Kosuke Gomi's "Mogami" is a short story that overlays the tense world of swordsmanship fiction with the presence of aging and death. In hard-edged prose, it depicts the inner life of a figure at the height of martial skill and the end of life that cannot be measured by victory or defeat alone.

This Akutagawa Prize-winning story looks beyond the outcome of swordplay toward aging and death.

Aru Kokura Nikki Den is Matsumoto Seicho's Akutagawa Prize-winning story about a young man and his mother pursuing Mori Ogai's years in Kokura. Through the obsession of an unknown person gathering materials and the harsh reality that such effort is rarely rewarded, it shows the social gaze at the starting point of Seicho's fiction.

In the obsession of an unknown young man tracing Ogai's footsteps lies the origin of Seicho's literature.