[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"origin-literary-master-of-tokyo":3,"chapter-literary-master-of-tokyo-literary-master-of-tokyo-chapter-322":6},{"origin":4,"title":5},"chinese","Literary Master of Tokyo",{"chapter":7,"nextChapterSlug":19,"prevChapterSlug":20,"totalChapters":21,"novelImage":22},{"id":8,"novel_id":9,"title":10,"slug":11,"index":12,"content":13,"wordcount":14,"created_at":15,"updated_at":15,"volume":16,"translator":17,"content_hash":18},2355171,4607,"Chapter 322: Japan Sinks","literary-master-of-tokyo-chapter-322",322,"\u003Cp>Yuriko Tatsuzawa made up her mind, and using her authority as the club president, she forcefully pushed through her plan.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>That is, to establish a specialized science fiction award in the name of the Science Fiction Club.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>She set a prize of 100,000 yen and called for specific entries from all over Japan.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The requirements for the entries were a length of no less than 30,000 characters, and the content had to be hard science fiction primarily driven by technology or scientific speculation.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Soon, this news spread to the outside world through newspapers and relevant magazines, reaching the ears of certain people.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Among them was Akiwara Yuto, who was preparing to accept the advice of Maki Satake and was considering entering the science fiction world.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But when he saw the amount, the corners of his mouth couldn't help but twitch.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"Isn't this too poor?\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>A 100,000 yen prize, while not a small amount for a general new writer's award, was being offered by the Japan Science Fiction Club, which currently best represented the future development direction of hard science fiction in all of Japan.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>One must know that the Uemura Award, at the same level, not only gave a full 1,000,000 yen but also included a golden pocket watch.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>However, after pondering it for a moment, he realized he might have misunderstood.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"The current market for hard science fiction books in Japan, the total annual sales of all books, might not even equal one of my own bestsellers. In that case, it's already not easy for them to come up with this much money.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"But, should I really submit an entry to this competition?\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Akiwara Yuto was hesitant for a moment.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In his memories from his past life, the highest award in Japanese science fiction was the Seiun Award.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>This award was held once a year, with winners selected from science fiction works completed in the previous year by votes from participants of the Japan Science Fiction Convention.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Therefore, this award was also known as the Japanese version of the Hugo Award.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But in this world, although there were world science fiction awards similar to the Hugo Award, the local Japanese science fiction market was withering faster than in his past life, to the point where there were no similar awards at all.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The \"Science Fiction Future Award\" organized by the Japan Science Fiction Club right now might be his best choice.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"Forget it, let's test the waters first.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He thought for a while and finally made up his mind.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Although, from the current perspective, the Japanese hard science fiction market was extremely narrow, resulting in sluggish sales.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But nothing is absolute; if there were a work that could cause a sensation in public opinion, it might be able to drive sales across the entire market.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Like in 2019 in his past life, the local Japanese science fiction market was actually already withered to the point of collapse; even counting soft science fiction, there were no real sales.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>So much so that many critics claimed science fiction had reached its final generation.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But after the Japanese version of Liu Cixin's *The Three-Body Problem* was released, everything changed drastically.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>After *The Three-Body Problem* entered the Japanese market, its first-week circulation exceeded 80,000 copies, setting a record for first-week sales of science fiction in Japan.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>After that, because of the continuous praise from critics, it formed a huge social trend.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Later on, weekly sales even reached as high as 110,000 copies.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Before Akiwara Yuto transmigrated, the sales of the Japanese version of *The Three-Body Problem* series had already exceeded 21,000,000 copies.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>This number was very exaggerated; one must know that each book of *The Three-Body Problem* was priced at over 2,000 yen, which could be considered very expensive compared to similar works.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>At this price point, readers who still insisted on buying this work were undoubtedly true fans.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>And under such massive sales, even with Liu Cixin only having a 12% royalty share, he could still earn 5 billion yen.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>With this case in mind, Akiwara Yuto did not ignore the Japanese science fiction market because of its current withering.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"However, if I participate in this award, what kind of work should I write?\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Akiwara Yuto stood up and walked a few steps, subconsciously frowning.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In any case, *The Three-Body Problem* was impossible; he had no intention of taking a domestic work and rebranding it as a Japanese work.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Then what kind of science fiction was suitable and had the potential to be a big seller? And it had to be hard science fiction driven by technology or scientific speculation.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In the continuous excavation of his memories, Akiwara Yuto suddenly remembered the so-called \"Big Three\" of Japanese science fiction—Shinichi Hoshi, Yasutaka Tsutsui, and Sakyo Komatsu.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Shinichi Hoshi was the \"founder of Japanese micro-fiction,\" with works like *The Devil's Kingdom*, *Artificial Beauty*, *Voice Net*, and *The Devil's Label*.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The name \"Shinichi Kudo\" in *Detective Conan* was taken from his name.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Although his works also had a layer of science fiction, many were primarily focused on satirizing reality, such as the story of a couple capturing a devil and abusing it to relieve stress.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Besides that, for Akiwara Yuto, he needed a long-form novel, while the other's works were only short stories.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Abandoning this option, he turned his gaze toward Yasutaka Tsutsui.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Yasutaka Tsutsui—most people in the country might not know this author.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But the animations adapted from his works, such as *The Girl Who Leapt Through Time* and *Paprika*, were famous in the domestic ACG circle.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>However, his writing range was still more inclined toward soft science fiction.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>For example, his *All Silence Except Japan* was a very satirical and humorous science fiction short story.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>It tells of 2011, when all other countries on the Japanese archipelago were submerged by rising sea levels due to a disaster.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In order to survive, high-ranking officials and nobles from all over the world had to flock to Japan for refuge.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>These arrogant foreign leaders had to be submissive, and once-glamorous Hollywood superstars were reduced to playing bit parts.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>When Akiwara Yuto learned in his past life that this \"parody\" work had won the Seiun Award, he was so speechless he couldn't even speak.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In his view, this work had huge logical flaws.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>If such a situation were to really happen, it is estimated that all other countries would unite to attack Japan, and it wouldn't even be impossible for them to drop nuclear weapons on Japan again.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Forget it, let's rule this one out too.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Thinking of this, he turned his gaze toward Sakyo Komatsu, the man known as the \"bulldozer of the Japanese science fiction world.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>His representative work was naturally the famous *Japan Sinks*.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>After this work was published, it won the 5th Seiun Award for Japanese Long-form Fiction and was adapted into a film by Toho Co., Ltd.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The result caused a huge sensation in Japanese society and became a pioneer of the disaster movie craze.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The film drove the sales of the book, making *Japan Sinks* sell an astonishing number of copies.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>After being published in 1973, it set a sales record of 4,000,000 copies for the upper and lower volumes, becoming the number one bestseller in Japan that year.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>And later, it was also continuously adapted into various versions for the screen.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>There were even reports claiming that Liu Cixin's *The Three-Body Problem* was influenced to a certain extent by this work.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Akiwara Yuto thought for a moment and finally decided to use this one.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He took out his pen and began to write furiously...\u003C\u002Fp>",1264,"2026-06-21T03:58:02.196Z",1,"Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite","2b2028b240fb09da5b8f0b47a115699cc6d08e478e07a65fb5b1547634458b70","literary-master-of-tokyo-chapter-323","literary-master-of-tokyo-chapter-321",334,"https:\u002F\u002Fnovelzhen.com\u002Fimages\u002Fcovers\u002Fliterary-master-of-tokyo-cover.jpg"]