002: public vilification has a gender

there are those who hunt for fortune, and those hunted because of it. this novella centres on femme fatale onizuka kumako, whose guilt has already been decided by the public for a murder she may not have committed.

she is vilified by a society so steeped in gender bias that every expectation of a woman becomes a verdict. they do not hate her only for her dubious past or questionable associates, but for her refusal to bend to their will and accept defeat like a ‘good’ woman should.

her prosecution is largely orchestrated by moichi akitani, the parasitic reporter convinced of her guilt. what begins as his pursuit of a journalistic magnum opus soon warps into something more desperate. as he realises the magnitude and irreversibility of his error, he hunts and hounds anyone connected to the case for even a smidgen of information, anything he can use to shape his own trajectory of the truth.

as the narrative unfolds, it becomes clear that the hunter can become the hunted, not by others, but by their own vanity, with consequences beyond imagining.

in just 77 pages, matsumoto exposes what bias and dark desire can do to the mind and heart.