Tokyo Literary Masters: Starting from the Late 1980s

TV Asahi.

Backstage at the News Station studio.

This is the battleground for the highest viewership ratings in all of Japan tonight.

Unlike the lively atmosphere of the studio where lights were being adjusted, the long, narrow corridor leading to the stage was filled with a sense of oppression, as if it had frozen in time.

Staff members hurried past with scripts in hand, each with a tense expression on their face, even speaking in hushed tones.

At that moment, Kitahara Iwa stood alone in a corner of the corridor.

He declined the private dressing room provided by the production team and did not accept the makeup artist's suggestions for touch-ups. He simply wore an ordinary dark shirt and quietly leaned against the wall.

Staff members rushed past carrying scripts and equipment, and the corridor was filled with anxious shouts and instructions to check the clock, while Kitahara Iwao just silently watched all of this.

Just then, the door on the left that was labeled "VIP Lounge" opened.

The first person to emerge was a middle-aged woman wearing a dark silk kimono, her hair neatly styled, and gold-rimmed glasses.

This is Mrs. Oshima, the president of the PTA National Federation.

She didn't act arrogantly like the villains in TV dramas, but maintained an air of high society.

She held her head high, walked with a steady gait, and stared straight ahead, as if this corridor were her own backyard.

As she passed by Kitahara Iwa, she merely glanced at him indifferently.

There was no anger in his eyes, only a detached sense of superiority.

This is a habit of giving orders and looking down on others from a moral high ground.

Following closely behind was a special guest, Fujiwara no Riki, Director of the Kyoto Board of Education.

He was dressed in a well-tailored double-breasted suit and held a folding fan, looking like a typical Kansai conservative.

Seeing Kitahara Iwa leaning against the wall, Fujiwara paused for half a second, his brows furrowing slightly. Then, he quickly looked away, as if he had seen something inappropriate and dirty, and hurried to catch up with Mrs. Oshima ahead.

"Kitahara-san".

At that moment, Kume Hiroshi, taking advantage of a break while touching up his makeup, quietly slipped over to Kitahara Iwa's side and warned in a low voice, "Tonight is going to be a tough battle."

"I just secretly looked at their script. They prepared a thick stack of juvenile delinquency data and moral and ethical guidelines, ready to nail you to the pillar of shame as an instigator."

"Data? Framework?"

Kitahara Iwa did not show the concerns that Kume Hiroshi had anticipated.

"Let them list the data."

Kitahara Iwao looked at Kume Hiroshi, his tone as calm as if stating a fact: "I don't need those things."

Then Kitahara Iwa patted his briefcase and said, "Because I brought a witness with me."

"Kume-sensei, Kitahara-sensei, the program is about to start, let's hurry into the studio..."

Just as Kume Hiroshi was about to say something, a staff member ran over and spoke to the two of them.

Hearing the staff urging him on, Kume Hiroshi nodded and led Kitahara Iwao into the studio.

"This episode, five seconds ago..."

"4, 3, 2..."

As the bright red ON AIR indicator light silently illuminated, the previously noisy background noise in the studio instantly disappeared, leaving only the slight sound of the camera slider moving.

As the rousing opening theme music faded, Hiroshi Kume's serious face appeared on the monitor screen.

"Good evening, this is News Station. I'm Hiroshi Kume."

Hiroshi Kume's opening remarks were as concise and powerful as ever, without any unnecessary words: "Tonight, we will discuss a novel that has shaken the entire education world—Confessions."

"The Kyoto Board of Education defines this book as 'highly toxic.' So, is it poison that harms teenagers, or a scalpel that reopens old wounds?"

The camera lens slowly zoomed in, panning across the scene.

On the left side of the image, two people are sitting.

One of them was Mrs. Oshima, the PTA chairman, who was dressed in a dark kimono and sitting upright.

The other was Fujiwara, the Kyoto council member, who was holding a folding fan and had a serious expression.

They represent Kyoto's order and tradition; their posture and expressions exude an inviolable dignity.

The camera then cuts to the right.

There is only one person here.

Unlike the formally dressed man opposite him, Kitahara Iwao was not wearing a suit, but only a dark shirt.

Facing the two fully armed judges, Kitahara Iwa's face showed no tension, only calmness.

The next second, the signal traveled across the archipelago via radio waves.

Whether it's angry parents or students watching from their rooms.

Whether it's Sachiko Kamachi watching TV in a corner of the film set, or Akina Nakamori sitting alone on the sofa in her apartment with her knees drawn up.

All eyes were on the show.

"Well then, let's first hear Chairman Oshima's thoughts."

Guided by Hiroshi Kume, the camera switched to the left.

Mrs. Oshima did not rush to make a move.

She even elegantly adjusted her gold-rimmed glasses, then opened the book "Confessions" covered in labels, and said politely with a hint of regret, "Mr. Kitahara, first of all, I must admit that as a suspense novel, your writing is indeed very fluent. I have also read this book from beginning to end."

She paused here, her gaze sharp as she scrutinized Kitahara Iwa through her glasses, like a stern headmaster examining a student who had made a mistake, and continued, "But that's precisely why I feel so deeply worried."

"Your descriptions of how foreign objects were mixed into milk and how the teacher retaliated were incredibly realistic."

At this point, her tone suddenly turned cold, and she finally revealed her fangs:

"Have you ever considered that for students whose minds are not yet mature, this isn't a novel, but a crime guide?"

"If children imitate the behaviors described in the book, can you bear the responsibility?"

Fujiwara, a director of the Kyoto Board of Education, who was sitting to the side, chimed in at the opportune moment, stating in a typical bureaucratic tone, "Chairman Oshima is right."

"The essence of education is to guide people toward goodness, but in this work, I only saw distrust of others and dark vigilante justice."

"Mr. Kitahara, isn't it morally questionable to package such violent material as entertainment and sell it to children?"

As soon as the two finished speaking, the studio fell silent.

This is an elaborately designed trap.

One perspective, from the standpoint of social security, and the other from the standpoint of moral education, have firmly nailed "Confessions" to the cross of harm.

Faced with the earnest words of his two elders, Kitahara Iwa did not panic, nor did he rush to explain the plot settings in the book.

He simply looked calmly at Mrs. Oshima, then suddenly asked a seemingly unrelated question: "President Oshima, you just mentioned imitation and realism, right?"

"Yes."

Mrs. Oshima frowned, and although she didn't know what Kitahara Iwa was trying to say, she nodded nonetheless.

"Then let's not talk about fictional novels, but about the reality happening right under Chairman Oshima's nose."

Kitahara Iwa leaned forward slightly, took a document from his briefcase and placed it on the table, then read aloud: "As far as I know, in the model school district you are in charge of, there was a failed suicide attempt last month."

This was given to him by editor-in-chief Sato in the car; it was a top-secret file that Shinchosha had managed to uncover by using all of its distribution channels and connections in the Kansai region.

"The cause was that he was bullied by his seniors in the baseball team for half a year, starting with running errands, and later being extorted for money and forced to eat insects."

Upon hearing this, Mrs. Oshima's expression froze for a moment, but she quickly regained her composure.

Kitahara Iwa didn't give her a chance to interrupt, and continued, "For half a year, no novel taught those predecessors how to extort money, nor did any book teach the victim to eat insects."

At this point, Kitahara Iwao looked directly at Mrs. Oshima's well-maintained face and continued, "Excuse me, before that student's accident, where was the PTA you represented, whose mission is to protect children?"

Where are those educators who constantly preach morality and goodness?

"...This is an extreme case."

Mrs. Oshima's expression stiffened for a moment, but as the PTA president who had seen many big scenes, she quickly adjusted her posture and tried to downplay the matter with official language: "Mr. Kitahara, using an extremely isolated case that is still under investigation to negate the efforts of the entire Japanese education sector is a typical sophistry."

"Is it an extreme case?"

Kitahara Iwa didn't refute, but simply nodded, as if accepting the statement.

Then, Kitahara Iwa reached into his briefcase again and pulled out a thick stack of letters from Shinchosha readers.

boom!

These were not just a few flimsy sheets of paper, but a stack of letters as thick as two bricks, bound together with rubber bands.

It made a dull thud when it hit the table.

This statement carried more weight than any rebuttal.

"There are 332 letters here."

Kitahara Iwao placed his palm on the stack of letters, his tone eerily calm: "They weren't all sent to me. Many were sent to Shincho-sha, and some were even originally intended for your PTA but were ignored."

Kitahara Iwao casually picked up a letter, but instead of reading it aloud with great emotion, he quickly extracted the core content: "Tokyo, 14-year-old girl."

"There were thumbtacks in the shoe cabinet. The teacher told her to bear with it, saying it was the price of growing up."

Then Kitahara Iwa pulled out another envelope: "Saitama Prefecture, first-year junior high school boy."

"He was blackmailed by a senior member of the baseball team, but his parents told him to forgive them. However, after reading a book, he decided to take revenge!"

After reading several letters aloud, Kitahara Iwao threw them back on the table, glanced at the ashen-faced education expert opposite him, and finally looked at the camera lens, continuing, "Are you angry really because the scenes in the book are too violent?"

"No. Your anger stems from my violation of the taboo you least want to acknowledge: juvenile law."

Kitahara Iwao's fingers tapped lightly on the cover of "Confessions": "All along, you have been instilling a kind of illusion in the public: 'Children are pure blank sheets of paper,' 'Children's mistakes are all the fault of the environment.'"

"So even if they kill someone, as long as they are under 14 years old, the law will protect them and give them a chance to reform."

"But my 'Confession' tore away this warm veil of pretense."

At this point, Kitahara Iwao turned to look directly at Mrs. Oshima: "I simply stated a truth in the book: not all children are angels."

"Malice knows no age. Some children are monsters in school uniforms."

"You're afraid your children will read this book not because you're afraid they'll be corrupted. You're afraid that if the victims read this book, they'll stop believing in your hypocritical doctrines of forgiveness."

"Are you afraid that the public will realize that the juvenile law, which you regard as a god, is actually protecting demons!"

Then Kitahara Iwa pointed to the book "Confessions" covered in labels in Mrs. Oshima's hand and continued, "Stop burning the book. What you really want to burn is the mirror."

"Because what is reflected in the mirror is not the instigation of violence, but the hypocritical faces of you rule-makers who disregard the weight of life and overprotect criminals."

As the brutal truth about juvenile law came to light, the entire studio fell into a deathly silence.

Even the sound of the air conditioner running in the background can be clearly heard.

Originally, Fujiwara, who was waving a folding fan and looking aloof, suddenly froze in place like a comical puppet whose pressure points had been abruptly frozen.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Oshima, who had maintained her elegant demeanor, now had a face as red as a liver color, her chest heaving violently, and her fingers digging into the table so hard that she was completely unaware of the ear-piercing sound of her nails scraping against the table.

"You...you're using sophistry! You're inciting others! You're..."

Mrs. Oshima's lips trembled as she tried to regain her initial air of superiority, intending to resort to her usual moralistic approach.

But faced with these three hundred letters, the hypocritical education she represented was completely exposed, and all rebuttals seemed pale and powerless, even somewhat ridiculous.

Looking at the education authority in front of him, who was already in a state of panic and even somewhat hysterical, Kitahara Iwa lost the last bit of interest in his eyes and did not look at the woman again.

Kitahara Iwatsu slowly adjusted the cuffs of his black shirt, then slowly raised his head, his eyes looking past his opponent and past Kume Hiroshi, locking onto the camera lens directly in front of him.

At this moment, Kitahara Iwa is watching every adult in front of the television.

"Finally, regarding the accusation that a novel can ruin a child..."

Kitahara Iwa's lips curled into a mocking smile as he said, "If a paperback novel that costs only a few hundred yen can so easily ruin your children?"

"That only proves that the education system you adults have spent huge sums of money to build is just a piece of garbage that can be easily destroyed."

As Kitahara Iwa finished speaking, a suffocating silence fell over the studio for a full five seconds.

No one spoke, no one breathed, and even the director forgot to cut the camera.

pat.

At that moment, a crisp sound broke the silence.

The folding fan in Fujiwara's hand, which bore the inscription "Literature carries the Way" and symbolized his unyielding spirit, slipped to the ground.

But he didn't pick it up.

At this moment, Fujiwara no Riki was as if her spine had been removed, frozen in her seat, staring blankly into the void, as if she didn't even have the strength to bend down and pick it up.

The old scholar who had just regarded Kitahara Iwa as trash seemed to have aged ten years in an instant.

Mrs. Oshima, standing next to her, looked even more disheveled.

The expensive silk kimono now seemed like a heavy shackle; her face was deathly pale, and her once straight back completely collapsed.

Facing the camera, the once arrogant PTA president instinctively shrugged, his eyes darting away, his head bowed low, completely devoid of the courage to even glance at Kitahara Iwa.

This was a crushing defeat.

Kume Hiroshi watched this scene and felt a surge of electricity rush from his tailbone to the top of his head, making all the hairs on his body stand on end.

He had done thousands of shows and witnessed countless clashes between politicians and celebrities, but he had never seen such a thorough and brutal victory.