This time, I have gone against the words of Kūkai, and I have laid down my pen.

July 25, 2016

There were two incidents that morning—both early, very early.
I thought to myself, So, this fellow is scheming something again. He must be trying to reduce my search numbers.

Google, too, is a company that, by publishing nonsense such as “SEO measures” for its own profit, encourages the evil that pervades the Internet.
By allowing and leaving untouched the malicious use of so-called reverse SEO by criminals, Google has in fact aided countless digital crimes.
I believe Europe was right to take a hard stance against Google.

It cannot even be compared with those who invented the World Wide Web and released it freely for the benefit of humanity, or with Ken Sakamura, who created TRON without ever thinking of making a single yen of profit.
Google is nothing more than a corporation devoted solely to self-interest.

When I returned from Kyoto and tried to log in to Goo, I couldn’t.
Again? I thought, and searched for “文明のターンテーブル” (“Turntable of Civilization”).
Just as in the first instance earlier this month, Ameba, Amazon, and Goo used to appear together—but this time, Goo had been completely erased.

When I thought it a waste to simply store the tens of thousands of photos I had taken—mainly of Kyoto—on my PC, I discovered the existence of PIXTA.
I applied.
After a long screening process, about half of my twenty submissions passed and were published.
As PIXTA recommended, I announced it on my blog.

Immediately, the criminal mentioned earlier—using his real name, which he had hidden until then—attached, beneath a photo of “Akutagawa Kenji,” a blog that defamed and obstructed my work under that name on Twitter.

The lawyer I had consulted was not of the computer generation.
He hated the Internet and told me, “You should ask a younger lawyer to handle cybercrime.”
I contacted the Bar Association, was introduced to a younger attorney, and filed a criminal complaint with the Osaka Prefectural Police.

At the same time, I changed the name “Akutagawa Kenji.”

When I called the lawyer, he returned my call that evening.
“Regarding the issue of not being able to log in to your site—do you know any system engineers? Ask one of them to check what’s causing it.”
“I don’t personally know anyone,” I replied.

I called one person I could think of, but he didn’t answer—probably out drinking with colleagues.
Then I called another: a close friend of thirty years, a company president with whom I have always had a warm friendship.

“This man, he was basically a door-to-door salesman, wasn’t he?”
He said this after reading the criminal record posted online.
We had both been so angry that we hadn’t even wanted to read the details.

“Something about selling solar power systems door to door…”
“Ah yes, he used to say that whenever he came to our office back then.”

The next morning, I got a call first thing.
“There’s only one system engineer in the whole company who can handle this, so it might be difficult today, but…”
I explained my situation and hung up.
Soon after, I received another call: he would come at three o’clock.

“This is terrible,” he said when he arrived. “I’ve never seen anything like this in a private household.”

I remembered June 1, 2011—the day the crimes of that man began—right after I decided, from my hospital bed, to publish The Turntable of Civilization and announced it on my blog.
When one searched for “文明のターンテーブル” or “Akutagawa Kenji,” pages one through ten were filled with slanderous, intolerable content—malicious defamation and obstruction of business.

The publisher, Kinokuniya Umeda Main Store, and I were all confident that a certain number of copies would sell.
But my debut work by an unknown author was dealt a fatal blow by this “bottomless evil”—the relentless malice and plausible lies born of the genetic disposition of those who live in a nation of deceit.

It is obvious to anyone that The Turntable of Civilization should not have to exist in such an environment—a place where such criminals are allowed to dwell so brazenly.

This time, I have gone against the words of Kūkai, and I have laid down my pen.

[Text omitted hereafter.]