(1960- ) Japanese sf and crime author, mainly in the Young Adult market, whose breathless, chatty style was an early harbinger of the "light novels" that dominate modern juvenile publishing in Japan. Aged seventeen, Arai first found fame in a magazine competition judged by the three most prominent sf authors in Japan, when her submission Atashi no Naka no . . . ["Inside Me . . ."] (February 1978 Kisō Tengai; 1978) was rejected by both Yoshitaka Tsutsui and Sakyō Komatsu, but praised by Shin'ichi Hoshi, who was later revealed to be a former classmate of her father. With strong family connections to the Kōdansha publishing company, Arai's subsequent career has been similarly haunted by the two-faced ghost of her heritage; her authorial vocation seems almost predestined, but also blessed with suspicious good fortune.
While studying German literature at Rikkyo University, she produced her most accomplished early work, the Seiun Award-winning Green Requiem (September 1980 Kisō Tengai; 1983 trans Naomi Anderson 1984), the protagonist of which is a girl from an Alien race of green-haired dryads. Crashlanding on Earth, she falls in love with a human, but is compelled towards suicide by the titular piece of Music: a melody that embodies her mother's command (> Basilisk) that she walk into the sea. The story artfully allegorizes the generation gap, juxtaposing star-crossed young love with the crushing, deadening weight of ossified tradition. "Neptune" (1980 publication unknown; anth 1988), was a similar sf variation on the theme of the Little Mermaid, and won the same award the following year.
The darling of the Japanese sf establishment in the early 1980s, Arai saw her work adapted as both a live-action film adaptation of Green Requiem (1985), directed by Akiyoshi Imazeki, and an {ANIME} of Tobira o Akete ["Please Open the Door"] (1986), directed by Keizo Shimizu and Tsuneo Tominaga. Among Japanese authors, only Haruki Murakami had more titles than Arai in the Kōdansha English Library programme, a Japan-only translation series often seen as the gateway to foreign attention. Creatively, however, Arai seemed satisfied with variations on earlier juvenilia. Hoshi e Iku Fune (1981 Kō-1 Course; 1981; trans Naomi Anderson as A Ship to the Stars 1984), is a pedestrian picaresque in which a teenage girl stows away on a vessel bound for the Colonization of Other Worlds. Serialized in the same magazine for schools that nourished the Toki o Kakeru Shōjo phenomenon, it eventually spawned several sequels, as did her non-sf Black Cat (1984; trans Kate McCandless 1991), the first in a series of crime capers told from the point of view of a teenage sidekick.
Ima wa mō Inai Watashi e ["To the Me that is No More"] (1988), is an account of a hospitalized girl who comes to suspect that her original self was killed in an accident, and that she is a Clone replacement. But after this promising development, Arai spent the 1990s largely on sequels or non-sf. Her youthful readership aged with her as she moved into light-hearted comedies about marriage and coupledom, not truly returning to genre form until she won the Japanese SF Grand Prix with Tigris to Euphrates ["Tigris and Euphrates"] (1999) which depicts a foiled plan to populate a new world with colonists artificially grown from frozen embryos. [JonC]
Motoko Arai
born Tokyo, Japan: 8 August 1960
died
works (selected)
series
Ship to the Stars
- Hoshi e Iku Fune
(Tokyo: Shūeisha Cobalt, 1981) [Ship to the Stars: ??/] - A Ship to the Stars (Tokyo: Kōdansha English Library, 1984) [Japan-only trans of the above by Naomi Anderson: Ship to the Stars: pb/]
- Soshite, Hoshi e Iku Fune ["And Then . . . A Ship to the Stars"] (Tokyo: Shūeisha Cobalt, 1987) [Ship to the Stars: ??/]
- Hoshi Kara Kita Fune ["A Ship From the Stars"] (Tokyo: Shūeisha, 1992) [published in three volumes: Ship to the Stars: ??/Keiko Takemiya]
Green Requiem
Black Cat
- Black Cat (Tokyo: Kisō Tengai-sha, 1984) [Black Cat: ??/Eiko Ishizeki]
- Black Cat (Tokyo: Kōdansha English Library, 1991) [Japan-only trans of the above by Kate McCandless: Black Cat: pb/]
- Knight Fork (Tokyo: Shūeisha, 1985) [Black Cat: ??/Eiko Ishizeki]
- Castling (Tokyo: Shūeisha, 1994) [published in 2 volumes: Black Cat: ??/]
- Checkmate (Tokyo: Shūeisha, 2003) [published in 2 volumes: Black Cat: ??/]
individual titles (selected)
- Atashi no Naka no . . . ["Inside Me . . ."] (Tokyo: Kisō Tengai-sha, 1978) [??/]
- Itsuka Neko ni Naru made ["Until the Day I Become a Cat"] (Tokyo: Shūeisha Cobalt, 1980) [??/Hirone Shii]
- Shū ni Ichido no Shokuji o ["Meals Once a Week"] (Tokyo: Shūeisha Cobalt, 1980) [??/]
- Hitome Anata e ["To You, At a Glance"] (Tokyo: Shūeisha Cobalt, 1981) [??/]
- Calendar Girl (Tokyo: Shūeisha, 1983) [??/Keiko {TAKEMIYA}]
- . . . Zekku [". . . Speechless"] (Tokyo: Hayakawa Shobō, 1983) [published in two volumes: ??/]
- Labyrinth (Tokyo: Tokuma Shoten, 1984) [??/]
- Tobira o Akete ["Please Open the Door"] (Tokyo: CBS Sony, 1984) [??/]
- Hideo to Motoko no Ai no Kōkan Nikki ["Hideo and Motoko's Love Exchange Diary"] (Tokyo: Kadokawa Shoten, 1984) [published in four volumes: with Hideo {AZUMA}: ??/]
- Anata ni Koko ni Ite Hoshii ["Wish You Were Here"] (Tokyo: Bunka Shuppan, 1984) [??/]
- Aishiteru kai SF ["Do You Love SF?"] (Tokyo: Shapio, 1985) [??/]
- Neverland Party: Arai Motoko to Jugonin no Mangaka ["Neverland Party: Motoko Arai and 15 Manga Artists"] (Tokyo: Shinshokan, 1985) [??/]
- Arai Motoko no Science Odyssey ["Motoko Arai's Science Odyssey"] (Tokyo: Shinshokan, 1985) [??/]
- Kekkon Monogatari ["Wedding Story"] (Tokyo: Kadokawa Shoten, 1986) [published in three volumes: pb/]
- Sakaurami Nemesis ["Mutually Hostile Nemesis"] (Tokyo: Shūeisha, 1986) [??/]
- Arai Motoko no Hatena Kyōshitsu ["Motoko Arai's Q+A Classroom"] (Tokyo: Tokuma Shoten, 1987) [nonfiction: ??/]
- Shinkon Monogatari ["Honeymoon Story"] (Tokyo: Kadokawa Shoten, 1986) [published in three volumes: pb/]
- Ima wa mō Inai Watashi e ["To The Me That Is No More"] (Tokyo: Tairiku, 1988) [anth: ??/]
- Tigris to Euphrates ["Tigris and Euphrates"] (Tokyo: Shūeisha, 1999) [??/]
- Happy Birthday (Tokyo: Kadokawa Shoten, 2002) [??/]
- Shiki no Hanashi ["Tales of the Seasons"] (Tokyo: Booking, 2005) [chap: ??/]
- Chiisa na Ohanashi ["Little Stories"] (Tokyo: Shūeisha, 2007) [coll: ??/]
- Mo Ichido Anata to Aitai na ["Want to See You One More Time"] (Tokyo: Shūeisha, 2010) [??/]
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