I am a literary giant in Japan

Chapter 89 Rules are meant to be broken

Now that things have come to this, Kitagawa Hide no longer hides anything and tells Saito Rena everything about the blunder of "Thor's Song".

"It is a fact recognized by the literary world that haiku is dead. Because of the rhyme and poetic issues of haiku itself, writing a haiku is actually quite exhausting." Kitagawa Hide spread out the manuscripts one by one and said helplessly, "Saito, you should be very clear about my current situation, right?"

"Indeed, if it weren't for the 'Thoraga Tanka', no publisher would be willing to touch haiku." Saito Reina nodded, fully understanding Kitagawa Hide's initial reluctance to touch haiku. "Your financial situation is so bad, it's really not worth it to spend a lot of time on haiku."

"Yeah. But I didn't expect it to ferment so strongly on the Internet and in the university. In fact, after that day, I began to pay attention to the haiku market. After it gradually started to pick up, I wrote a lot of haiku and prepared to compile them into a collection of poems to see if there is any possibility of publishing it."

Kitagawa Hide helped Saito Rena mix a cup of her favorite "Free Cuba", then put his hands together and said,
"I'm sorry, I really didn't mean to hide it from you."

"No, no, no, there's no need to apologize." Saito Reina waved her hands and said, "So, Kitagawa, do you want to confront Gunzo head-on through haiku?"

"If they can meet the standards for publication, and Kawaide Shobo is willing to open a separate section for haiku, I would like to give it a try." Kitagawa Hide put away his smile and nodded seriously.

As the publishing industry has developed to this day, the entire market has actually been almost divided up.

After decades of evolution and sedimentation, major publishing houses all have their own "private plots", and the "38th parallel" between them is clearly defined, and they basically maintain a state of non-interference.

For example, the main audience of “Group Portrait” is the rich, the middle class and the student group;

The readers of "Literature and Art" are mostly people from the suburbs and outside the three major metropolitan areas;
“Stars” focuses on middle school boys and elementary school students;
Bungeishunju has an extreme right-wing political stance and attracts only right-wing groups;
"Xinchao" has the strongest literary style and is deeply loved by literary young people and senior groups in the literary world. It is also the magazine with the most politicians as readers.

In order to avoid unnecessary fighting, there is an unspoken rule among the five major publishing houses: when one of their main magazines publishes a book or starts serializing a new novel, other magazines will avoid their attention during those issues and wait until the other magazine's situation stabilizes before launching new content.

Precisely because everyone tacitly maintains this delicate balance, and the mature system for cultivating new writers makes it difficult for writer resources to circulate among each other, "Wenyi" has become the last in the list for eternity, with no room for resistance at all.

Under normal circumstances, only in a market like haiku, which no one else touches, can you do it unscrupulously without worrying about the opinions of other publishers.

But even in this kind of new market, when a publishing house has already invested huge costs and has tasted the first wave, other publishing houses generally will not rush in and force a share of the pie in the early stages of market development.

At most, after the market has completely stabilized, people will go to pay their respects to the pioneers and then get a share of the spoils.

This seemingly peaceful but actually distorted market competition rule is the actual manifestation of the clear class distinction in Japan and the dominance of the financial groups.

Kitagawa Hide spoke seriously and solemnly, and Saito Rena immediately felt his determination and his serious dissatisfaction with Kodansha.

In fact, she also wanted to use this opportunity to boost the sales of "Wenyi" to consolidate her position in the editorial department - she herself was a rare career-oriented woman, but she was too busy running around at "Qunxiang" and couldn't show her talents.

Now that she is in "Wenyi" and finally has her own stage, she works much harder than when she was in "Qunxiang".

If those competitors really think of Saito Rena as a weak little white rabbit, one day they might have their blood vessels torn by her exposed fangs!
"I personally think there is no problem. The quality of these haiku is enough for any magazine to open a separate section for them to be serialized." Saito Reina carefully put away the manuscripts and responded to Kitagawa Hide with a firm look.

"But the opening of new sections requires the editor-in-chief's approval. I have to take them to the editor-in-chief and President Kawade to have a look."

"Then I'll leave it to you, Saito." Kitagawa Hide stood up and bowed slightly to her, then smiled back. He also felt the recognition and ambition from the other party.

Just like at the beginning, Kitagawa Hide felt that choosing Saito Rena as his editor was the right choice!
Whether as editors and writers, friends and partners, or colleagues in a common career, the two have a very harmonious and compatible relationship.

Kitagawa Hide suddenly felt that if he continued walking hand in hand with her, he might really have a chance to win the Nobel Prize in Literature!
Saito Reina also smiled at him, immediately put all the manuscripts into her handbag, stood up and prepared to do her business: "Then I won't bother you anymore. I will go back to the company and show the manuscripts to the editor-in-chief and the president. I will notify you as soon as there is any news!"

"Oh, by the way, this is my cell phone number. Beichuan, you should also buy a cell phone when you have time. It will be more convenient to contact each other."

Saito Rena raised the small flip phone in her hand and wrote a string of numbers to him. After "No Longer Human" became a hit, as the editor-in-chief of Kitagawa Hide, Saito Rena received a generous bonus from Kawaide Shobo.

With that money, she finally replaced her soon-to-be-obsolete pager with a new mobile phone, and now she has become a "mobile phone user" who keeps up with the trend.

"Okay, then we'll contact each other when we have time." Beichuan Xiu glanced at the mobile phone in her hand. In fact, he didn't want to buy it.

Since the second half of 1995, the development of information technology has been like a rocket, soaring all the way, and the speed of updates and iterations is astonishingly fast.

The electronic products you bought in August may be directly eliminated in December.

Rena Saito's mobile phone was the "Xiaolingtong", which was less than half a year old in Japan and was soon replaced by new models from Motorola and Sharp.

Moreover, Japanese operators have long monopolized the mobile phone market, and people often have to buy mobile phones bundled with packages from operators. These are the kind of contract phones that come with extremely expensive services.

This is also the fundamental reason why Japanese mobile phones were eliminated when mobile phones transformed from functional ones to smart ones.

Those operators are only concerned with making money, who would understand market demand?

Even though the Japanese government later realized this, it was unable to reverse the decline of Japanese mobile phones. As a result, 20 years later, Japanese mobile phones are still rubbish, and many are still old flip phones!
"It would be great if Apple phones could appear earlier; Android smartphones are not bad either." Despite all his complaints, Kitagawa Hide still put the matter of buying a phone on his agenda due to the reality. He also made a big purchasing plan and listed all the other things he needed to buy in a table, ready to buy them all together tomorrow.

He and Rena Saito were both typical action-oriented people, and when his young wife came home that night, Kitagawa Hide told her about his plan for a big purchase.

It just so happened that the two of them were planning to visit Professor Takeuchi Osamu again the next day, so they happily went to Ginza to do some shopping the next morning.

After buying various daily necessities, necessities and brand new furniture, Kitagawa Hide selected a relatively novel style of "Xiaolingtong" for himself and his young wife, and also bought a sterling silver pendant necklace in Ginza, which he secretly put into a bouquet of flowers for his young wife, moving her so much that she offered her sweet tongue on her own initiative.

In the afternoon, the two of them deliberately avoided Jabami Rei and went straight to Takeuchi Osamu's apartment in Bunkyo Ward.

After receiving Takeuchi Osamu's reply, Kitagawa Hide visited Takeuchi Osamu several times under the guidance of Agatsuma Yumeko.

The old professor liked to have a stern face, but he actually admired Kitagawa Hide very much. The two of them had several pleasant conversations, and as they visited each other more often, they gradually became close friends and shogi partners regardless of age difference.

During the afternoon visit, Takeuchi Osamu told Kitagawa Hide that his teaching at the Faculty of Literature of the University of Tokyo had been approved by the president and other school officials, and it should be scheduled sometime in early September.

However, the University of Tokyo has an additional condition, which is that it hopes that the lecture will be in the form of an open class for the whole society, so that everyone who is interested in Kitagawa Hide's literary appreciation class can come and audit it.

Takeuchi Osamu agreed with this proposal very much, thinking it was a perfect opportunity to promote the "Kitagawa Hide" style and the "rogue school". Seeing his excitement, Kitagawa Hide denied the possibility of Tokyo University "overpraising" him.

Professor Takeuchi Osamu may be rigid, but he is not stupid.

From some old stories heard from Mengzi, it can be seen that he was just a little reckless, but he was definitely not the kind of guy who would help others count money even after his death.

If the open class format would do more harm than good to Kitagawa Hidehiro, Takeuchi Osamu would definitely be the first to oppose it.

The two of them exchanged the details of the teaching activities. On behalf of the University of Tokyo, Takeuchi Osamu asked Kitagawa Hide if he had any other personal requests. Kitagawa Hide thought about it carefully and then told him that "it would cost extra money", which made Takeuchi Osamu laugh and cry and he was depressed for the whole afternoon.

When she returned to her home at night, my wife Yumeko remembered that in order to welcome Kitagawa Hide to give a lecture at the school, the students of the Faculty of Literature spontaneously organized a welcoming team and specially ordered exclusive team uniforms from the tailor shop of Captain Kobayashi's family.

Although they were not going to dance in miniskirts like the baseball cheerleaders, the team members, led by Tokyo University's top fan Kitagawa Rei, still prepared a performance program - a drama version of "No Longer Human", which they would dedicate to the original author, Mr. Hide Kitagawa.

Agatsuma Yumeko resolutely refused to take part in this social death performance, and was expelled from her status as "the second largest Kitagawa fan at the University of Tokyo" by the angry Jabami Rei.

Now Kitagawa Hide was really unable to hold it anymore.

When things developed to this point, Agatsuma Yumeko didn't dare to explain anything to Jabami Rei. She just silently prepared oxygen bags and first aid medicines, hoping that Rei would not faint from "happiness" that day.

The two of them laughed secretly about this matter for a while, and then discussed how to compensate the extremely socially dead Jabami Rei in the future. As they talked, they got drunk and couldn't help but kissed each other.

Kitagawa Hide studied the White Rabbit carefully this time, even though he didn’t study it carefully last time.

Just like that, time passed quickly and it was the last weekend of August.

Yumeko got up early in the morning and went to school. As the day of the open class was approaching, although she was not a member of the welcoming team, she still ran to help Jabami Rei and prepare for the opening exam that was giving her a headache.

On Saturday morning, Kitagawa Hide, who was half asleep, received the first call after buying a new mobile phone.

"Moshi Moshi, is this Mr. Kitagawa?" Shizuko Kawaide's voice on the other end of the phone sounded a little excited.

Kitagawa Hide immediately woke up from his dazed state, and quickly stood up and sat cross-legged: "Yes, I am Kitagawa, and you are President Kawade?"

"It's me. Mr. Kitagawa, are you free today? I have already negotiated with Kodansha for the film and television adaptation of Hear the Wind Sing, and I can go there with you to sign the contract this morning. By the way, as for the haiku column you mentioned, after we meet, let's discuss with Mr. Saito how to put it in Literature and Art, shall we?"

"Oh, okay. I'm free anytime today." Hearing that the haiku column was finalized, Kitagawa Hide felt relieved. This would give him some buffer time before the serialization of "I Am a Cat".

"Okay, I'll ask Kinoshita-san to pick you up right away, so I won't disturb your rest!"

At this time, Shizuko Kawaide, who was still in the room wearing thin pajamas, sat on a chair with photocopies of Kitagawa Hide's haiku manuscripts in front of her. She could hardly suppress her joy, so she could only hang up the phone after speaking quickly to avoid losing her image in front of Mr. Kitagawa.

It turns out that the legendary haiku master of the University of Tokyo is Mr. Kitagawa!

He also decided to publish his haiku in "Wenyi"!

It’s really a double blessing!
"These haiku are so beautifully written." Shizuko Kawaide stared at the haiku in a trance, and couldn't let go of the photocopies of the manuscripts. If the original manuscripts had not to be returned to the writers themselves, she would definitely take them all home and frame them for safekeeping!

(End of this chapter)