We can dance. So let us stand in a more beautiful world! Yakuza and Kabuki. Two young actors with different backgrounds and talents devote their youth to the path of the arts. This is a monumental novel about the arts , which won both the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology's Art Encouragement Prize and the Chuokoron Literary Prize, and marks the 20th anniversary of his career as a writer. On New Year's Day in 1964, Nagasaki was home to a long-established restaurant called "Hanamaru" - amid the shouts and screams of gangsters, an actor who would become a treasure of this country was born. The man's name was Kikuo Tachibana. Although he was born into a clan of gangsters, his otherworldly beauty drew people in and took Kikuo's life to an unexpected level. The story moves from Nagasaki to Osaka, and then to Tokyo after the Olympics. As Japan grows, these men hone their skills and struggle to master their ways.
Shūichi Yoshida (吉田 修一) was born in Nagasaki, and studied Business Administration at Hosei University. He won the Bungakukai Prize for New Writers in 1997 for his story "Saigo no Musuko", and the Akutagawa Prize in 2002 (the fifth time he'd been nominated for the prize) for "Park Life". In 2002 he also won the Yamamoto Prize for Parade, and for winning both literary and popular prizes Yoshida was seen as a crossover writer, like Amy Yamada or Masahiko Shimada. In 2003 he wrote lyrics for the song "Great Escape" on Tomoyasu Hotei's album Doberman. His 2007 novel Villain won the Osaragi Jiro Prize and the Mainichi Publishing Culture Award, and was recently adapted into an award-winning 2010 film by Lee Sang-il.
I loved the first volume of this series, so I decided to read the second volume. Similar to the first volume, the story continues to revolve around the two main characters - Shunsuke and Kikuo. The silent conflict between Kikuo's talent and Shunsuke's lineage continues. Although Shunsuke is still counted on to inherit the name "Hanai", the difference in talent with Kikuo becomes more prominent, building on his inferiority complex. On the other hand, Kikuo continues to perfect his art with his talent and almost obsessive devotion. Because he is obsessed with becoming the art itself, he has no hesitation with discarding personal relationships and his private life, becoming gradually isolated from the world around him. Instead, his world is reduced to an exclusive, one-on-one relationship with Kabuki alone. The escalating distortion in both main characters' lives as they become swayed by the art is so well written, gradually showing up as numerous events lead to a significant difference in their lives. Although Kikuo lives up to becoming a Living National Treasure, his fate is far from rewarding.