Otsuichi

Japanese writer and filmmaker

Otsuichi (乙一) is the pen name of Hirotaka Adachi (安達 寛高), born 1978. He is a Japanese writer, mostly of horror short stories, as well as a filmmaker. He is a member of the Mystery Writers of Japan and the Honkaku Mystery Writers Club of Japan. 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. 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 magazine Faust.

Otsuichi was born on October 21, 1978 in Tanushimaru (now part of Kurume), Fukuoka Prefecture, as the eldest son of a family of four with his parents and two older sisters. He attended Kawai Elementary School 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. making his official debut at only 17 years old. At university, he belonged to a science fiction research group. In 2002, Otsuichi graduated from Toyohashi University. and heartwarming light novels. However, Goth, one of the work he is most known for, was a highly acclaimed mystery novel, even winning the Honkaku Mystery Award. and many of his works are divide into four or even sixteen parts. Otsuichi himself says that he "just enjoys working on his works as they take shape." 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.