I think the biggest influence this book had on me was that it
portrayed people who would not abandon the weak, who would protect the weak even if they themselves became targets of attack, as strong, noble people, and the head of a society, and
I was so impressed that I bought all the necessary equipment.
[Music] [Applause]
Me [Music] Te
[Music] Moo
coo [Music] The
book I would like to recommend is Endo Shusaku's Silence.
Silence.
This Silence
is a book that had a really big impact on my life. I think I started reading it when I was in sixth grade.
story is about a
time after the Hebukuro no Otoran incident in the Edo period,
when there were a few hidden Christians left in Japan, and they were being persecuted
one after another, and they
had to choose between returning to their hometowns and
continuing to claim their Christianity and being patrolled. And so, there was a
weak man named Yoshijiro and his father, and
how these two lived their lives.
And it depicts whether God is silent or not paying attention.
This man, Yoshishiro, betrays the people who have
always been his friends and kind to him and
helped him,
one after another, out of fear, and the priests forgive him in
this state, whether to
forgive or not.
As I read the whole story, I
repeatedly asked myself if I were living in the same era,
whether I would return home and step on the fumie out of fear, and made my
choice. I also asked myself over and
over again whether I could forgive a person like that, whose friend had betrayed another friend and put them in danger.
First of all,
like the priests who forgave the base castle, I wanted to maintain the strength to be able to embrace or accept
weak people who betrayed others because of their weakness.
Around the same time, I was also reading Hajime no Ippo, which is
about a man who
gets stronger at boxing and
tries to understand his strength.
On the other hand, the concept of strength portrayed by Endo Shusaku is one of
accepting weak people to the fullest extent,
and I think that acceptance is what strength is.
But I
work as an editor for stories, and
when I think about what the stage of a story is, I think that
people who can't make it in society are
easily dismissed as Heidi Gold, but
stories are the ones that speak to
you in that way, saying, "I understand how you feel, and you
have circumstances that only you understand, and you did your best." I
think that's where literature wins, and where literature
has strength.
When I read Endo Shusaku, and I defined in my mind that I want to be as close to weak
people as possible, that's when I decided that I wanted to work in a job related to stories for the rest of my life. I
've been depicting people who are not interested in others, people who cannot abandon such people, and
and
I myself have been fishing in the process of becoming an adult, and I
want to become strong, and I want to become an adult who accepts the good in others, and
while I think about it so much, I wonder if this is the right thing to do,
and I can smile a lot.
At times like this, I think about what Endo Seita was like, and I'm
talking to all the books in my head, and I
And the books I make are
not exactly entertainment, if you ask me.
For example, I edited a book called Dragon Zakura, and
what I was thinking while editing Dragon Zakura was about
students studying in rural areas, and how
these people might all feel lonely. I
also made Because It's a Dragon 2, and in
that process, I was thinking about
the environment in which poverty is increasing and many families
cannot go to cram school. I wanted to write a book that would convey
to people like that that it's okay to study like this, that this is how you
should study, and that would be a way to
support people who are in a weaker educational environment. I
hope this book will
become a tool that will give those people who go to seminaries in Tokyo and cram schools the confidence that they can do it, just like those people in Tokyo. I believe that if people don't show even a glimmer of hope in their lives, they
can continue to live.
This Kichijiro is someone who thinks he is a terrible person, that he is not worth living. I'm talking about myself. But Kichijiro is able to continue living because he believes that he is connected to God and that the
people don't pay attention to him. I think that there are
people who have fallen into complete despair while living like this, and when they
read stories like that, they are
able to get back on their feet. I'm always thinking about creating works like that. [Music] [
Music]
I have three children right now. My
oldest son is in sixth grade, and I'm
thinking that with the way he's interested right now, he wouldn't be silent.
I'm also wondering why I
read a book like this when I was in sixth grade, and I'm so
obsessed with it,
reading it over and over again, and what I was doing.
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