I remembered the moment when I was still in the hospital and decided to publish Bunmei no Turntable—and the criminal acts by this man that began the very instant I announced it on my blog.
Both the search results for “Bunmei no Turntable” and “Kenji Akutagawa” were completely flooded—from page one through ten—with disgraceful content so intolerable it could only be described as deliberate obstruction of business and defamation.
The publisher, the main store of Kinokuniya in Umeda, and I all believed with confidence that a certain number of copies would definitely sell.
But of course, this was my first book, and I was completely unknown.
This work—my debut—was dealt a fatal blow by the malicious persistence of someone with a genetic makeup prone to “plausible lies” and “bottomless evil.”
Anyone could understand that in an environment like this—where a criminal like that is allowed to operate openly—Bunmei no Turntable was not something that should have had to be written at all.
And this time, I’ve gone against the words of Kūkai—I’ve laid down my pen.
[Omitted]
