I am a literary giant in Japan

"What is this?" Junji Ito didn't rush to close the pop-up ad page, but instead clicked on it to take a closer look at the picture of MPMan Japan1.

"The latest e-reader and music player jointly developed by Beichuan Entertainment and Beichuan Technology is a more advanced and convenient high-tech electronic device than the traditional Walkman."
You can perform the following operations on MPMan Japan1:

1. Download MP3 music from your computer and store it permanently on your device for playback anytime, anywhere. No payment or internet connection is required.
2. Download TXT format documents from your computer and store them permanently on your device for viewing anytime, anywhere—no payment or internet connection required.

Junji Ito was reading the user manual for the MPMan Japan1, his eyes wide with disbelief as he stared at the computer screen.

"Can this little thing really allow me to do so many functions?"

He has the latest Walkman at home; it's safe to say that no Japanese artsy young person doesn't have one.

Ten years ago, every night when he went to cram school, Junji Ito would see men and women wearing headphones and carrying Walkmans on the trains and subways.

Japan's music market is booming, and people are even willing to spend their living expenses to buy cassette tapes for their favorite singers.

Junji Ito, who came from a poor family, lied to his parents that he wanted to use a Walkman to learn English in order to show off, and that's how he got his first Walkman.

Ten years later, the rise of mobile phones and computers has gradually dissipated the popularity of Walkmans, but for students who cannot afford mobile phones and computers, it is still the most cost-effective tool for showing off.

Junji Ito doesn't like using Walkmans anymore for one reason: the equipment is just too heavy.

After passing the age when he was willing to carry around speakers, Junji Ito gradually lost interest in these more pretentious electronic products.

When he saw that the MPMan Japan1 launched by Kitagawa Group could combine the functions of a portable music player and an e-reader, and was also lightweight and compact, he immediately became interested.

Junji Ito flipped through the phone book and quickly found the number of the deputy director of the publicity department of Kitagawa Bunko.

The webpage ad shows that MPMan Japan1 will be officially launched on July 15th, but such new products usually have trial versions or early access versions. He wants to see if he can use his inside connections to buy a trial version to experience it first.

"Moshi Moshi?" came an old man's voice from the other end of the phone.

Junji Ito quickly introduced himself and got straight to the point about his thoughts.

"Oh! So it turns out that Professor Ito wants to try out Kitagawa Technology's new product first."

No problem, I'll call the warehouse right now and have them send you a trial version immediately. Paying for it would be too much of a formality.

You're currently our most popular illustrator for the *Kitagawa Library*! The guys in the data department say that using your illustrations directly increases the subscription rate of any novel by at least 10 percentage points—that's amazing!

The deputy head of the publicity department, Mr. Yamamoto, is nearing retirement, while the head is a seasoned industry elite in his prime. He certainly can't compete with him.

Therefore, Mr. Yamamoto was very easy to talk to within the company, and everything he did was paving the way for his retirement.

Junji Ito is now the most sought-after illustrator in the industry. His illustration of Sadako crawling out of the TV set is deeply ingrained in people's minds, which has elevated Kitagawa's "Ring World" series to a new level.

He himself has received praise and recognition from Kitagawa-sensei and is one of the non-company faction members that Yamamoto-sensei most likes to win over.

Of course, old man Yamamoto wouldn't refuse such a small matter.

Junji Ito thanked him repeatedly. After hanging up the phone, he was stunned for a moment, then overjoyed, happy that his guess had been confirmed.

He has always believed that the proportion and importance of illustrations will increase significantly after novels are digitized.

In the past, if a novel wasn't published as a physical book, it generally wouldn't come with illustrations, and illustrators could only earn a little extra money by submitting their work to magazine covers.

The cover design for well-known literary magazines is monopolized by established veteran illustrators.

As for the illustrations for the physical books, they were all taken care of by the publisher's in-house illustrators.

There's no way a cartoonist like him could ever get his hands on this kind of cake.

However, with Kitagawa-sensei's vigorous promotion of e-reading and online reading, the elimination of expensive paper and printing costs has left a lot of spare funds for e-novels to be used for illustrations.

Junji Ito was an illustrator who emerged in response to this need.

According to Mr. Yamamoto, his illustrations can increase a novel's subscription rate by at least ten percent. Even if his data is exaggerated, it still proves that illustrations have a huge impact on novels and readers.

As long as Kitagawa Bunko and light novels continue to improve, Junji Ito's income is expected to catch up with that of top authors in the publishing industry, and he will no longer have to go through the hardship of not knowing where his next meal will come from!

“This is the best of times.” Junji Ito leaned back comfortably.

Before he could finish his exclamation, the doorbell rang.

He was startled, almost mistaking it for the "terrifying ringtone" from the movie "One Missed Call".

Looking through the peephole, I saw an employee wearing a black cat delivery uniform outside the door; it turned out he was a courier.

"Hello, is this Mr. Ito? Please sign for your urgent package." The employee held the cardboard box in one hand and the receipt in the other, his tone calm and composed.

Black Cat Delivery Service is the largest logistics company in Japan besides Japan Post. Because it is a private company, its labor costs are extremely high, and its service attitude and speed are first-class. It has been copied by many neighboring express delivery companies in later generations.

"Okay." Junji Ito saw that the recipient's name, phone number, and address on the box were correct, so he picked up his pen and quickly wrote his name down.

After the deliveryman left, he immediately took the cardboard box back to his computer desk.

"Could it be a gift sent by a fan?"

Junji Ito curiously opened the cardboard box. In Japan, it is very common for fans to send things to their idols. In the 90s, the social interaction between fans and idols was relatively normal, with many heartwarming stories.

It wasn't until a certain underground female idol was followed by a fanatical fan, refused to confess her feelings, and was stabbed to death more than a dozen times that the relationship between idols and fans gradually changed.

After the millennium, fans could hardly find any personal information about their idols, and all the gifts they sent were intercepted by their assistants, so almost nothing ended up in the idols' hands.

The box didn't contain a gift, but rather a beautifully packaged MPMan Japan 1.

"Is the delivery speed of Kitagawa Group's warehouse this fast?" Junji Ito was overjoyed and quickly opened the outer packaging to take out the MPMan Japan1 he had been longing for.

The MPMan Japan1 measures 70x90x16.5mm, about the size of four 1.44M floppy disks stacked together, and weighs 65 grams. It is so light that you can barely feel its weight in your hand.

The instruction manual states that the MPMan Japan1 has no mechanical parts, a signal-to-noise ratio of 70dB, and a distortion rate of 0.01-0.1%. These figures are all superior to the latest Walkman that Junji Ito is using, indicating that Kitagawa Group is aiming to replace the Walkman with this technological product! Junji Ito eagerly turned on the MPMan Japan1 and found that the device already had several popular songs by Izumi Sakai stored on it.

"Ms. Izumi Sakai seems to be a signed artist under Kitagawa Entertainment? This is a great promotional spot."

Junji Ito felt that the sheer size and technological feel of the MPMan Japan1 alone would be enough to entice a large number of fans of Kitagawa to buy it and support the Kitagawa Group.

Moreover, Kitagawa-sensei is a literary giant whose novels can sell 1000 million copies in Japan. Even if only one-tenth of his book fans buy MPMan Japan1, it will still generate a huge wave of popularity for the singers whose songs are included!

After joining Kitagawa Bunko, Junji Ito always felt that there should be a very powerful marketing expert in the Kitagawa Group, who could accurately grasp the trend of the times in every publicity and group movement, which is not something that ordinary company executives can do.

He clicked on a song called "Turning the Wheel of Fate," and Izumi Sakai's melodious voice immediately came through. The external speaker quality of this device was surprisingly good!
Even during playback, it can display audio tracks and playback time, arrange playback order, and support bass/midrange amplification.

Battery status detection and display rely on two NiMH batteries, which can maintain 8 hours of uninterrupted playback. It can be charged when the power is depleted, and there is no need to install batteries like the Walkman.

This little gadget brought me a surprise that far exceeded Junji Ito's expectations!

After tinkering with the music playback function, Junji Ito turned his attention to the e-reading function.

Similar to its music playback function, MPMan Japan1 can only download resources from specific websites, but those resources are all free.

Japan has very strict copyright protection. While Junji Ito may be able to find some pirated song sources and novel txt files online, he will face huge fines and possible imprisonment if he is found to be using pirated sources.

As a creator himself, he naturally wouldn't skimp on this little bit of money.

The songs used in MPMan Japan1 can be downloaded from Kitagawa Technology's homepage. All the songs in the music library are free, which means Kitagawa Technology probably paid the copyright fees for users in advance. It's free now, but it will definitely be charged in the future.

As for the novel's TXT file, it can only be downloaded from the Kitagawa Library.

"In other words, as long as I use MPMan Japan1, I will have to become a user of Kitagawa Technology and Kitagawa Bunko. This is a brilliant plan that kills three birds with one stone."

This type of bundling model was most commonly used by the Apple brand in later generations, basically binding all electronic products together, and even having a dedicated independent Apple system to distinguish it from the Android system.

The result is obvious.

Apple users make up about 30% of all electronic product users. These people will be forced to use various Apple products step by step, becoming deeply bound to them, until they can no longer live without Apple.

Before Apple has even risen to prominence, Kitagawa Hideaki has already launched this model, which is both novel and practically effective.

Junji Ito downloaded Ju-on 1, Kara no Kyoukai 1: Overlooking View, Kara no Kyoukai 2: Murder Investigation (Part 1) and Ring 2: Spiral directly from the Kitagawa Bunko website.

The first season of "Ju-on" came to its finale, and the second season of "Kara no Kyoukai" was also released.

The authors of these two works, Reiko Saito and Girl A, sound like female pen names, and the fact that they were chosen so casually suggests that they were probably already somewhat famous in the real world or the literary world.

Junji Ito searched for a long time but couldn't find a female writer who matched his description, so he eventually gave up and quietly appreciated their novels.

The ending of "Ju-on 1" was beyond his expectations.

These types of horror novels often use happy endings or ambiguous endings to pave the way for the next installment.

Ju-on 1, however, did the opposite; by the end of the story, none of the main characters had escaped death!

"As long as the curse persists, the dead will continue to die; as long as resentment endures, life will never cease."

Junji Ito felt a chill run down his spine as he read it, and suddenly realized that his previous horror comics were nothing compared to this work!

In terms of sheer horror, Ju-on 1 has undoubtedly surpassed the One Missed Call and Rim series.

This feeling of terror and despair was something he experienced for the first time through a novel.

"I must get the manga adaptation of this novel!" Junji Ito clenched his fist in secret.

Another work, "Kara no Kyoukai 2: Murder Investigation (Part 1)," also impressed him greatly.

Girl A is a well-known tentacle monster in Kitagawa Bunko. With a large number of updates, the sales of the Kara no Kyoukai series once surpassed the RimWorld series, occupying the top spot on the charts for many weeks.

This light novel, with its incredibly rich style, has been hailed by countless readers as the most worthwhile light novel to read since Kino's Journey.

At the same time, this work has also generated a lot of controversy.

The first part, "Overlooking View," was a bit nonsensical. The sudden appearance of Ryougi Shiki and the messy world-building and character relationships made it incredibly confusing.

Although the story is very engaging, readers often feel like they are reading with a lot of questions in mind.

After the second book, "Murder Investigation (Part 1)," was serialized in one go, the readers' doubts vanished instantly, leaving only praise and screams.

It turns out that the timeline of this series is completely messed up.

The story of "Murder Investigation (Part 1)" takes place in 1995, when the protagonists Mikiya Kurogiri and Ryougi Shiki are still high school students. The timeline is clearly before "Overlooking View".

In this part, Girl A also explains the issue of Ryougi Shiki's dual personality, and how she met, got to know, and fell in love with Kokutou Mikiya.

The story abruptly ends after the sixth murder.

Is Ryougi Shiki the serial killer? Will Mikiya Kokutou, who saw Ryougi Shiki at the murder scene, continue to protect her and persist in his love?

This was the first time Junji Ito had ever read a story with such a "yasashii" (a gentle Japanese pronunciation) male protagonist, and also the first time he had ever read a romance story between a boy and a girl in a fantasy setting. He was completely captivated and even considered drawing illustrations for "Kara no Kyoukai".

After watching two excellent works in one go, he rubbed his eyes and looked helplessly at MPMan Japan 1 in his hand.

This thing has a very small screen. Even with the font size set to the smallest, it can only display two lines of small text at a time, which is quite painful to look at and is not as good as a computer monitor at all.

but
"If I had a little device like this when I was in school, I could listen to music with the girl I liked, and even secretly read novels during class. That would be so great!"

Junji Ito turned off MPMan Japan1 and returned his gaze to the computer screen.

After these reflections, he opened "Ring 2: Spiral" and prepared to enjoy this main course! (End of Chapter)