The Vocationologist

by Issui Ogawa, translated by Camden Hine 1 “The next customer is ready,” my assistant called from the waiting room. The young man entered the interview room and looked around as I rose from the sofa to observe his appearance. He had a medium build and was wearing jeans with a long-sleeved pinstripe dress shirt….

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Editorial 1.2

by Amanda Weiss Dear Reader, Welcome to HIVEMIND Volume 1 Issue 2: Japan x Future. Our second issue explores Japanese visions of the future, American visions of Japan, and all of the intersections, homages, and cross-cultural flows between. As with our last issue, we began with a reading list. Our team of graduate students (assistant…

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Aneutronic Love Song for the New Century

by dm armstrong Mia couldn’t sleep on the plane. The call from DOD last week had been cryptic. “You’ll be traveling soon, is that right?” “Giving a lecture in Lisbon,” she’d said. “It’s been on the books for months.” “If anyone asks, you’re adding a stop to your itinerary.” “Where?” “Japan.” “Japan isn’t exactly tacking…

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Interview with Masahiko Inoue

by Rebecca Seippel We spoke with Masahiko Inoue about his short story, But First, a Toast (Shukuhai wo mae ni shite). Toast is a fictionalized account of Inoue’s experiences visiting the 1995 Son of Famous Monsters of Filmland world convention held in Universal City, California. Read the story here, published in our Japan x Future issue. In the following interview, we include both the original Japanese and the English translation.  Seippel: You first began your career as a writer…

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Fingers

by Edogawa Ranpo, translated by Yeu-Ann Huang, illustrated by Emerson Barrett Image Content Warning: Blood Music played by Sofi Sanders The patient slowly woke up from the anesthesia and saw my face.  Thick and heavy bandages were wrapped around his right hand, but he had no inkling that it had been severed from the wrist down. He was a…

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