He made his debut with Summer, Fireworks and My Corpse while still in high school. Major works include the novel Goth, which was adapted into a comic and a feature film (Goth: Love of Death) and the Zoo short story collections which were also adapted into a feature film. Goth won the 2003 Honkaku Mystery Award.[3]
Tokyopop has published English-language translations of his short story collection Calling You, the novel Goth and the comic adaptations of both. Another short story, F-Sensei's Pocket, appears in the English edition of the literary magazineFaust.
Career
Otsuichi was born on October 21, 1978,[4] in Tanushimaru (now part of Kurume), Fukuoka Prefecture, as the eldest son of a family of four with his parents and two older sisters.[5] He attended Kawai Elementary School[5] and during his later years there, he became overweight, surpassing 60 kilograms.[5] This led to Otsuichi getting bullied and gaining an inferiority complex, which he used playing video games alone to deal with.[5] After Kawai, he attended Kurume Shiritsu Tanushimaru Junior High School.[5] At the age of 14, he decided to go on a diet, and was elected class president in the third year of junior high school. Despite this, he still felt inferior to his classmates.[5]
In 1994, he entered the National Institute of Technology, Kurume College.[5] Despite calling the 5 years at the college "the gloomiest in all of his life,"[5] during summer vacation when he was around 15 years old, he read the first volume of the light novel series Slayers by Hajime Kanzaka which he borrowed from a friend and discovered his love of reading, and began dabbling into the world of light novels and manga.[6] For the next year and a half, Otsuichi read as many light novels as he could get his hands on either from friends or his older sisters, while also encountering mystery novels such as Takemaru Abiko's Satsuriku ni taru Yamai,Yukito Ayatsuji's The Decagon House Murders and Sōji Shimada's Detective Kiyoshi Mitarai series.[6]
He started writing his own novels when he was 16 years old. To qualify for the Fujimi Fantasia Novel Awards, Otsuichi starting writing an isekai fantasy novel, but feeling that it was not going well, he decided to rewrite the setting to a rural town nearby where he grew up. This reworked novel was called Summer, Fireworks and My Corpse[6] and it won the 6thJUMP Novel Grand Prix award in 1996 after a strong endorsement from Kaoru Kurimoto,[5][7] making his official debut at only 17 years old.[8]
At that time, Otsuichi was invited by an editor to watch the sound editing of Mamoru Oshii's Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence. There, he met Oshii's daughter Tomoe Oshii who was a writer for the film,[5] and the two later got married in 2006.[5] In February 2007, they moved from Kawasaki.[9] In 2010, the couple had a child together.[5]
Style and influence in the field
In his early career, Otsuichi's works could be described as mainly short stories with interesting ideas[10][8] and heartwarming light novels.[8] Furthermore, some of his early work were horror or sad stories, named Black Otsuichi and White Otsuichi respectively.[11] However, Goth, one of the work he is most known for, was a highly acclaimed mystery novel, even winning the Honkaku Mystery Award.[8]
Describing his writing process, Otsuichi says he first decides on the storyline and then creates characters to match it.[11] In addition, he adopted movie scriptwriting techniques from a book called Shinario Nyūmon (シナリオ入門) shortly after his debut.[11] In particular, his stories tend to have a turning point at the midpoint[12] and many of his works are divide into four or even sixteen parts.[12]
His wife, Tomoe Oshii, says that Otsuichi is "not obsessed with [using] either novels or movies [as a medium in telling a story]."[13] Otsuichi himself says that he "just enjoys working on his works as they take shape."[13]
In 2012, Kono Mystery ga Sugoi!Award of Excellence winner Hitsuji Tomoi self-described himself as a "serious Otsuichi fan" and said that reading and studying Otsuichi's work inspired him to become a novelist.[12]
Otsuichi and light novels
Light novels have a peculiar position in the publishing world, according to Otsuichi. "None of the editors I've known read light novels."[14] This is connected to how light novels are perceived as lesser compared to other forms of literature, a fact which Otsuichi only learned after becoming active in the publishing industry. When he debuted, there were no awards for light novels.
Otsuichi wrote and published Goth as a light novel to introduce people who only read light novels to the mystery genre in the hope of expanding the horizons of readers to other forms of literature.[15][16]
Works in English translation
Calling You (original title: Kimi ni shika kikoenai: Kōringu Yū), trans. Agnes Yoshida (TokyoPop, 2007)
Calling You
Kiz/Kids
Flower Song
Goth (original title: Gosu: Risutokatto jiken), trans. Andrew Cunningham (TokyoPop, 2008 / VIZ Media, 2015)
Zoo (original title: Zū), trans. Terry Gallagher (VIZ Media, 2009 / Shueisha English Edition, 2013)[17]
Summer, Fireworks, and My Corpse (original title: Natsu to hanabi to watashi no shitai), trans. Nathan Collins (Shueisha English Edition, 2013)[17]
Summer, Fireworks, and My Corpse
Yuko
Black Fairy Tale (original title: Ankoku dōwa), trans. Nathan Collins (Shueisha English Edition, 2013)[17]
Short story
F-sensei's Pocket (original title: F sensei no poketto), trans. Andrew Cunningham, illustrated by Takeshi Obata (Faust 1, Del Rey, 2008)
Where the Wind Blows (original title: Mado ni fuku kaze), trans. Andrew Cunningham, illustrated by Takeshi Obata (Faust 2, Del Rey, 2009)
Firestarter Yukawa (original title: Faiasutātā Yukawa-san), trans. Matt Treyvaud, illustrated by KEI (Kindle Single, 2015) written under the name Eiichi Nakata
Kono ko no e wa Mikansei (Nanatsu no Kuroi Yume, March 2006)
Utopia (Light novel o kaku!, August 2006)
Manga
Hajime (Weekly Shonen Jump)
Script. Art by Takeshi Obata. Two part short story, appeared in Jump in 2003.
Misshitsu Kanojo (2006, gekidan, Yukiko Mototani)
Planning. Not published, but his plot in script for was distributed at performances.
Shonen Shojo Horyuki (Shosetsu Subaru)
Script. Art by Usamaru Furuya.
Movies
His movie work is often done under his real name.
Nikako no Hitomi (2002)
Directed by Keisaku Sato. Script by Keisaku Sato and Hirotaka Adachi.
Pool de Oyoda Kaerimichi (2002)
5-minute-long short film. Written and directed by Hirotaka Adachi.
Rittai Tokyo (2007)
Scheduled to be shown at the Yubari Ouen Eigasai. Directed by Hirotaka Adachi.
JoJo's Bizarre Adventure novelization
In 2000, it was announced that Otsuichi would be writing a novel set during the fourth arc of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure. The novel proved difficult to complete; in Kono Mystery ga Sugoi 2004, Otsuichi claimed to have written over 2000 pages, but thrown them all out.[20] Intent on writing a novel that lived up to the manga, it took him until 2007 to complete it.[21]
The Book: JoJo's Bizarre Adventure 4th Another Day.
Adaptations
Movies
Te o nigiru Dorobo no Monogatari (2004)
Made for web, released on DVD
Zoo (2005)
Anthology film, covering five of the stories in the Zoo short story collection. Kazari to Yoko, Seven Rooms, So-far, Hidamari no Shi, and Zoo. Hidamari no Shi was animated; each film had a different director.
^ abcHitsuji Tomoi, Boku wa Otsuichi Sakuhin o Kyōkasho ni, Sakka ni natta. (Tokushū Otsuichi Supesharu: Soredemo Sakka Shibō no Kimi e), ShōsetsuTRIPPER, Winter 2014 edition, Asahi Shinbun Publications, 2014, pp. 44 - 48
