Chapter 194

After agreeing to Rika Dacheng's request, Yuto Akiwara started a tour signing event in the Kinki region.

The Kinki region, also known as the Kinki area, owns the Osaka metropolitan area, one of the three major metropolitan areas in Japan, and is a large regional concept in Japan. Its area is more than 27,000 square kilometers, with a population of 19.881 million, and the urban population accounts for more than 80%.

Also because of its high degree of urbanization and commercialization, it was listed by *April Youth* as the most important market besides Tokyo.

In fact, not only *April Youth*, but the other three major publishing houses also increased their development of the sinking market during this period.

When Yuto Akiwara was touring and signing in this area, *Tokyo Literature*, *Tokyo Youth*, and *Literary Spring* also started promotions in the form of channels, advertisements, or distribution.

This made Yuto Akiwara a bit annoyed, but he also knew that his irritability was useless. After all, this was different from what he experienced at Mantanshe; now, all publishing houses were in normal commercial competition.

But he was annoyed for a while and soon calmed himself down.

His goal was to be first in the industry; if it were so easy to get, it would be a strange thing!

Instead of having time to be annoyed, it was better to cooperate more with *April Youth*, participate in more signing events, and show a more "gentle and approachable" attitude to readers!

As for the rest, he could only wait for *Furuhata Ninzaburo* to ferment slowly, and then urge fans and book critics to recommend it spontaneously.

Although he said so, he was not all busy with signing events, but took time to write the manuscripts for the next 3 issues and handed them to Hideki Sudo.

Besides this, under the special arrangement of Asano Aiko, the hotels or inns he stayed in basically had their own hot springs—basically, he could go to soak in the hot springs to relax his tired body after every hard work.

In fact, after discovering that every city had hot spring hotels or inns, Yuto Akiwara was a bit surprised at first, but Asano Aiko soon told him the specific reason.

Because it is located in the Pacific volcanic seismic belt, Japan's crustal activity is very intense, which has created a large number of hot springs.

From south to north, there are about 2,600 hot springs and 75,000 hot spring inns. A large number of hot spring inns have also led to the culture of the public loving to soak in hot springs.

According to incomplete statistics, about 110 million people soak in hot springs every year, which is equivalent to the number of all Japanese citizens. In other words, basically every Japanese resident will soak in a hot spring within a year.

In the process of soaking in hot springs and signing events like this, Yuto Akiwara found that December passed quickly.

During this month, the second, third, and fourth issues of *April Youth* were released one after another—the content of the second issue was *The Kabuki Actor Murder Case*, the content of the third issue was *The Psychiatrist Murder Case*, and the content of the fourth issue was *The Writer Murdering His Wife Case*.

The story structure was very clear, all introducing the special relationship and tricks between the murderer and the victim, then the routine of Furuhata Ninzaburo arriving at the scene and discovering it, and finally the murderer expressing their attitude and repenting.

It looked very simple, but simple didn't mean that readers didn't recognize it; after all, for this kind of continuous detective story, the most important thing was the logical trick of reasoning and solving the case.

For example, the Conan and Kindaichi series, although many people think they are boring or the routine mode is repeated, there are still quite a few core reader groups that recognize them.

Under this situation, the sales of *April Youth* grew steadily: the sales of the second issue remained at 195,000 copies, the sales of the third issue reached 200,000 copies, and the sales of the fourth issue reached 203,000 copies.

It was hard to say how much of this was the credit of the signing event, but in terms of ranking, it was already standing firmly in third place, maintaining a significant gap with *Literary Spring*.

After confirming this point, the internal editorial department of *April Youth* gave higher attention to the editorial department and increased resource support.

*Literary Spring* did not try to fight back to grab the market, but their main core market was grabbed by *April Youth*. So even if they worked hard, sales could only barely maintain the range of 180,000-190,000 copies.

As for *Tokyo Youth* and *Tokyo Literature*, sales remained in the first and second positions, which were difficult to surpass in the short term.

However, Yuto Akiwara and the *April Youth* editorial department were not dejected; after all, although it was difficult to surpass in the short term, the gap between the two was constantly narrowing.

By constantly working steadily, they could sooner or later reach or exceed the other party's sales!

And what made Yuto Akiwara most happy was that with the serialization of *Furuhata Ninzaburo*, some neutral book critics also paid attention and spontaneously recommended this work.

When Yuto Akiwara was reading the newspaper in the chair of the inn, he found that in a medium-sized newspaper, a book critic commented like this: Furuhata Ninzaburo is the most charming protagonist in Yuto Akiwara's work series; his words are full of cynicism, and although he is out of tune with the traditional police image, he is very impressive.

This book critic also wrote:

"Furuhata Ninzaburo hunches his back when working, his clothes are not slim-fitting, he is not vigorous when investigating, and sometimes he even looks lazy. He often bullies his assistant Imaizumi, and even rides a bicycle to the scene; there are too many traits that don't sound high-end. But these traits form a very obvious contrast with his 'fighting wits and courage' with the murderer when solving the case."

"He will not be proud of his identity as a police officer and force suspects to answer questions in an official form. Instead, he will use various excuses and use 'thick skin' to get close to them, thereby obtaining all possible clues. From beginning to end of his solving the case, he reveals a very elegant temperament."

This was a rare long review, covering almost two-thirds of the layout, but it mainly focused on the description of the protagonist.

So Yuto Akiwara asked Asano Aiko to find a newspaper with more influence, which contained expressions of other content of the work.

"*Furuhata* tells readers the design of the criminal's crime process in advance, unlike general detective stories that can only be substituted into the detective's perspective, enhancing the fun."

"The murderers are basically middle-class, and each murderer's profession is different. Many stories involve relevant background knowledge of these professions, which is a scroll of customs of contemporary Japanese society."

"The fullness of the murderer's personality gives this work great attraction. In the process of reading, some readers will even find that the murderer becomes increasingly anxious and worried. Even for some murderers, readers give sympathy, which is very rare."

After Yuto Akiwara finished reading, he subconsciously glanced at the name of the author of this book review and found it familiar—Yashiro Toshihiro; when he first published *Decorated Yoko*, the other party had already written a book review for him.

He didn't expect that until now, the other party was still supporting him, which could be considered a die-hard supporter.

Next time there is an opportunity, he must invite the other party to have a drink and gather a little; after all, others support him so much, how can he not do some feedback!

Yuto Akiwara put down the newspaper, then wiped his wet hair, walked down the stairs, and went to a computer room in the inn.

He opened the computer and looked at the feedback on the internet. As a result, while looking, his brows frowned...