On seeing a newly installed mailbox in his neighborhood, Kojima…

“It's fine to complain, like in your own living room, but don't do it where I can hear it. I wish people would stop directing those messages at me.”

Kojima proposed writing a letter even without sending it, without a stamp, without showing it to anyone, and even without a specific addressee. He thought the exercise could bring back a forgotten memory or reveal something unexpected about the writer.

In high school, a childhood friend named Tatsuo bookmarked a passage about DATURA in Ryu Murakami’s Coin Locker Babies, acted it out for Kojima, said it was “cool,” pressed the book against Kojima’s chest, and left. Kojima devoured the novel without stopping to eat or drink and described an extreme physical reaction—dizziness, pounding in his chest, nausea, and sexual arousal—caused by prose whose furious energy did not resemble images, sounds, or anything he had previously known.

Kojima defended the letter precisely because of its limitations: it is unidirectional, arrives with a delay, does not allow control over when or under what circumstances it is read, and cannot be deleted or edited after being sent. He considered that this medium, prone to misunderstandings, forces sender and receiver to move toward each other from opposite ends and strengthens empathy and the understanding of shared emotions.

When he began receiving requests to write cover blurbs and obi, Kojima concluded that a recommendation capable of luring someone toward a book also transmits memes, even if it lacks the prestige of creating the work. He stated that his own series of recommendation essays in Da Vinci would not have been possible without his prior encounters with King’s name on those obi.