In 1974 Kojima attended a tutoring school in another city more for…

After Publish or Perish, Kojima began slipping away alone to the bookstore opposite the tutoring school and felt that spending time among the books meant he had entered the adult world. He awaited each monthly Columbo novelization and went to the bookstore weekly even when no new book had come out, to the point of wondering whether he was really attending the tutoring school or the shop. There he discovered Agatha Christie and Ellery Queen, which opened the way to mysteries, science fiction, adventure, and his future profession.

Kojima says that going to a bookstore was a daily routine he did not abandon even during the frenetic start of his studio. There he takes books in his hands, buys the ones that call to him, and loses himself reading them; on business trips he is not at ease unless he has several books in his bag, and he considers choosing and reading books to be part of who he is.

Kojima placed his awakening to reading in fifth grade, when he plunged into mystery novels from around the world. He continued with them through sixth grade, and upon finishing elementary school he moved on to science fiction, which he described as his companion until college; from that period he barely remembers reading anything else.

Kojima found a new edition of Seicho Matsumoto’s “Amsterdam Unga Satsujin Jiken” at a bookstore and picked it up. He called it a nostalgic find and remembered reading the Kappa Novels edition as a child, borrowing the copy his mother was reading.

“Every time our eyes met, I thought I had to buy something, and that, for me, was a science fiction book.”