By Jonathan Clements.

For the second year in a row, Gengen Kusano managed to cause a stir at the Seiun Awards, clambering ahead of the competition to secure the prize for best short story for his tale “Dark Seiyuu”. Unless I’m much mistaken, he added another achievement to his resumé by becoming the first Japanese science fiction author to win the field’s highest prize with a story that has already been published in English.

The collection Last and First Idol was released in an English e-book format last year, and sneaked out in a paperback edition shortly before Kusano won his second Seiun. It contains three stories, including both the Seiun Award winners from 2018 and 2019, as well as a joyously irreverent afterword by Satoshi Maejima that lists many of Kusano’s worst reviews. This is, after all, the man whose first story was described by a representative of his own publisher as “abysmal”, and by an awards panellist as “stupid”. When he won his first Seiun with his debut story, mere months after it appeared online, the distinguished author Chohei Kanbayashi was heard to wonder if there hadn’t been a terrible mistake. Continue Reading