Chapter 90 Pay me back the 1000 million yen I stole now, and don’t even think about dominating the h

Chapter 90 Pay me back the 1000 million yen I stole now, and don’t even think about dominating the h

Chapter 90 Pay me back the 1000 million yen I stole now, and don’t even think about dominating the haiku market alone
2-12-2 Otowa, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo, Kodansha Co., Ltd. Headquarters, rd floor Contract Department Conference Hall.

"He is just a 'middle-class' writer. If it weren't for our group portrait newcomer award, would he have achieved what he has now? Stray cats picked up from the street know to bring a few dead mice back to their owners to repay their gratitude. Why do you think he dares to be so arrogant? Deputy Editor-in-Chief Muramatsu?"

With her arms folded on her shoulders, a flabby figure and a frighteningly large nose, Noma Airi was chattering in the conference hall, and no one around her dared to look up and speak.

After complaining for a while, she felt more and more unhappy, and her eyes suddenly turned to Muramatsu Tomoshi who was sitting in the row on the left.

Muramatsu Tomoshige couldn't respond to this. The editor-in-chief of the editorial department, Kashiwamura Takeshi, the newly appointed editor-in-chief Noma Kawaya, and Hanamori Yasuharu who was demoted to executive director were all unable to answer Noma Airi's question.

Now when they mention the name Kitagawa Hide, they feel extremely headache and annoyed.

Especially the bald former senior managing director Yasuji Hanamori.

If he had known that "No Longer Human" would sell at such a terrifying sales volume, he would never have let go of this cash cow, Kitagawa Hide!

However, even though they were scolded, they were forced to take the blame and had the blame put on them by Noma Airi, and they were actually very unwilling to accept it in their hearts.

If Noma Airi had not been so stubborn and insisted on carrying out the private plan she had drawn up for Kitagawa Hide, and had not wanted to trick him into joining the crew as a supervisor and becoming a "disciple" of Ishihara Shintaro in exchange for the Akutagawa Prize, Kitagawa Hide would not have been forced away.

What none of them expected was that Kitagawa Hide not only left decisively, but also went into Kawade's study without looking back, and actually hooked up with the last-place "Wenyi".

This is also the point that makes Noma Airi the most angry.

She could accept that "No Longer Human" was picked up by Shinchosha and Bungeishunju, and even that Kitagawa Hide ran to the wealthy Shueisha, and she could barely swallow this.

The only thing he couldn't accept was that such a big bargain was taken away by the woman in He Chu's study!

The Noma family and the Kawade family are well-known enemies.

The roots of the story can be traced back to 20, seven years after the death of Kodansha's founder Seiji Noma. The old site of Kodansha, then known as King's Bookstore, was reduced to ruins in the Tokyo bombing, and business plummeted.

At that time, Kawaide Shobo, which was called Seimeido Bookstore, seized the opportunity and quickly occupied the magazine market with the lower class as its core readership with its rustic and more down-to-earth "Kawaide style", and soon competed with Kodansha, which focused on the "elite route".

Kodansha has always felt that the middle-class and lower-class reader markets were originally meat on their plates, and Kawaide Shobo was snatching food from the tiger's mouth.

The feud between the two families began.

To date, among the five major publishing houses, Kodansha is the one that is most aggressive in suppressing the latecomers.

As a leader of the new generation, Airi Noma is always compared with Shizuko Kawaide by other chaebols.

Compared to her, she is far inferior in appearance, figure, ability and academic qualifications!

How could she bear it?

While Noma Airi was still producing furiously, other Kodansha middle and high-level executives who were invited to participate in the signing ceremony for the film and television adaptation of "Hear the Wind Sing" were only able to speak in a submissive manner and no one dared to talk back.

Only Shintaro Ishihara, who came as a representative of Nikkatsu Corporation, remained calm and looked at the funny scene in front of him with a joking look.

Originally, after "Ball" became a hot seller, he wanted to mend his relationship with Kitagawa Hide.

However, Kitagawa Hide's ingratitude was far beyond his expectations. At a literary salon, the sentence "I have never actually thought of becoming anyone's disciple" directly blocked his way.

That slap was a slap in the face to half of the literary world.

Now, not only him, but also the academician group headed by Ichiko Sadatsugu dislike Kitagawa Hide very much.

This young man probably doesn't know what kind of literary career awaits him in the future.

But hatred is hatred, and business is business.

The Youth Trilogy single-handedly raised the sales of Group Portrait to a level that surpassed Literary World and was close to that of New Trend, which was truly remarkable.

The commercial value of these three pure literary novels is unquestionable.

It is the money-making tool that "Gunzo" must hold on to now that Kitagawa Hide is gone.

The popularity of "No Longer Human" once again proves Kitagawa Hide's ability to invade the market, but everything in this book definitely belongs to Kawaide Shobo, and Kodansha has no say in it.

They can only cling to the "Youth Trilogy".

This is how we have this seemingly funny scene.

While complaining about Muramatsu Tomoshi and others for not keeping Kitagawa Hide, and denouncing Kitagawa Hide for being an ungrateful person, Noma Airi was trying every means to obtain the copyright of "Youth Trilogy".

Nikkatsu Corporation had the same idea. The sales surge of "No Longer Human" not only helped Kitagawa Hide secure his position as a "middle-stream" writer, but also indirectly increased the value of the "Youth Trilogy".

There is absolutely no way Nikkatsu will give up the film adaptation rights of "Hear the Wind Sing".

Just when the quarrel was getting intense at Kodansha, Kitagawa Hide and others arrived late.

Pushing open the door of the conference hall, more than a month later, Kitagawa Hide returned to the place where his "dream" ended.

The rows of seats are still the same, and the people are still the same. They are all the familiar faces who signed new contracts with me, but there are a few new faces.

It seems that the forum agency attaches great importance to this signing meeting.

At the first seat on the left, Ishihara Shintaro stood up first and greeted them: "Long time no see, Shizuko. Oh, and Mr. Kitagawa."

"Long time no see, Uncle Ishihara." Shizuko Kawaide's reaction was very cold, or rather, in public and when facing most people, she always had that cold and aloof attitude of an iceberg, with an attitude of "no approach from strangers".

Kitagawa Hide could tell from her tone that the two of them were not getting along, so that was an easy solution. He simply ignored Ishihara Shintaro, nodded slightly, then pulled out a chair, and sat on the right side with Saito Rena, below Kawaide Shizuko.

The signing meeting for the film and television adaptation copyright was mainly negotiated by the senior executives of the two companies. Although Kitagawa Hide is the copyright owner of "Youth Trilogy", he always likes to let professionals do professional things, so he authorized the copyright department of Kawaide Shobo to help negotiate with Kodansha.

In fact, Shizuko Kawaide could have negotiated the matter herself, and then just paid Kitagawa Hide some money and been done with it.

But she brought Kitagawa Hide and Saito Rena here and let them face their former employers as winners, which shows that she is very thoughtful and considerate of the two's emotions.

After all, Kitagawa Hide and Saito Rena were forced away by Kodansha. Now the other party is begging to buy the copyright of their works, and they can raise the price like a big boss. The taste of revenge is really good.

Because the price issue had been agreed upon before, the two sides were just haggling at the final stage. Kitagawa Hide was bored and secretly observed the expressions of these people.

The first person who caught my eye was Noma Airi.

Her big nose really ruins the show. She looks exactly like Mrs. Kinda in "I Am a Cat". Her bad temper is also similar. People can't help but get annoyed when they hear her voice.

It seems that once "I Am a Cat" begins serialization, she might become an overnight sensation.

The old guy Shintaro Ishihara is still as steady as ever. He had a complete falling out with me at the literary salon, but now he can discuss Nikkatsu's plan to adapt "Hear the Wind Sing" with me, smiling as if nothing had happened. He can be said to be an enhanced version of Yasuhara Akira.

I have to pay more attention to him in the future.

The bald executive and others were not in good condition, looking low and depressed.

It seems that the popularity of "No Longer Human" has dealt a serious blow to the editorial department of "Qun Xiang".

That's good!
When Noma Airi and others targeted him, Rena Saito was the only one in the editorial department who was willing to stand up and speak for him.

This is what is called karma.

On the other hand, the crew members sent by Nikkatsu also participated in it, but their say was obviously not as good as Shintaro Ishihara, and they basically played a supporting role.

One of them, a male supervisor with artist-like medium-length hair and who looked to be in his thirties, attracted Kitagawa Hide's attention.

In the few times he spoke, he mentioned quite pertinently the difficulties in adapting the "Youth Trilogy" - the overly abstract plot and some delicate emotions that are difficult to express with the language of the camera.

This made Kitagawa Hide suddenly interested in this person.

He correctly hit on the core reason why the film adaptation of "Hear the Wind Sing" failed.

Unfortunately, no one paid any attention to what the male director said. The others were chatting away, all focused on how to get the rights to adapt "Youth Trilogy" into a movie and TV series, and it would be best if they could also get the physical book publishing rights for the last two parts!

Kitagawa Hide found it a bit funny as he watched them go from chatting to arguing.

Noma Airi clearly looked like she wanted to eat herself alive, but faced with this seemingly sure-win business, she could only control her temper, stood up respectfully, bowed to him and asked, "Teacher Kitabe Chuan, can you sell us the film and TV adaptation rights for the trilogy? We are willing to offer a price that will satisfy you."

She had probably rehearsed these words in her mind countless times, and when she said them she tried to keep her tone calm and sound kinder.

The film rights for "Hear the Wind Sing" had been negotiated long ago, and the original buyout price was 500 million yen, but because Kitagawa Hide did not sign a contract with them at the time, it had been shelved. Now that "No Longer Human" has become a hit, the buyout price has naturally risen and soared directly to 1000 million yen.

Kodansha and Nikkatsu were determined to get it, and they gritted their teeth and accepted it even if the price doubled. Just now, they talked for a long time about the copyright of the other two works. Kawaide Shizuko did not interfere, but said that everything was based on Kitagawa Hide's wishes.

In her heart, she actually hoped that Kitagawa Hide would sell all the remaining copyrights of these works to Kawaide Shobo, but the previous example of Kodansha was right in front of her, so Kawaide Shizuko just thought so in her heart and then maintained the attitude she had when she first talked to Kitagawa Hide.

Everything revolves around Kitagawa Hide, he can do whatever he wants.

Hence the current scene.

Everyone looked at Kitagawa Hide.

Kitagawa Hide himself doesn't want any film or television copyrights of Murakami's books at all, because those things can't be filmed effectively at all, and whoever buys them will suffer a huge loss.

He kept better works for himself, so this loss-making business would of course be left to Kodansha.

He leaned close to Shizuko Kawaide and whispered something in her ear.

After hearing this, Shizuko Kawaide felt a little disappointed at first, but then she became happy.

She rarely had this kind of expression change, and others became curious. They didn't know what Kitagawa Hide said to her that could move the industry's recognized iceberg.

"Director Noma, Mr. Kitagawa told me that he is willing to sell all the film and television rights of the Youth Trilogy to Kodansha and Nikkatsu. The total buyout price for the three works is 9000 million yen."

Kawade Shizuko paused and added,
"Plus 1000 million yen in compensation for mental damages."

Mental damages?
What is this ghost?

Noma Airi, who was standing, was immediately furious. She looked at Kitagawa Hide and found that the other party had started playing with the flip phone in his hand and had no intention of talking to her or looking at her.

What mental damage did he suffer?
Like now, I, a dignified executive of Kodansha, am ignored by a mere "middle-rate" writer and don't even have the qualifications to have a dialogue with him. This is really a mental loss!

Noma Airi gritted her teeth, but still suppressed her anger and forced a smile: "Okay, no problem on our side. Thank you, Mr. Kitagawa!"

Kitagawa Hide originally wanted to ask for a high price, but in fact, the buyout price of 3000 million yen was already very high. If he asked for more, Nikkatsu might consider withdrawing.

Oshima Hikaru's "Thirty Years in the World" was originally sold for 300 million yen, and Kitagawa Hide was able to get ten times the price, which shows that the film and television company and the TV station have invested a lot of money.

After all, this is a period of economic depression, and at times like this, investors are often reluctant to spend a lot of money on "lottery tickets".

Five or six years ago, "Hear the Wind Sing" might have been sold for a staggering price of 1 million yuan. Alas, it is a pity that Kitagawa Hide traveled too late and missed the bonus period of the bubble era.

As for why the price of TV drama copyright is higher than that of movie copyright, this is the unique situation of Japan's media industry.

In Japan, TV dramas are much more powerful than movies. Behind the five major TV stations are several large newspaper consortiums, which almost control the media mouthpieces of all of Japan. The core means by which the consortium controls the country is monopoly!

Anyone who knows Japan knows that this country is extremely xenophobic in the entertainment industry.

Games, animation, movies, and TV, etc., basically only domestic products are promoted in China. In the 20s, when the global "League of Legends" was the dominant game, they still focused on console games.

When it comes to the film industry, no country can compete with Hollywood.

Therefore, the chaebol decisively gave up this industry and focused on producing television programs whose target audience was ordinary people in the country.

When Kitagawa Hide heard that Kodansha was going to buy the copyright of the TV series, he was overjoyed.

If the movie fails, at most JAC and themselves will lose money. If the TV series fails, then the five major TV stations and the financial sponsors behind them will be implicated.

He could even imagine the desperate expression on Noma Airi's face after the TV fell down.

Of course, both Nikkatsu and Kodansha now feel that they are making huge profits.

Upon hearing that they had successfully purchased all the film and television rights to the trilogy, Bald Executive Director and others breathed a sigh of relief. If this had not been successful, Noma Airi's anger would have been directed at them again!

"Then the physical books of the last two works will be published." Noma Airi squeezed out another sentence with difficulty.

"Mr. Kitagawa has given full authorization to our company, Kawade Shobo, to publish the book. Please do not continue to 'infringe' the book after the serialization of "A Sheep Chasing Adventure" is completed."

Shizuko Kawaide didn't understand why Kitagawa Hide gave up the film and television copyrights, but he gave the physical book publishing to his own company and made a lot of money.

Although it is only a publishing right, the implication is that the "re-serialization" will only be in "Wenyi" and not in "Gunxiang".

Noma Airi could only smile and reply: "I understand. We will stop all reprinting plans after the serialization is completed."

It's okay to rely on the company's strength and connections to blackmail the royalties, but if there is blatant infringement, the Ministry of Education will not sit idly by.

This is a real red line in the industry, and she dare not touch it.

Now Noma Airi can only pin all her hopes on her haiku column which has just started to flourish.

It can be predicted that as long as the serialization of "A Wild Sheep Chase" ends, the sales of "Group Portrait" will inevitably be halved.

She has just stood up straight in the family, and she absolutely cannot let down her guard at this time!

Noma Airi once again cast her gaze towards Muramatsu Tomomi and the others. They understood the meaning of her look and could only smile bitterly and nod.

After discussing everything, Kitagawa Hide and his group immediately said goodbye and left, not wanting to stay here any longer.

Walking in the aisle outside, Shizuko Kawaide kept wondering why Mr. Kitagawa was unwilling to leave the film and television copyrights to her. Did he think that Kawaide Shobo's film and television resources were not as good as Kodansha's?

Or did I do something wrong that made Mr. Kitagawa unhappy?
She couldn't figure it out for the time being and planned to go back and ask her grandmother. She might as well treat Mr. Kitagawa and Mr. Saito to a proper dinner and mention her position in their hearts!

When talking about the reprint issue, Noma Airi's face turned green. It seems that she will devote all her energy to the haiku column.

Ever since she learned that Mr. Kitagawa was the master of haiku, Shizuko Kawaide finally saw the possibility of "Wenyi" escaping its last place position!
Those haiku must be serialized in "Wenyi"!

On the other side, Kitagawa Hide ran to the toilet in a hurry, and then met Muramatsu Tomoshi, who looked a little haggard, in the bathroom.

Having not seen each other for more than a month, he almost didn't recognize the other person.

Muramatsu Tomoshi looked like he had aged ten years. His face was haggard, his beard was not clean-shaven, and he exuded a decadent air.

When they met in the restroom, Muramatsu Tomoshi forced a smile and said to him, "Congratulations, Mr. Kitagawa. Your book No Longer Human is very good. I bought several copies specially for my collection."

"As long as you like it." Seeing Muramatsu Tomoshi like this, Kitagawa Hide sighed silently in his heart.

He roughly knew the other party's current situation, but there was nothing he could do.

Sometimes life will completely change because of a decision you make.

When she left for the last time, Saito Rena followed her without looking back, while Muramatsu Tomomi, who was promoted to deputy editor-in-chief, chose to stay and act as a lobbyist for Noma Airi.

Kitagawa Hide certainly didn't mean to blame him, he could only say that people with different ideas cannot work together.

If he had insisted on changing jobs with others, Kitagawa Hide would have considered discussing it with Kawaide Shizuko.

After all, he is one of the few people who supported me from the beginning.

"Kitagawa." Muramatsu Tomoshi had a lot of words stuck in his throat, but in the end he couldn't say them out loud. Then he forced a smile and said, "Let's contact each other again if we have a chance."

"Well, let's contact each other when there's a chance."

Kitagawa Hide nodded and left the bathroom.

He washed his hands and face at the sink outside and thought about how to discuss the haiku column with Shizuko Kawaide.

He gave all the film and television copyrights of the trilogy to Kodansha without giving any reason. Even if Shizuko Kawaide was really his die-hard fan, she must feel uncomfortable about this.

I hope I don’t get stuck on the haiku column.

As I was thinking this, a voice suddenly sounded in my ears.

"S-Sorry to bother you so much! Mr. Kitagawa, my name is Iwai Shunji, can I talk to you for a minute?"

During the meeting, the young supervisor who caught Kitagawa Hide's attention suddenly appeared.

This chapter has 5200 words. There should be another chapter to follow. I’m sorry that I wrote it late.

Because I was sitting on the floor outside the operating room, typing very slowly with my notebook, I actually spent the whole afternoon writing.
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(End of this chapter)