Cover
Published by VIZ Media, LLC 295 Bay Street, San Francisco, CA 94133
© 1999 Koushun Takami.
English translation © 2003 by Yuji Oniki/VIZ Media, LLC.
All rights reserved.
First published in Japan by Ota Shuppan in 1999
"Born To Run" by Bruce Springsteen.
Copyright © 1975 Bruce Springsteen (ASCAP).
All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission.
Excerpt from HOMAGE TO CATALONIA by George Orwell, copyright 1952 and renewed 1980 by Sonia Brownell Orwell, reprinted by permission of Harcourt, Inc.
Editorial acknowledgement: Tomo Machiyama
No unauthorized reproduction of any portion of this book is permitted without written consent of the publisher. The stories, characters, institutions, and incidents mentioned in this book are entirely fictional.
Any resemblance is purely coincidental.
Printed in the U.S.A.
ISBN 1-56931-778-X
First printing, February 2003 Twelfth printing, March 2008
I dedicate this to everyone I love.
Even though it might not be appreciated.
"A student is not a tangerine."
———Kinpachi Sakamoto, Third Year Class B, Kinpachi Sensei
"But tramps like us, baby we were born to run"
———Bruce Springsteen, "Born to Run"
"It's so hard to love"
———Motoharu Sano, "It's So Hard to Love"
"During all those last weeks I spent there, there was a peculiar evil feeling in the air———an atmosphere of suspicion, fear, uncertainty, and veiled hatred. You seemed to spend all your time holding whispered conversations in corners of cafes and wondering whether that person at the next table was a police spy.
"I do not know if I can bring home to you how deeply that action touched me. It sounds a small thing, but it was not. You have got to realize what was the feeling of the time———the horrible atmosphere of suspicion and hatred."
———George Orwell, Homage to Catalonia