Chapter 88: You are cheating me of my royalties? Kodansha must die!
Chapter 88: You are cheating me of my royalties? Kodansha must die! (33)
After receiving the real total sales data table from Rena Saito, Kitagawa Hide immediately put aside his troublesome emotional problems.
As for feelings, my sweet wife won’t run away on her own, so there’s plenty of time to digest it slowly.
It’s more important to build your career and make money first!
Bread comes first, then love.
"The actual cumulative sales in three weeks is about 71 copies." Even though Kitagawa Hide was mentally prepared, his heart still twitched inexplicably when he saw this string of data.
71 copies
71 copies?
71 copies!
"Saito, please help me look after Pete." Kitagawa Hide said without waiting for her reaction, and immediately turned back to the back room.
Rena Saito had a big question mark on her head, so she had to pick up the restless Pete and wait quietly while petting the cat.
Could it be that the data was too exaggerated and he couldn't accept it, so he had to go back to calm down?
It is very common for Japanese people to run to the bathroom and cry in order to avoid losing their composure when they suffer a major blow in public.
She could understand Kitagawa Hide's mood at the moment, but when she thought about it carefully, she felt that it was not the case.
This man was the one who could calmly say "not bad" when he won the Best Newcomer Award for Group Portrait and when "Hear the Wind Sing" broke records one after another.
Originally, Rena Saito was worried that he would become overly involved in writing "No Longer Human" and suffer from depression or something.
But after "Peter Cat" came several times this month, she can basically conclude that Kitagawa Hide is in a very healthy mental state, and his mentality is even more stable than hers.
Just as she was repeatedly trying to figure out Kitagawa Hide's emotional state, Kitagawa Hide came rushing out again, grabbing a calculator.
"Huh?" She looked at him, even more confused.
"Seventy-one times five thousand times 0.25 times 0.09 times ten thousand."
A mechanical sound came out of the calculator, and Saito Rena was stunned.
What's this.
Wait? Is Kitagawa calculating his royalties?
Now she finally understood!
There is no such thing as depression or mood swings. She is just thinking too much!
It's obvious that he can't get the result by mental arithmetic, so he rushes to get a calculator to calculate the money!
Reina Saito was a little amused and helpless. She stroked Pete's soft and smooth hair and waited quietly for him to come up with the result.
A long-lost feeling came back to my mind.
Teacher Beichuan is still the same Teacher Beichuan, without any change.
That's great.
"Royalty income of 7987.5 million yen." After Kitagawa Hide finished the calculation, he suddenly felt relieved.
It seems that the small life goals I secretly set for 1995 can be a little more ambitious.
After paying off the 1 million yen debt, make another 400 million yen profit?
That's it?
There's simply not enough to fight.
Give me another 1 million yen!
Oh no, don’t be happy too early.
Haven't paid taxes yet.
Japan's personal income tax provisions include income from royalties. In 1987, they began to implement a progressive tax rate, which is divided into 7 levels, with the lowest tax rate being 5% and the highest tax rate being 45%.
Individuals are required to pay 4000% tax on their annual income that exceeds 45 million yen.
That is to say, half of the 8000 million yen has to pay this proportion of tax. After some mental calculation, it is as high as 1800 million yen!
At this moment, Kitagawa Hide can finally understand the feelings of those who evade taxes.
However, although we understand it, we still cannot do illegal things blindly, especially in Japan. The bastards at the National Tax Agency are keeping a close eye on these high-income people 24 hours a day. If you dare to evade taxes, they will come to your house wearing hats and ask for money in a minute!
But it still hurts so much.
Including the money he earned before, Kitagawa Hide earned at least 3 million yuan in the six months from March to August, equivalent to 8 million RMB, of which about 1 million yen was given to the damn Ministry of Finance!
As he was calculating, Kitagawa Hide even wanted to take out the income and balance sheet and modify it, but thinking that Saito Rena was still there, he decided to put this matter off until later.
and many more.
Kitagawa Hide glanced at the calculator in his hand and suddenly thought of something.
"Saito, there is something I just thought about, and it seems a little wrong. Can you listen and see if that's the case?"
Kitagawa Hide said as he pushed the calculator in his hand in front of her.
"Hear the Wind Sing has sold about 40 copies so far, and Kodansha has given me about 2000 million yen in royalties before tax. No Longer Human has sold 71 copies, and Kawaide Shobo has given me nearly 8000 million yen before tax.
Kodansha's royalty rate is 6%.
The 71 copies reached the 50-copy standard agreed upon by Kawaide Shobo and I, so the royalty rate they gave was temporarily set at 9%.
So why is the actual income so different?"
"And the price of 'Hear the Wind Sing' is 5500 yen, and 'No Longer Human' is 5000 yen." Saito Rena added subconsciously after hearing this.
She hadn't thought about this issue before.
Because tens of millions of yen is too huge for her, it is a number she has no concept of.
Moreover, as an employee of Kodansha at the time, Rena Saito still had great trust in the company and never thought that the company would blatantly manipulate royalties.
Now it seems
"Even if the sales figure of more than 40 copies is inflated, the difference in money can't be that big, right?" Kitagawa Hide roughly estimated that Kodansha had cheated him of at least 1000 million yen!
Isn't it said that Japan's copyright protection laws are quite strict and no one dares to cross this red line?
Fortunately, he thought Kodansha was pretty good to him before.
Especially the bald executive director, who greeted us personally, met our various needs, and gave us enough face in front of and behind others.
Originally, Kitagawa Hide's attitude towards Kodansha was that they had slept in the same bed for a while, so even if he had a new love, it could be a peaceful breakup.
The biggest point of disagreement is that Noma Airi does not respect him. She insists on forcing a character and a track on him, and she also refuses to accept "No Longer Human".
He was even asked to become an apprentice of Shintaro Ishihara in order to win back the Akutagawa Prize.
But this is all personal.
Now I see, wow, you even cheated me of my royalties?
This really means that you have never considered him as your own!
"Indeed! This is too much!" Saito Reina was immediately filled with righteous indignation after hearing his analysis, and felt that Kodansha was too shady. 1000 million yen!
Maybe it's not a lot of money for Hideo Kitagawa, a best-selling author.
But for an ordinary person, such as Rena Saito, her current annual salary is only 500 million yen before tax, which is equivalent to working for two years for nothing.
You can't just feel comfortable stealing money from someone just because he has a high income, right?
"Kitagawa, let's report this matter to the National Tax Agency. If President Kawaide is willing to help, the prosecutors of the National Tax Agency..." Saito Rena looked at him with a questioning look in her eyes.
Beichuan Xiu decisively shook his head: "If they dare to do this, they must have a countermeasure in advance. If we report it directly to the National Tax Agency, we will only alert the enemy and gain nothing."
He has never had any hope for Japan's government institutions. If these politicians and their civil servants were truly capable, this country would not be ruled by the chaebols and academic cliques.
I’m afraid that as soon as they report the matter to the National Tax Agency, they will contact Kodansha first and erase all traces that can be erased.
"Then what about us?" Saito Rena sighed, feeling as if she could not help Kitagawa Hide in any way.
And if you think about it carefully, she seems to be one of the accomplices.
"Saito, can you get the sales data of Gunzo?" Kitagawa Hide suddenly asked, "Or specific information about Gunzo magazine will be fine."
"If it's not confidential information, you can 'buy' it from your colleague." Saito Reina answered without hesitation, "If you want it, I can deliver it to you anytime."
"Okay, the more detailed the better." When Kitagawa Hide learned that his royalties were most likely embezzled by Kodansha, his whole spirit and spirit suddenly changed. "By the way, I heard that Gunzo has picked up the haiku column again?"
"Yes. After all, "A Wild Sheep Chase" will soon be serialized and after you're gone, they have to find a new section to absorb the heat." Saito Reina has been paying attention to the situation of other magazines. "It seems to be quite effective."
She remembered that the issue of "Gun Portrait" released on August 8 deliberately split the last ten chapters of "A Wild Sheep Chase" into two serials in order to delay the progress, and at the same time added a new haiku section with the intention of directing traffic there.
Thanks to the recent haiku craze, their decision seems to be working.
Beichuan Xiu said "hmm", picked up the sales data tables and looked at them carefully, then asked: "Does the hot sales of "No Longer Human" have any impact on the sales of "Wenyi"?"
"Wenyi is released on the 18th of every month. It's almost been a week now. Judging from the faces of my colleagues in the distribution department, there shouldn't be much improvement."
Saito Reina sighed and shook her head.
Speaking of this, she has a headache again.
Although the success of "No Longer Human" allowed her to gain a firm foothold in the editorial department of "Wenyi", the main work of an associate editor is still in magazines and journals.
The core business of Kawade Shobo is still "Literature and Art". This dear son of the company cannot stand up. Unless it can produce several golden son-in-laws like "No Longer Human" in a year, it will still have to be at the bottom.
Later, when she attended exchange conferences organized by various publishing houses as deputy editor-in-chief, she could not raise her head to face her former colleagues and superiors.
Seeing Kitagawa Hide's expression and the question he suddenly asked, Saito Reina suddenly remembered something and looked at him in disbelief. After a while, she tentatively asked, "Kitagawa, you... haven't already written the next book to be serialized in Literature and Art?"
"Not yet." Kitagawa Hide answered truthfully, "But I am indeed writing the book, and I have written nearly 20 words, which is about two-thirds of the book."
"Hiss——" Saito Rena took a breath and the look in her eyes when she looked at Kitagawa Hide was strange.
"Hear the Wind Sing" has 4 words, "Pinball in 6" has 1973 words, "A Wild Sheep Chase" has 6 words, and "No Longer Human" has 3 words. Other interview texts, plus the preface and postscript, total about 14 words.
Many of them are handwritten!
Including the revisions and editing of the text, even if there was a four or five-month delay, this speed is already quite astonishing.
In the literary world, she had never heard of such a prolific and high-quality writer.
Rena Saito has always been worried that Kitagawa Hide would over-consume his inspiration and brainpower by writing like this, so even after "No Longer Human" was released for almost a month, she never took the initiative to ask him to write an article.
I was afraid that I would accidentally break the taut string in Kitagawa Hide's mind.
But. What did he just say?
I have started writing a new book and have written 20 words.
Isn’t this really just a ruthless typing machine?
Kitagawa Hide doesn't have time to express his feelings to Saito Rena now.
He was furious about being cheated out of his royalties. It would have been great to use the 1000 million yen to offset taxes. Although he knew in his heart that this idea was wrong and the calculation was incorrect, he was still very angry.
So he immediately took out a stack of manuscripts from under the bar and handed it directly to Saito Rena.
"I want to finish writing the new book and then revise it, but I have a public class in September, so I don't think I can make it to the next issue of Literature and Art. Please take a look at these haikus. If they can be used, I will serialize them in the next issue of Literature and Art. If not, I will write some more for you to see."
“Haiku?”
When Saito Rena got the stack of manuscripts, she was a little confused.
She glanced at the title of the first song, "Missing You," and then recited it silently: "Compared to the past, I arrived at the station one minute earlier. I will use this minute to miss you."
This haiku was completely different from what she knew.
It feels simpler and catchier, and at first glance, it seems like I could write it myself.
The more you taste it, the stronger the flavor becomes.
This suddenly reminded her of the popular "Thor's Song" a few months ago.
The two have somewhat similar flavors and are both excellent haiku works.
"It's a bit like 'Thoraku Tanka'" She couldn't wait to flip through it. Looking at the length of the manuscript, there must be more than twenty poems. Even though the haiku itself is short, the amount of work is still astonishing.
So Kitagawa found time to write more than 20 haiku in addition to writing a 20-word new book?
"爱してる (love him, don't love him)
爱していない (love him or not)
花びらの(I wish my love)
Number of loves (like this lucky daisy)
あればいいのに (like an endless stream of petals)”
This song "Love is Like Petals" has a similar flavor, but it is clever in rhythm and in using similar words to express a rich poetic feeling.
The more Saito Rena read, the more surprised she was. These twenty-odd haiku had the same tone. They were basically all praising the young and sweet love of young people. They were closer to modern times than the classical "Thorium Tanka", and the words used were also commonly used by young people when chatting.
"That song you're talking about? I also wrote it. But it was accidentally taken to the University of Tokyo by Yumeko-chan, causing a big misunderstanding." Kitagawa Hide didn't actually mean to pretend to be so pretentious, but the words just came out of his mouth.
"Oh, so that's how it is." Saito Rena was still flipping through the haiku, then her hands suddenly stopped and she let out an abrupt "eh".
After a long while, she mechanically raised her head and looked at Kitagawa Hide, and said "eh eh eh" several times. It was unclear whether there was resentment or helplessness in her eyes. Finally, she blurted out: "Kitagawa, didn't you say you don't understand haiku?"
9 more chapters owed.
For this haiku, considering that it is difficult to appreciate the charm of the original Japanese sentence through translation, I have posted the original sentence as well.
I wonder if you can feel the flavor of haiku in this way.
(End of this chapter)