Small Corners in a Big City

by Yoshimasa Ogawa

Each story in this collection unveils a struggle with everyday problems in the big city. A bankrupt entrepreneur flees in the middle of the night, considers suicide, and then has a chance encounter with someone who provides a ray of hope. Members of a high-school judo club are tortured by the uncompromising regimen of the new coach, but a turn of events reveals the man's true character and qualities. A foreign student, successful as a long-distance runner, returns home and witnesses a phenomenal change that had taken place during his absence. A quiet young woman is dumped by her selfish fiancé-and ridiculed by her colleagues-so she takes revenge in a unique but clever way. A young employee at a prestigious business firm badmouths a homeless man living by the river but is then forced to confront his own biases. The problems and issues in these accounts give a multifaceted view of various sections and strata of the Tokyo metropolitan city.