This chapter recounts how major media and institutions mobilized to alter the North Yard development plan, and how, amid a solitary struggle against them, the author gave birth to the persona “Kenji Akutagawa.”

2015-12-31

They even broadcast on the 6 p.m. news footage of children being made to write, “Please build a soccer stadium and invite the World Cup.”
With such a glamorous lineup fully mobilized, the Asahi Shimbun threw the North Yard development plan into confusion, first delaying the start of the project by a year and a half.
Regarding the plan for the second phase of development, in a move that effectively nullified my solitary struggle, they now dragged in the Football Association as well, proposing to build a soccer stadium and invite the World Cup, even involving NHK.
They had the children of Minoh Elementary School write requests to change the second phase of the North Yard development plan, to build a soccer stadium, and to invite the World Cup, and broadcast that footage on the 6 p.m. news.
By that time, after fighting alone for three months against Kansai Economic Federation, the Association of Corporate Executives, and Osaka City Hall, I naturally thought, give me a break.
I cannot devote any more time to this.
I cannot do the same thing again.
It was at that moment that Kenji Akutagawa was born.
To be continued.