It's nice to meet everyone for the first time. I'm Isshi, and with my Coach's favour I've been allowed to put my serial stories here.*1 Now, on the first night, I want to give a self introduction and talk about my meeting with Coach, and write a little about the goal of my stories.
I think some of you may already know, but the truth is that I'm a musician. (laughs) And for quite a while I've been doing the vocals in a band called Kagrra.*2 Nevertheless, with an intense love for natural ghost stories and unconventional romance, I started an irregular talk live called "Isshi Mimibukuro"*3 along with my Coach. To tell you the truth, the person I've been calling 'Coach' for some time is the author of "Shin Mimibukuro," Kihara Hirokatsu. As well as my teacher he's like a hero and a father to me, and my Coach for ghost stories. It was more than 10 years ago from now, when I met with the ghastly blue "Shin Mimibukuro～dai ichi yoru～"*4 and because of that book, my life was changed. From the time I was young I adored strange stories, and having read all of those I could get my hands on, I was often badgering the adults and friends around me with scary talk, but eventually my stories had poor development, weak credibility, or lack of surprise, so before I knew it they were numb to fear. How could that be? "Shin Mimibukuro" had those stories and fresh persuasive power, so in the end it couldn't be helped and my frozen mind was splendidly thawed out. After that there was a huge change. While I was reading story by story I started having a particular interest in my Coach as an author, just like a little girl falling in love. Dreaming that I'd meet my Coach someday, I endeavored to work hard in music activities as well as collecting and writing ghost stories.
And since I'm a man of immediate action, it occurred to me before long, "I want to do a ghost story live on my own!!" So I told our band leader Izumi and got him involved, and we started an event called "Kaidan Kidan"*5 at the same venue. All five of the events were completed under that same name, and at most were held twice a year, so that in the end it took four years by the time we approached the fifth event. But at that fifth and final event, it worked out that my Coach appeared as a guest. At that time, I certainly wasn't very good, in fact I was a complete novice at telling ghost stories, but I remember that listening to my Coach's skill with storytelling gave me goosebumps and made me break into a grin. (laughs) So from that time on I aspired to be a serious writer, and on that stage I forcibly volunteered myself as an apprentice to my Coach. And having that bond, the two of us were able to begin events called "Isshi Mimibukuro."
*2 - This was written in 2010.
*3 - Isshi Mimibukuro is a talk live that started on December 13th of 2010 at the venue Shinjuku Loft Plus One. It continued up until September 9th of 2011 with the 14th talk live. From now on, we plan to have an Isshi Mimibukuro on July 18th of every year, Isshi's death anniversary.
*4 - It was a special volume published by Mediafactory. Now the full series of Shin Mimibukuro is published by Kadokawa.
*5 - Started at Loft with "-Ki-" on August 15th of 2003, and the final was "Kai" on December 9th of 2006.
*6 - In 2008, "Hoozuki" was born as the Shin Mimibukuro special image song for broadcasting on BS-i (now BS-TBS).
*7 - A broadcasting school. Matsuzawa is a lecturer there.
*8 - It's a concept without foundation. After the first story there's no relation to music. Entirely...