A summer festival, ten goldfish stalls, and one legendary challenger

Summer festival goldfish-scooping illustration
Illustration supplied by the author for 風のチカラ (Kaze no Chikara).

Ten goldfish-scooping stalls. One summer festival. One legendary challenger.

In 風のチカラ (Kaze no Chikara), a story in Eikyo Matsunaga’s Japanese short-story collection 一応、文学です。, a federation of goldfish-stall owners finally wins a place at a major summer festival. Their dream is a whole “goldfish-scooping road”: ten stalls lined up along ten metres.

Then a telephone call changes the mood. A man wearing a goldfish-patterned happi coat has returned—a legendary scooper who can empty a stall’s tank. The federation’s chairman, Uozumi Danjuro, fears that their long-awaited celebration is about to become a confrontation.

The appeal is the scale of their seriousness. A small festival pastime becomes a matter of pride and preparation. What will the stall owners do when their greatest challenger arrives? The final technique and the outcome remain for readers to discover.

The story and its festival are fictional.

About the book

風のチカラ is collected in 一応、文学です。 by Eikyo Matsunaga (松長英京). The collection is now also available in English as Literature, More or Less. This article is an English introduction to the Japanese story.

Explore the collection and Japanese sample · Find the English edition on Amazon

Watch the English rice-clinic trailer for another story in the same collection.

Author’s official website

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