The lonely Hikigaya Hachiman wants to become the king of mystery novels

"That's good. Nowadays, many individuals with high achievements like you, Hikigaya-kun, will choose to set up their own studios. Only by sharing things appropriately can you do your job better. If Yangno did it, where No, you can always tell me, Hikigaya-kun."

Mrs. Yukinoshita said sincerely, somewhat with the intention of annihilating relatives for justice.

"It's nothing, Mrs. Yukinoshita. Senior sister has done a very good job in all aspects. My accounts are very complicated, but she can still manage them in an orderly manner. I have nothing to be dissatisfied with."

Hikigaya Hachiman didn't dare to answer Mrs. Yukinoshita's words.

In the end, the lunch ended smoothly with the two people enjoying themselves and the three people in silence.

Chapter 118 Kodansha’s intention to cooperate

After leaving Yukinoshita's house, Hikigaya Hachiman will get into his assistant's car and head to Tokyo.He has two things to do this afternoon. The main thing is to go to Wenyi Chunqiu to deliver the final revised version of "The Clock Museum Incident" and discuss matters related to the new work.The main thing is to "accidentally" visit the crew of "Confession".

"Teacher Hachiman, there is a cooperation intention from Kodansha this morning. I have sent it to you on my mobile phone. But this cooperation intention is different from the cooperation proposed by the publishing house in the past. They hope that you can provide them with comics. The original draft was produced by a cartoonist from their side and serialized in the "Weekly Young Magazine"."

After getting into the car, Hachiman's assistant Sakamachi did not start the car immediately, but mentioned work matters.

"Comic serialization? What kind of magazine is this "Weekly Young Magazine"? Do you understand it?"

Hikigaya Hachiman asked a little strangely.He didn't expect that Kodansha finally approached him to talk about cooperation, and it turned out to be in the form of comics. It was truly a two-dimensional company.

"To put it bluntly, this magazine is the leader of Japanese youth manga magazines, Mr. Hachiman. It has a circulation of more than 80 copies, which is not a low number for a juvenile manga magazine."

Sakamachi answered quickly and accurately.As an assistant to Mr. Hachiman, he has an extremely extensive knowledge base in various fields, especially when it comes to publishing.

"Furthermore, based on the style of your past works, Mr. Hachiman, the invitation for this must have come from a youth manga magazine for adults, not a juvenile manga."

Konjiro Sakamachi added that he was not a fan of Hikigaya Hachiman, but he had read Hachiman's novels many times before working for Hachiman, which was part of his personality.

"I see... Speaking of which, in this form of two-person collaboration to create comics, what should I do as a person?"

Hikigu Hachiman asked.

"Normally speaking, even if the party providing the plot is probably a cartoonist, or someone with relevant experience. He needs to provide the animator not only with the plot, but also with a rough storyboard. In short, the soul of a comic needs to be provided by a partner like you."

Assistant Sakamachi replied.

"So, if I cooperate with Kodansha, I will have very little control over the comics that are serialized. After all, I can't draw, and I don't know how to storyboard, so it can only be done by the cartoonist. Free reign.”

Hikigaya Hachiman confirmed.

"Well, how should I put it? In fact, as long as you make a request to Kodansha, they will definitely let the cartoonist contact you frequently to confirm the creation status. But you should also feel that the creation efficiency will be greater in this way At a discount, considering that this is a weekly magazine, the pressure to serialize it is relatively high, so..."

Sakamachi did not continue. He himself was not optimistic about this cooperation, but as an assistant, he still would not take the initiative to express his opinions, so he just elaborated on the objective situation.

"It's okay, I understand what you mean. If I let it go, it would be irresponsible for my own work; if I am too strict, it will be difficult to continue the series. In the end, it may become my problem, because I couldn’t give them ready-made storyboards, which was really interesting.”

Hikigaya Hachiman said sarcastically, but he had a new idea.

"However, I can find a cartoonist I am familiar with to create this. Of course, I need to confirm whether she is willing. So, Sakamachi, you can go back and ask Kodansha if they accept my choice. If you appoint a cartoonist to create the work, the artist is guaranteed. If they don’t agree, forget it, there are many other magazines that are willing to serialize it.”

Hikigaya Hachiman ordered.

"Understood, Mr. Hachiman. By the way, can I ask, Mr. Hachiman, who is the writer you assume is? I won't say her name later, but at least there is an impression that I can describe to Kodansha. one time."

"Uh...her name is Eri Kashiwagi. Have you heard of her?"

Hikigaya Hachiman was a little embarrassed and lowered his voice a little.

"Kashiwagi Hide...Wow, Hachiman-sensei."

There was something wonderful about the expression on Sakamachi's face.

"You're a ghost! She is my friend. But it seems that you understand it very well, Sakamachi."

"I only know a little bit, Mr. Hachiman. Knowing a little bit about everything makes life more colorful."

Sakamachi said with a smile.

----

"Copy that, Mr. Hachiman. Now everything is ready. Now you can look forward to the grand release of "The Clock Museum Incident" on July [-]rd."

Mr. Shibuya, the person in charge of Bungei Shunqiu Publishing Department, said to him very excitedly after receiving the final version of the manuscript and illustrations brought by Hikigaya Hachiman.

"But, Mr. Shibuya, as far as I know, it seems that this kind of pure reasoning has never had particularly good sales."

Hikigaya Hachiman asked curiously.He's not throwing cold water on it, because that's what it is.Since mystery novels entered a new era, although there has been a general trend of revival of original reasoning, in terms of market performance, social reasoning still shows a tendency to crush the original reasoning, among which Hikigaya Hachiman himself has contributed a lot.

"You are right, Mr. Hachiman. The circle of mystery literature is very small, but any mystery novel that has achieved great success in sales, such as your "Confession", must have attracted a large number of readers outside the circle. This This is also the advantage of social reasoning. Social reasoning is highly readable and attached to social reality, making it easy for readers to have a sense of involvement."

Mr. Shibuya admitted that this was a serious business discussion, so there was nothing to shy away from.

"However, if we look for the reason from the work itself, I think that since Mr. Shimada created "Astrological Killing Magic", although the original reasoning has shown a trend of revival, there has never been a person who can take on the big responsibility. And Hachiman Teacher, your "Clock Museum Incident" will shoulder this mission, and our entire publishing house, including Mr. Shimada himself, believes so!"

Mr. Shibuya couldn't hold back his excitement until the end.

"In short, Mr. Hachiman. "The Clock Museum Incident" will be a work that spans the ages. Therefore, he can do what other mystery novels cannot. It can let more people understand the beauty of mystery literature." Department, you can rest assured.”

"Since you said so, Mr. Shibuya, I don't have any worries anymore. I am confident that "The Clock Museum Incident" can become a benchmark for "original" reasoning in the new era. "

Hikigaya Hachiman said proudly.

Chapter 119 A new work is on the agenda

"So, Mr. Hachiman, you still plan to write another novel at the same time as you did when you serialized "The Causes of Disintegration"?"

Minister Shibuya continued to confirm.As the director of the publishing department, he must know the writing plan of the top writer currently owned by the publishing house, so that he can make preparations in advance.

"It's like this. The creation cycle of real-life reasoning is often longer, and it is not suitable for serialization. I prefer to publish it directly after the creation is completed. After all, as we just discussed, this kind of real-life mystery novels often do not sell very well. High, and I cannot maintain the creative quality of "The Clock Museum Incident" forever."

Hikigaya Hachiman said.For him, social reasoning is used to increase sales, while idiographic reasoning is used to enhance his status and reputation in the reasoning world.

"Understood, Mr. Hachiman. So, can you tell us some information about your new work?"

Minister Shibuya tried.In fact, Hachiman has not stated clearly that the new work will be handed over to Bungeishunqiu Publishing House.

"Mr. Shibuya, if you want to know more about yourself, I can reveal some information to you, but this is a completely private conversation and the publisher is not included."

Hikigaya Hachiman raised his eyebrows. He saw through the other party's temptation and gave a subtle reminder.

"No problem, Mr. Hachiman. I can guarantee that it's just me who is curious, and no one else will know."

Shibuya straightened up and swore seriously.

"Among them, the focus of the new work is only two words: folk customs."

Hachiman said briefly.

"Folklore...Teacher Hachiman, this is a very broad and unfathomable field. There are many mystery novels based on folklore as the theme, but...the results are not very good."

Mr. Shibuya looked worried.

His concerns are justified.Japan is a mountainous country. In the era when transportation was inconvenient, countless strange folk cultures were born in those isolated mountain villages.Just studying these folk cultures is enough for a scholar to spend a lifetime on it.

Of course, people in modern society, especially well-educated young people living in big cities, usually completely deny the folk culture of their country by saying "feudal superstitious dross" and will not pay attention to it.However, as folklore is a culture that has truly influenced Japan for hundreds of thousands of years, how can it be swept directly into the trash heap of history with the development of the times?

Therefore, in recent years, some writers who are more interested in rural folk culture have used this as a blueprint to create many horror, mystery, adventure and other novels.

Since folklore contains extremely complex knowledge, many authors inevitably fall into the embarrassing situation of using a large amount of space to explain folklore content that readers are not interested in, while ignoring the creation of the story itself.Therefore, it is difficult to produce high-quality works related to folklore.

"Yes, it is for this reason that I want to create a folklore mystery novel to make up for the lack of high-quality works in this field."

Hikigaya Hachiman just wants to be an industry benchmark and does not need to follow the footsteps of others.

"Seeing that you are so confident, Mr. Hachiman, then I have no reason to worry. One last thing, has the title of the book been decided?"

"Let's call it "Shou Wu? The Haunting Thing" for the time being." (Hereinafter referred to as "Shou Wu", regardless of the number of words in the title of the book)

Hikigaya Hachiman replied.

"Sumu? It feels a bit like youkai's reasoning?"

"Youkai themselves are inseparable from folklore, Mr. Shibuya."

Hikigaya Hachiman explained.

If the words "yōkai reasoning" and "folklore" were mentioned in the previous life, the first writer that people would think of must be Kyogoku Natsuhiko. He has an extensive knowledge reserve in the entire literary world, and his works have Extremely broad influence.

So what are the shortcomings of Kyogoku Natsuhiko’s work?One of them is that it is too long-winded. The author's endless display of knowledge in the book has made many people's reading experience a disaster. Fortunately, Kyogoku's ability to control the story is extremely good, which makes him different from Those authors who only show off.

Although Hikigaya Hachiman respects this writer very much, he does not intend to reproduce Kyogoku Natsuhiko's works because the difficulty is too high.Therefore, he chose "Shouwu", which is also a folklore reasoning, but not so verbose, and can give readers a better reading experience.

In its previous life, "Shoumu" was the third work in the "Tojo Castle Story" series by the famous mystery novelist Matsuda Shinzo. Whether it is this series or all the novels written by Matsuda Shinzo himself, this book is the highest masterpiece among them and also the highest masterpiece. One of the masterpieces of new basic reasoning after the 21st century.

Although this book also touches on folklore, it is not particularly verbose, and the puzzles and solutions in the book are also very impactful.Although limited by the subject matter, Hikigaya Hachiman is not very optimistic about the sales of this book, but it will be of great help to improve his reputation in the reasoning world.

"I estimate that the length of this book will be about 35 words, which is more than [-] words longer than "The Clock Museum Incident", but the writing time will not change much. I still hope to complete it in about a year. "

This will be Hikigaya Hachiman's first novel writing of more than 30 words.

"With 35 words, this is truly a tome."

Mr. Shibuya sighed.

For novels with a word count of more than 35, the single volume is often priced at more than 1000 yen, and even the library version must be [-] or [-] yen, so in fact, the sales volume of this type of novel does not need to reach a very high level. It can also produce a very good-looking sales volume.

Of course, large books are also a test for publishers. Today's readers often have low desire to buy thick books.Many publishing houses will even force a complete novel to be split into two volumes for release, just to attract more people to buy it.

All in all, Minister Shibuya was very satisfied with the conversation.In his opinion, if Mr. Hachiman did not want to hand over "Shoumu" to Bungeishunqiu for publication, then he would not mention it at all, so he was very confident that the publisher could get the distribution rights of "Shoumu" Confidence.

Hikigaya Hachiman walked out of Bungeishunshū Headquarters building. Assistant Sakamachi had already received the news in advance and parked the car in front of the door to wait.

"Sakamachi, have you told Kodansha?"

Hikigaya asked about it as soon as he got into the car.

"We've already negotiated, and they agreed immediately. They also said that as long as it's your script, Mr. Hachiman, they will publish it no matter how it is drawn."

"Hmph, Kodansha is so hungry for me."

Hikigaya Hachiman was a little proud.

"By the way, Mr. Hachiman, Kodansha wants to sign a contract with you as soon as possible and meet with the artist you selected."

Sakamachi added.

"Tell them not to worry. You can tell me that my comic script will be a prequel to "The Clock Museum Incident", so I have to wait until "The Clock Museum" is released in early July before publishing the comic to ensure maximum popularity. "

Hikigaya Hachiman slumped in the back seat and ordered lazily.

"I understand, Mr. Hachiman. I would like to ask out of personal curiosity, what will the name of this manga be?"

"What's the name? Let's call it "Jukkaukan Incident"."

Chapter 120 During the visit of the crew of "Confession"

No matter from which aspect, there is nothing about the movie "Confession" that can be called high investment.More than 90.00% of the entire film is located indoors, and they are all common and no longer common scenes such as classrooms, families, conference venues, etc.As for visual effects and big scenes, there are no shots at all. The salaries of the leading actors are not high, and even the extras are only middle school students.

In short, the crew of "Confession" is such a "cheap" existence.But no one will underestimate this movie because of its low investment. Anyone who has a little knowledge of the industry knows how much energy the combination of Hachiman and Tetsuya Nakajima can unleash.

It can be said that with a very excellent original work and a director who is best at shooting such works, the success of the movie version of "Confession" is a foregone conclusion. Next, it depends on how much artistic processing the director can do for this movie.

In terms of the choice of filming location, the crew of "Confession" found an abandoned school building in Tochigi Prefecture, where all the school plots will be filmed.However, the crew of "Confession" is still staying in Tokyo at this time. After they finish filming other plots in Tokyo, they will go to Tochigi Prefecture to make up for the school part.

Yes, film shooting is so free. After all, there is a very important link in post-production called editing. Naturally, you don’t have to worry about the order when shooting.

When Hikigaya Hachiman, who had no idea about this, came to the crew "accidentally" and found out that what was being filmed was the content of the last Chapter 2 of the book, he subconsciously praised "You guys are progressing really fast." (This sentence was later deleted from the vlog at the request of Assistant Sakamachi.)

5五㈣7○⑦⑤㈤五

Hikigaya Hachiman really didn't have much experience in visiting the class.He felt that the crew of "Confession" treated his arrival as if they were meeting an important person. Everyone stopped working and stood in line, waiting for Hachiman to shake hands with them one by one. They just had to display a banner that read "Warmly welcome Hachiman." The teacher is here to give guidance."

"Director Nakajima, please don't delay the filming because of me. I just want to take a walk."

Hikigaya Hachiman said to Nakajima Tetsuya who was closely accompanying him.He came to observe and learn the filming process of the crew. Everyone put down their work, so what else could he learn?

"Then I will let the assistant director continue to accompany you, Mr. Hachiman. The company has told you that you must be accompanied by someone after you come to the set, otherwise there will be some dishonest actors who intend to approach you, so you have to be careful. .”

Tetsuya Nakajima explained, and then gave some instructions to the assistant director on the side.

"Is there such a thing? Aren't our leading actors all very professional and ethical people?"

Hikigaya Hachiman felt a little unbelievable. You must know that the actors in this crew are basically from Japan's top entertainment companies. If they do such a thing and the company finds out, they will be punished extremely horribly.

"Of course it's not the leading role, Mr. Hachiman. Don't forget that many of the extras in this crew are middle school students. The company behind them doesn't have such a bottom line. In order to become famous, no one dares to say what they can do. .”

Supervisor Nakajima gave Hachiman a few final words and then left.

After the director returned, the entire crew was up and running again.Taking advantage of this time, Hikigaya Hachiman found Hoshino Aqua, who was reading the script at this time. After all, this was his only acquaintance in the crew, and some things he was more concerned about could only be learned from him.

"How about it, Hoshino-san, what's your first impression of the crew of "Confession"?"