ピンクとグレー

by Shigeaki Kato (加藤 シゲアキ)

大阪から横浜へ越してきた小学生の河田大貴は、同じマンションに住む同い年の鈴木真吾と出逢い、中学高校大学と密接した青春時代を送る。高校生になった二人は、雑誌の読者モデルをきっかけにバイト替わりの芸能活動をスタート。大学へ進学した二人は同居生活を始めるが、真吾がスターダムを駆け上がっていく一方で、エキストラから抜け出せない河田だけが取り残されていく。やがて二人は決裂。二度と会うことのない人生を送るはずだった二人が再びめぐり逢ったその時、運命の歯車が回りだす…。

Kawada Daiki, a primary school student who moved from Osaka to Yokohama meets a guy who lives in his same mansion, Suzuki Shingo. They spend middle school and high school together, becoming close friends.
During high school they begin to work for the showbiz as part-time job. Shingo becomes a great star while Daiki can't get anything more than extra roles.
They break up but when they meet again the wheel of fate starts to spin...

Genres: Japanese Literature, Fiction

261 pages, Hardcover

First published January 28, 2012

About the author

Kato was born in Hiroshima, Japan, but he grew up in Osaka and Yokohama-shi.

Other than being an author, he is also an idol singer (one of the members of NEWS idol group, debuted in 2003) & an actor under Johnny's Entertainment . Along with other NEWS members, he plays the guitar & composed some of NEWS' songs.

He graduated from the College of Law, Aoyama Gakuin University in 2010.

Reviews

[Fatma · Rating 4 out of 5]

I bought the book for two reasons, the first because I am a fan of Shige as a Japanese idol and his essays are interesting, the second reason is to push myself to read Japanese. My Japanese ability is pretty limited (probably in the middle between N3 and N2)and therefore I need my dictionary every now and then.

Nevertheless I found that I like the way he writes fiction, although sometimes I got confused to see only pieces of dialog and if I didn't pay close attention, I got lost on who said what. However, the way he narrate the story is nice and fluid. The chapters go backwards and forwards, but it's not so difficult to follow.

I have yet more to say about the story. 14 pages is too early to say anything.

[Giulia · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Pink & Gray" is good book. It has all the characteristics that a good book needs to have: legibility, well-analyzed and lovable characters, a coherent and nice story, it has to keep high the interest and involve emotionally the reader. There was a line in the last pages of the book that made me startle, because I think that somehow they describe the novel perfectly:
"Somehow it was sweet, brilliant, sublime, hypnotic and beautiful, and then, kind of cruel..."

[Christina]

So far so good. Is a pretty easy read for a non-native Japanese speaker.

[Dana · Rating 2 out of 5]

It felt pretty slow and not king much happens. Other than that, there was nothing wrong with it but ended up reading only the conversations for the last 50 pages. Pretty depressing too.

[Annemarie · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book started off well enough. It's written in a simple way and very easy to read. I was excited about the story, because reading about showbiz written by someone who is actually in showbiz sounds just really good. Unfortunately, it didn't live up to my expectations.

We follow Daiki as he grows up into young adulthood alongside his childhood friend Shingo. They both felt rather self-centered and very hard to like, at least to me. I see many other people describe them as likeable, so it might just be a me thing, but man, I did not like either of them. Daiki comes across as selfish and jealous for most of the book, and Shingo comes across as distant and selfish for most of the book. (Also WTF was the fireworks scene? I figured he'd get really hurt because it was described as a major explosion but nothing? He just wanted attention? And everyone apologized to the boy almost blowing them all up??? HOW??? WHAT???)

The story focuses on Daiki, and how jealous he is of Shingo, and how he wants to be like him. While refusing any help. Their frienship did not seem like a friendship, because they barely interact once they get to university. You could say they grew apart, but neither of them really changed, so it just made their earlier friendship seem shallow.

But what made me really dislike this was the final chapter or so. Daiki acting as Shingo in a film. Fine. Him getting into character, still fine. Him making every single thing "Shingo" does about himself... really icky? Like the final chapter describes scenes throughout the book through "Shingo"'s eyes, yet it's made clear that it's just how Daiki imagines Shingo would have seen things. And every single thing is about how amazing Daiki is and how everything he does is for Daiki... Self-centered much? It felt rather gross and made me dislike the whole book, despite thinking I'd rate it about 2~3 stars for most of the book.

[z. imama · Rating 4 out of 5]

My favorite idol wrote this. Whoa. I'm still... in disbelief. It's a shame that the (legal, not fan-made) English translation hasn't available to this date because I think this book deserves broader readership. Kato Shigeaki (a member of boyband/boygroup/idolgroup, whatever) understands perfectly that it's much safer—and arguably, better—to write the things one knows well, so he picked this theme: life under the spotlight. And he writes it well.

Story-wise, it's rather simple. The world in this book revolves around three characters who grow up together until a particular, maneuvering point. However, how the story unfolds is very much enjoyable, and the twist, despite nothing "mindblowing" is a nice touch that adds a splash of darkness in the overall tone of the story. This makes me want to try reading his other books, but a full novel in all Japanese still takes a lot of my energy to read, so I don't know if I can do it in the near future.

[Luna · Rating 4 out of 5]

私にとって、加藤シゲアキの小説を読んだのが、これで2回目。ストーリー展開、構成が特に面白かった。
文章もわかりやすくて、スラスラと読めた。
主人公2人は親しみやすいキャラクター。ただ、登場人物のニックネーム、芸名などが少しややこしく感じた点があったため、この評価。
芸能界と遠い存在な私からすると、そういった世界で活躍している人をよく美化してしまう。だが、その人たちの人生を一概に「素晴らしい」ものと決めつけないこうとおもった。また、自分の人生においても、疎遠の仲になっている友だちが何か困っていたら、話を聞いてあげようと考えさせられた。