Favorite, burning

Translator's Note

Debuted at the age of 19 with "Mother (Kaka)", and became the youngest recipient of the 2020 Mishima Yukio Award!
At age 21, his second work, "My Love, Burning," won the 2021 Akutagawa Prize.

“My favorite taught me that there is someone I can pour my all into.”
--- From the text

Usami Rin's "My Love, Burning", which was published in the summer of 2020 in the Kawade Shobo literary magazine "Bungei" and caused a huge stir on social media, was published as soon as the serialization ended, and has now been published by Media Changbi.
Usami Rin, born in 1999 and currently a college student, is a hot new novelist who debuted in 2019 by winning a literary award for “Mother (Kaka, forthcoming work)” and has been receiving much attention from the Japanese literary world and media by becoming the youngest ever winner of the Yukio Mishima Award in 2020.
Published in September 2020, "My Favorite, Burning" won the Akutagawa Prize, Japan's most prestigious literary award, in January 2021 and has since swept the top spots in Japanese bookstores. It also achieved the top spot in book sales in Japan for approximately six months from November 24, 2020, to May 21, 2020, with a cumulative circulation of 500,000 copies.

“My favorite one burned down.”

The first sentence of this novel is powerful.
As the title suggests, which is a direct translation of the original title, 'Burnt' means that it became the subject of controversy, with strong criticism and condemnation occurring online.
One night, Akari's favorite idol, Masaki, becomes the center of an online controversy.
Akari, who wanted to know everything he saw, heard, and thought, wrote down and interpreted every word he said on her blog without missing a word, only worries about her favorite, even in the face of the controversy over "hitting a fan."

Often dismissed as fleeting passion or recklessness, or as "escapism" or "dependence," Usami Rin invites readers to sit beside Akari, who loves her lover, her "only reason to live," more earnestly than anyone else.
Why do we create and cheer for our favorites?
In this era where "fandom" is widely shared as a cultural code around the world, literary works that delve deeply into the very emotions that keep us alive, the emotions that we cannot endure without attachment to something, are rare.
Moreover, as we follow Akari's heart, which passionately suffers the process of love's birth and demise as "pain," there comes a moment when we nod our heads to the relationship in which we can freely pour out our affection within the stability provided by the distance between the stage and the audience, between the star and the anonymous fan.

Usami Rin said in a media interview, “I don’t think there is any reason for me to be pointed at or booed for being ‘wrong’ just because it was one-sided, because the other person didn’t give me the same amount of emotions as I expected.
Akari explained, “In a ‘minus state where even if you’re alive, the aftereffects come like wrinkles,’ you desperately row to become either zero or one, and you move and live by cheering on your favorite person as a driving force.”
Sayaka Murata, the author of “Convenience Store Human,” said, “In every word of the novel, the nerves and cells that only this author can use were vividly conveyed.” Regarding the “world of favorites” vividly and precisely captured by the 99-year-old author who believes that it depends on how one uses SNS rather than anonymous malice, “In every word of the novel, the nerves and cells that only this author can use were vividly conveyed.
He expressed his appreciation, saying, “This soon led to the joy of reading,” and strongly recommended it.


In reality, Akari is always feeling down, unable to bear the weight of life.
At school, at work, and at home, he is treated like a burden by everyone because he cannot adapt to them.
Akari finds her own presence heavy and annoying.
The only reason Akari lives is to 'sell her love.'
My love for my best friend began one day when I was seventeen, when I came face to face with Peter Pan, a green figure that vaguely remained in my first childhood memory and said, “I don’t want to grow up.”
Only after feeling love does Akari finally feel alive.

The first thing I felt was pain.
A sharp, deep-seated pain that suddenly stabs, then a pain similar to the shock of being pushed.
When the boy with his hand on the windowsill sneaked into the room and dangled his short booted toes, the small, pointed tips of his boots dug into my heart and I kicked them away without a second thought.
(Omitted) As if from a single point of pain, the body regained its senses, and the world became clear with colors and light emanating from the crude image.

--- p.15-16

Choi Ae, the child actor who played Peter Pan, has now become a member of an idol group.
From the moment she found him again, Akari couldn't get away from him.
I spend all the money I earn from my part-time job on buying CDs, goods, and going to concerts.
Akari's daily life revolves around her favorite's activities, and Akari, who has difficulty forming relationships with her family, teachers, and friends, naturally connects with people beyond the window of her phone through her favorite.

When we wake up in the morning, we say hello, on Monday mornings, we complain and go to work or school, and on Fridays, under the pretext of a 'club that loves its favorites', we upload photos of our favorites and stay up all night chattering about how cute this is and that is, and as a result, we have become close people who share our lives through the screen.
Just as I have an image of being a calm and composed person here, perhaps other people are a little different from me in reality.
Still, the world I participated in as a half-fictional person was warm.
Shouting out love to everyone has become a part of our daily lives.

--- p.41

Then one day, my favorite became embroiled in controversy online.
He said he hit the fan.
It is difficult for Akari to make a decision amidst the rumors spreading like wildfire.
I'm just worried about my favorite person right now.
I thought that the only thing I could do was to cheer on my favorite even more thoroughly… … .
What choice will Akari, who has barely managed to hold on to her powerlessness with her 'favorite' as her driving force, be able to make?
If Akari's "spine" is her favorite even after everything else has been taken away, then Usami Rin said in the press conference after winning the Akutagawa Prize, "I've always thought that novels are my spine, and that I can live because of novels.
He confidently declared his ambition to “continue to do my best without change.”

For those who love and spend their 'favorite days' with their 'favorites', regardless of who they are or what they are, and share in their accomplishments, they might get goosebumps discovering their own daily lives in 'Favorite, Burning'.
Perhaps the longing of the people in 'their world', which we could not understand, may finally reach a point of understanding deep within our hearts.
Perhaps that is the role given to literary works, and as the latest contemporary novel of 2021, this one novel is perfect.