has given here is incredibly common sense, and right on the money.

In short, since a simple "An alluring woman" will not a novel make, you can say, "A beauty who's an expert in karate". In that case, though, as long as the information, "What fighting style does she use?" "How is she beautiful?", "What's her personality type?", "How does she talk?", "What does she wear?", does not become concrete novel writing, it all stays stuck as "data", never becoming a novel. Again, at a certain time, is the heroine wearing "red clothes", or are they "crimson clothes"? Or are the people who happen to be standing in a place through which she passes a "pair of lovers" or "two students"? In most cases, there is no "objective reason" for these choices, and they are referred to the author's "subjectivity" (subjective choice).

However, in a very good novel, in many cases elements chosen subjectively by the author carry "an (objective) effect of seeming to have been exhaustively calculated". For that reason, the readers see "the author's calculations" and "an inevitable (logical) choice", but often, the writer says they hadn't thought it through that far. This seems to suggest the fact that this discrepancy between the author and the reader lies in the author's intuition towards "choice in writing", and that itself is where "ability as a writer" rests.

Even if 'the same trick' or 'the same plot' is used, if different writers write them, different works will be produced. In those works, a difference between being well written and badly written will come about naturally. Even if the same character premise is used, the character will become completely different according to each author's writing strength. ---That's just how novels are.

In short, even if the author tries to tell something of "extremely important significance", as long as it is not "incarnated" via expression in writing appropriately chosen via the author's intuition, that novel is a poor work and a failure.
For example, "love for all mankind" and "world peace" are weighty problems, and can become important subjects for novels, but as long as they aren't properly transformed into writing, that work will become a poor work and a failure. They'll be "poor works that that dealt with important subjects" and "failures with delusions of grandeur".

To take the discussion back to "Kara no Kyoukai", Kasai Kiyoshi cites the following as the point on which the significance of "Kara no Kyoukai" (its value of existence) rests:

"'Kara no Kyoukai' will most certainly give a jolt to a number of readers of adventure fiction, including the readers of the neighboring mystery and sci-fi genres. You see, in this work lurks a power which will shatter the stagnation of the adventure genre. 'Kara no Kyoukai' has broken open a new horizon for the adventure novel."

He then explains, in the following paragraph, exactly where in this work that value lies:

"(* As in the '80s adventure novels) in adventure novels with opposing 'Center/ Fringe' factions, the enemy is an everyday world controlled by systemized power. Adventure novels were born as legends of demons and nature spirits, unconquered by the power of the capital. However, in 'Kara no Kyoukai', the form of the classic adventure novel is turned on its head. Our ally is the ordinary, our enemy the extraordinary. A researcher into religious principles (what was, for '80s adventure novels, the last possibility) plays the role of greatest enemy. 'Kara no Kyoukai' turned the adventure novel schemas of Hanmura and Itsuki [Hanmura Ryou and Itsuki Hiroyuki; both novelists] inside out, all at once, and broke open a possibility that no one had imagined up till now.

However, we must not see its having reversed the dominant and subordinate sections of the schemas 'ordinary versus extraordinary' and 'center versus fringe' as 'Kara no Kyoukai's achievement. To begin with, in disaster films and novels, the scheme of an extraordinary threat attacking peaceful everyday life is quite common. The individuality of 'Kara no Kyoukai' lies in its suspension of the entire scheme of opposing 'ordinary and extraordinary'."

As the "Border of Emptiness (Kara no Kyoukai)", Shiki travels back and forth between the two worlds of the ordinary and the extraordinary. Araya Souren is the personification of the encroachment of the extraordinary upon Shiki (the ordinary existence). The desire to search for the source is denied as 'evil'. This isn't limited to religious sources; the source of 'blood' is treated the same way. Conversely, by accepting the extraordinariness embodied in Shiki, the ordinary must also change. The extraordinary becomes ordinary, the ordinary extraordinary. The fringe is centralized, the center made fringe. The border is emptied, in addition to which, in a world which continues to exist as the 'border of emptiness', the extraordinary and the ordinary must fundamentally deteriorate." (Last volume, pg. 468)

According to Kasai Kiyoshi, the "newness" in "Kara no Kyoukai" is "in its suspension of the schema of opposing 'ordinary and extraordinary'." Kasai Kiyoshi is saying that novel called "Kara no Kyoukai" paints a picture of "the fringe centralized, the center made fringe. The border is made empty, in addition to which, in a world which continues to exist as the 'border of emptiness'..."

However, it isn't as though "center" and "fringe" were taken as set entities in the theory of "center versus fringe" which Yamaguchi Masao and his peers advocated. They were used only as the image of two extremes, each stimulating and supplementing the other, and the "center" was in no way stable.

Take, for example, that concept cherished by Yamaguchi Masao, the "trickster". The trickster was a "border-like" entity who switched back and forth between "ordinary/extraordinary" and "center/fringe", stirring both sides up, and in doing so freshened and renewed the matrices of "ordinary/extraordinary" and "center/fringe", which had been fated to stabilize, then collapse.

In short, there is absolutely nothing new about Ryougi Shiki, the protagonist of "Kara no Kyoukai".

Yamaguchi Masao, taking the reader's point of view, spoke of such things as "Due to the invasion of the extraordinary, the ordinary is activated" and "Due to the invasion of fringe-related elements, centralized elements are activated and renewed". However, I would say that those statements reversed – by which I mean, "Due to contact with the ordinary, the extraordinary is activated" and "Due to contact with centralized elements, fringe elements are activated and renewed" – aren't something to deny. What made it possible to realize that the lives of demons and fairies "up until then" were on the side of "extraordinary/fringe" was their being exposed to and cheapened by the ordinariness known as "commercial consumption", then taken in by the side of "ordinary/center". This is probably a common-sense observation. In that case, instead of "the extraordinary/fringe" side being the antiestablishment symbols of "demons and fairies", they most likely discover the "new fringe": things such as "stalkers", "incomprehensible tweens", and "North Korea", and transform themselves to fit. Things of this level were already common knowledge in Yamaguchi Masao's time.

However, Kasai Kiyoshi deliberately transforms his predecessor's achievement into a schema, speaking of it as though it is "a rigid way of looking at things", and on top of that, he skillfully exercises his 'style (rhetoric)' as a novelist and raves about the "newness" of something not particularly new at all.

Therefore, "content (meaning and significance)" as Kasai Kiyoshi tells it, does not exist in the work "Kara no Kyoukai". It is nothing more than an illusion which was planted in the hearts of readers at the point in time when Kasai Kiyoshi said it "existed". And, as proof to back up this fact, we have nothing less than the "freakishly bad writing" in "Kara no Kyoukai".

As Kasai Kiyoshi said in his Okajima Futari argument, "information" does not equal "novel". In short, no matter what sort of "meaning" or "significance" is packed into it (or made to be discovered), unless that "significance" and that "meaning" are adequately "transformed into writing" and expressed, that novel can only be " 'a poor work which dealt with weighty subjects' and 'a failure with delusions of grandeur'." In short, even if we make a huge concession and say that Kasai Kiyoshi's discovery was not simply "arbitrarily giving something meaning", but something which had basis (something which had even slightly more than absolutely no basis whatsoever), then arguments like this:

" 'Jumping.'
'Huh----? Ah, sorry, I wasn't listening.'
'A jumping suicide. Does that count as an accident, Mikiya?'
The meaningless mumble brought Mikiya, who'd fallen silent, back to himself. Then, almost idiotically straightforward, he began to think seriously about the question.
'Mmm, well, it's definitely a sort of accident, but... I don't know, what would they call it? It was a suicide, so someone's obviously dead. However, since it was by her own will, the responsibility rests solely with her. It's just, falling from a high place is always called an 'accident', so-----'
'It wasn't a murder, and it wasn't an accidental death. Things like that really are vague. If you're going to kill yourself, why not just choose a way that won't cause trouble for anybody.'" ("Kara no Kyoukai", first volume, pg. 12)

Or this:

I'm saying there's a connection there. Or maybe 'similarity' is the better term. In most of the eight cases, there were several people on the scene who witnessed that the deceased jumped on her own accord, and no problems have been uncovered in any of the girls' lives. None of them were doing drugs, or under the influence of some weird cult. There is no doubt that they were extremely individualistic, impulsive suicides provoked by some insecurity in themselves. So you see, there aren't any words they wanted to leave, and the police don't consider that similarity important." ("Kara no Kyoukai", first volume, pg. 23)

Or this:

"I wonder why there were no suicide notes. People won't kill themselves without a note.
In the extreme argument, a suicide note is a lingering attachment to this life. When people who don't hold death as good find themselves pushed into committing suicide, what they leave behind as their reason is the suicide note.
Suicides without suicide notes.
Not needing to write a suicide note. That means not holding any opinion whatsoever on this world, being able to disappear cleanly. That itself is the perfect suicide. The perfect suicide is one where a note doesn't exist in the first place, and where even the death itself is not made clear.
And a jumping suicide is not a perfect one.
Dying a death others can see itself becomes a suicide note. Isn't that an action you take because there's something you want to leave, something you want to make clear? If so, the logic is that a suicide note was left, in some form.
So then what happens. If, even so, there's no trace of anything like a suicide note having existed ---- Did some third person carry off the girls' suicide notes? No, that would mean they stopped being suicides.
Then what? I can think of only one reason.
In short, those were, in the purest sense of the word, 'accidents'.
Those girls never planned to die. In that case, there was no need for them to write a suicide note." ("Kara no Kyoukai", first volume, pg. 24)

And it's about an author who can't even transform arguments like these, which I can call nothing less than "wrong-headed", into solid writing, who lacks "the instinctive ability to choose appropriate wording", that Kasai writes:

"'Border of Emptiness' will most certainly give a jolt to a number of readers of adventure fiction, including the readers of the neighboring mystery and sci-fi genres. You see, in this work lurks a power which will shatter the stagnation of the adventure genre. 'Border of Emptiness' has broken open a new horizon for the adventure novel."

It is eminently obvious that this work does not have the "substance" equivalent to the "fanning" (of flames) Kasai Kiyoshi is giving it. "Novels" are nothing so naïve. It's just as Kasai Kiyoshi himself said:

From that limitless multitude of choices, the writer must choose just one sentence.
The objectivity surrounding information, significance and 'data' cannot become the basis for any choice. The writer must start from scratch, and must enact desperate leaps without any objective reason whatsoever. Were that a relaxed gathering of subjectivity, how easy it would be! ---If a writer could justify himself by saying, I thought it 'good'. Therefore I chose that sentence. However, in spite of everything, works of literature are objective things. We may have no choice but to say that they are things which absolutely must have objective value. The harshest, all but impossible position is constantly being forced upon a writer when he, without any objective basis whatsoever, must subjectively choose that something is objectively good.

Why, then, would even a very few people feel somehow that these babblings of Kasai Kiyoshi were accurate? ---- That is due to the "vagueness of having no content" of "Kara no Kyoukai", which I've proved through my examination of its writing.

Where things they don't understand well are concerned, humans will always be prone to embrace "excessive illusions". The more honest the person, the more likely they are to think "I don't really understand it, but I'm sure he's talking about something very profound". People also tend to think their own powers of understanding are shallow, and so overestimate those of the other person. This is because we can console ourselves by thinking that, if the other person is some sort of astronomical person, our not being able to understand him is "natural" and "normal".

It's precisely because they know such "psychological weak points" in humans so well that swindlers aim for them. If you're selling a dubious health food, by trotting out a title such as "Professor Emeritus of XX University", then lining up numbers the average person can't understand, you can palm off an absolutely worthless product on them. People who have an inferiority complex over their upbringing or their academic background fall for this sort of method with startling ease. Just by putting out the name of "Professor Emeritus of XX University", and the name of a real university, they think "He can't possibly be a fake," and "If this data was found by a professor that important, it has to be trustworthy". Then, calculating from the data, they begin to think things like, "You know, actually, that's a very cheap price".

Certainly, it's not in the least safe for a "bluff" or "fraud" to be obvious as absolutely groundless nonsense. However, if you just prepare a likely-looking shape in advance, a "castle in the air" is more than enough. In short, impersonating "Professor Hasumi Shigehiko of Tokyo University" is risky because the odds of your being found out are high, but you won't likely be found out if you impersonate "Professor Emeritus of XX University. Essentially, the normal method of the swindler is to get by without putting forth clear-cut data which will be immediately obvious as true or false, then show people an illusion in the vagueness (indistinctness) which can be taken any way one likes.

In that sense, (the writing of) "Kara no Kyoukai" was the perfect tool for a swindle. In short, Nasu Kinoko and "Kara no Kyoukai" are simply a mediocre author and work who are "lacking in clarity", and the one who used them to set up a swindle is, to the very end, Kasai Kiyoshi.

In short, Nasu Kinoko and "Kara no Kyoukai" are an "empty vessel", no more than "a box full of nothing". However, in order to "eat out a nest" for himself inside that box, the "demon" known as Kasai Kiyoshi set up Nasu Kinoko and "Kara no Kyoukai" as a new "Adventure Novel" boom, which would bring him prolonged life, saying:

"'Border of Emptiness' will most certainly give a jolt to a number of readers of adventure fiction, including the readers of the neighboring mystery and sci-fi genres. You see, in this work lurks a power which will shatter the stagnation of the adventure genre. 'Border of Emptiness' has broken open a new horizon for the adventure novel."

By filling in a place that's absolutely empty with "illusion", you can deceive (swindle) people into thinking that, to begin with, that "empty vessel" held some great meaning. This is, certainly, something which stemmed from Kasai Kiyoshi's peculiar overemphasis (cognitive leanings) on "meaning" and "significance"; however, the reason something like that has a regular power of persuasion is that there is probably a desire to imbue it with "meaning" on the reader's side as well.

In practice, the attitude isn't so much "Does something have value or not?" as "If something is thought to have value, it doesn't really matter whether it actually does or not". This is similar to the timeless romantic psychology, "If you were going to deceive me anyway, I'd rather you'd deceived me until death". One way of thinking about it goes that, ultimately, as reality is no more than "collected realizations", then if someone is deceived until death, then that was "reality", at least for the person who was deceived. However, I wonder: might not this sort of person, in being dragged along by that "desire to be deceived", have to spend their whole life begging "deceive me, betray me"?

I'm not a believer in "religion", as such, but I don't deny the fact that there is a very large number of people who feel that they have had a real, personal contact with religion. And, even if that "sense of real experience" is false, I think that most of the people who have felt it can't help believing in the "illusion" completely. However, before things go that far, people should probably examine their own desires. "Is what I believe in worth believing in? Or am I only thinking that just having something I can believe in is enough?"

This can, of course, be fitted to the case of evaluating a novel as well. "Do I want to adequately evaluate a superb work as a superb work and enjoy it? Or am I taking the attitude that, although from an objective point of view it's a terrible book, as long as I think it's interesting, I have no qualms about judging it a masterpiece?"

Of course, I take the former position. Even if I personally enjoy something, if from an objective viewpoint some parts are poorly done, I will evaluate them as poorly done, and if, as the result of a full evaluation encompassing those parts, that work is "poorly done" or "a failed work" from an objective point of view, I feel no reluctance about admitting it to be such. However, even if it's "poorly done" or "a failed work", it doesn't change the fact that I like what I like. In short, I distinguish between "objective" and "subjective". Taking as a natural premise the fact that I can't run away from my own subjectivity (simply because I can't), I think "I want to cherish objectivity", and "it's there that the real value lies".

If I were to say this in other words, it might go something like this:

" 'I've heard of that before, I have. From what my teacher says, premonitions're things that well up from inside, so they're no good. He says, if it doesn't come from outside, it's probably not true. So I told him, "I don't really get it, pretty much everything is 'inside', and that doesn't seem all that interesting", and I totally got laughed at.'
Torakichi wrapped both hands around his teacup and blew on it vigorously."
I kinda think I get it.
I kinda don't.
No, I really don't get it. I shouldn't get it.
If I'm ever able to understand Enokizu's utterances with ease, then I feel like it'll be too late for me. Once that happens, I'm not a normal person. I'll be a full-fledged member of his crowd. So, rather than work hard to understand it, it's much more normal to abandon it as something I don't understand.
I told him I didn't get it at all.
'Then----'
Ordinary people should behave like ordinary people: normally and simply."
(Included in Kyougoku Natsuhiko's "A hundred bags of tedium -- Wind, from "Demon Mirror - The Rosy Cross Detective's Reasonable Doubt")

In short, the sort of understanding I am asking for might, to "the average person", (in short, to the ones Enokizu Reijirou calls "stable hands") be difficult. For "average people", being pulled around by their "inner impulses", and continuing to be fixated on "illusions" might be just about all they're wired to do. In short, "the average person" might be a sort of deviant who finds joy in being victimized by a swindler.

-------However, after having seen (or being made to see) the "real image"— that "portrait of oneself" which comes from "outside" – one can no longer innocently "behave like ordinary people: normally and simply". Well, no, behaving that way is possible, but one can't go back to being an "obliviously happy" average person. For that reason, there is nothing for a person like that to do but stall at the border between "inside" and "outside", existing aimlessly, half-finished and without substance. He himself is a hollow "Border of Emptiness", and thus either adds to the damage done by the swindler, or is used by it himself: he has no other choices.

November 8th, 2004

The manuscript above is a collection of three separate articles which were posted on internet bulletin boards. Their breakdown and appearances are as follows:

(1) "Nasu Kinoko's Writing Ability (1 ~ 4)" (BBS "Black Cat Notice Board": 7/18/04
(2) "The Demon that Dwells in the Void (1 ~ 6)" (BBS "Aleksey's Flower Garden": 7/31/04
(3) "The Demon that Dwells in the Void (7 ~ 22)" (BBS "Aleksey's Flower Garden": 7/31/04

The previous essays have already been recorded in "Debate: About Kasai Kiyoshi", so for the originals, please follow the above links.

Also, on August 24th of the same year that the original manuscripts of the above three essays were released, there was a contribution from Shigure-shi to "Aleksey's Flower Garden" concerning Azuma Hiroki's words, which supported my reasoning in the manuscript. It is titled "Tree-Leaves and Door Keys", and it is recorded below.

"The Key to the Door of Leaves (1) ~ (3)" Contributor: Shigure Date of Contribution: 8/24 (Tues) 00:37:36 ~ 01:15:19

Essay introduction

Hello, and it's been a while. Today I finally got a copy of Azuma Hiroki's doujinshi magazine, which I'd referenced in passing before.
Its contents are reviews of "beautiful girl" games and interviews with those involved with them, so it essentially has nothing to do with the matter at hand. However, there was a place where (the recent) Kasai Kiyoshi and "Faust" were mentioned, and as the contents were quite interesting, I've reprinted it. I'll talk about it in the round-table discussion. By the way, the contents of the () marks are my own additions.

Main essay

(In response to Azuma's remark that a severe directional choice is hanging over "Faust")
Sarashina (note 1): I hate sci-fi, and I'm not good with mysteries either, but I like adventure stories, so I think this "new adventure" trend in itself is a good thing.

(contents omitted)

However, if it's just Kasai Kiyoshi's "Kara no Kyoukai" argument, spoiled things will turn up no matter what. So it seems like, unless they reference some sort of counter somewhere, it's going to get risky pretty soon.

Azuma: I agree with you there. Kasai-san's movements lately have been strange, and, since he's bought into it, I've got doubts about (Faust's) Chief Editor Oota's movements as well. The issue will probably have come out by the time this round-table discussion goes into print (the discussion was on 7/4), but in the third issue of "Faust", the second feature is "New Adventure", and as build-up for that, Maijou-san, Satou-san and Takimoto-san's names won't be on the cover. Plus, it isn't like Motonaga-san and Harada-san's works are adventure stories; the name "new adventure" was something coined for Nasu-san alone. Even Oota-san says so. In short, for the sake of Nasu-san, Maijou and Satou have been chased off the front cover, when just one year ago, Oota-san said "This magazine belongs to Maijou and Satou and Nishio". To me, having known that, this directional switch is really hard to imagine.

Certainly, I think that the capital held by TYPE-MOON is big. However, neither Oota-san nor Kasai-san are users of beautiful-girl games. I can tell you this now, but the ones who told them about "Tsukihime" and Nasu's name were myself and Satou-kun (note 2). Not to mention that Kasai-san, in a correspondence with me called "In A World Turning Animalistic", clearly wrote that his own adventure novel from the eighties was a "loss". Rather, I was the one who wrote that I wanted it reevaluated. And now, a mere two years later, we have this. I'm sure everyone's got various thoughts on the matter, but having him as a correspondence partner was not fun. Kasai-san and Oota-san may be planning to go all-out promoting "new adventure" and doubling "Faust"s circulation numbers from now on, but I can't see that they believe in the context.

I do have hopes for "Faust" itself, but if even one of Maijou-san or Satou-san or Nishio-san gets dropped from the magazine, then I'll probably stop writing for it as well. If whether there are only a few or a lot of this sort of speech made works as a counter, that's good, but well, faced with numbers in the 200,000 department (the official sales of "Kara no Kyoukai"), this might be no more than "the mantis's ax"** (laughs) [** "The mantis's ax" is what it's called when a very weak enemy takes on a very strong one, without thinking of the difference in strength beforehand.] It's just as you say, Sarashina-san. (The rest is abbreviated.)

Note 1: Editor and writer Sarashina Shuuichiro-shi. For details, see http://d.hatena.ne.jp/cute plus/000000

Note 2: This is not the novelist Satou Yuuya, but the writer (and additional participant in this round-table discussion) Satou Shin. For details, see: ttp://d.hatena.ne.jp/keyword/%ba%b4%c6%a3%bf%b4

The above was from pg. 134 of "Speech-Waves Special Supplement - The Critical Point of Beautiful Girl Games"

Concluding paragraph

.. .. . .. ..As you can see, should Enshu-sama happen to read this, he is very likely to say, "Did you see that?!" As far as one can tell from reading this, apparently Enshu-sama's speculation on Nasu Kinoko's debut work (which I had previously said that I could not approve of) was quite close to the truth.

I wonder where "Faust" is heading... As a reader of Genre ?, might I watch over their progress closely?

At present, I have finished my examination of "new adventure", and its sequel, an examination of Kasai Kiyoshi's relationship with "new adventure" (including an examination of his commentary to "Kara no Kyoukai" (It feels like this is all I've been saying, somehow...Enshu-sama, Harapyon-sama, I'm sorry for being such a slow writer!), and I hope that its contents will spread and thrive.

And with that, have a good night.

List of links

Related Papers

• What Kasai Kiyoshi Really Wanted. --- Kasai Kiyoshi's fraud as visible in the correspondence "In A World Turning Animalistic"
• Kasai Kiyoshi's Truly Humanistic Desire
• Backstage at "2004 Genuine Mystery Best 10"
• Commentary as Baggage --- The Ability of "The Detective Novel Research Club" Affiliated Critic Yanagawa Takayuki
• The Scars Borne by Torn-off Wings --- Kasai Kiyoshi theory
• Dependent Public, or the weight of one vote and party violence ------ A speech by a certain "Detective Novel Research Club" affiliated critic.
• Bye-bye, Yabuki Kakeru ------- Last volume of the Yabuki Kakeru series
• Debate - On Kasai Kiyoshi
• About the ordinariness of "Gen-chan the Intellectual" ---- A Literature Scholar's Frank Thoughts Upon Seeing Takahashi Genichiro
• Struggle over Literature Prize --- Fuji Sankei, Bunshun [an abbreviation of "Bungei Shunjyuu"] writers, and the case of Higaki Takashi