Hoshi Shinichi - Short Shorts

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