Hoshi Shinichi – Short Shorts
Posted on 13. Nov, 2008 @ 11:36 pm by harvey in Books, Language
Shinichi Hoshi (星新一) was a Japanese author from Tokyo who lived from 1926 to 1997. He is famous for writing extremely short (4 or 5 pages) science fiction short stories for adults. Many of them have a dark twist to them at the end.
I was introduced three of his stories in the Japanese class that I am auditing now. My two favorite were おーいでてこーい (oi! detekoi! – Hey! Come out of there!), and ボッコちゃん (Bokko-chan) written in 1958.
You can see a video recreation of the おーいでてこーい story on YouTube.
The animated short for ボッコちゃん starts at 6:40 in this video.
There was another story called 約束 (yakusoko – Promise), of which I’m not a huge fan is the first story on that same video clip.
They’re all in Japanese with no subtitles… But the endings are always interesting so I don’t want to spoil anything by giving away the plot.
I wish I could find the full text of his stories online, but I’m not having any luck… If you’re interested, and in Japan, head to a Book-Off or something and grab a copy of his story collections! They’re short, quick, and interesting, so great for learning Japanese!
Other Hoshi Shinichi stuff around the web:
Shinichi Hoshi Official Site
Some foreigners re-enacting Bokko-chan
3 Responses to “Hoshi Shinichi – Short Shorts”
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Sea Jackal
Nov 14th, 2008
at 00:56
Interesting. Thanks for the recommendation.
Brian
Nov 14th, 2008
at 03:43
How cool. The first one, おーいでてこーい, is in the English textbook I use for Junior High students in Tokyo. But there is no mention of the author or anything.
Harvey
Nov 14th, 2008
at 17:41
Brian: Wow, I wonder if the students know the author? Some how I doubt it… Why wouldn’t the list that? Strange! Maybe they don’t want the kids to stumble upon his darker works?