Spark (Matayoshi Novel)
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Spark (Matayoshi Novel)
''Spark'' (original title: 火花) is a 2015 novel written by Japanese comedian Naoki Matayoshi. The story revolves around the career struggles of and relationship between two manzai comedians. The English version of the novel is translated by Alison Watts and published in 2020. The novel won the 153rd Akutagawa Prize and was adapted as a Netflix original series which is accessible worldwide. Synopsis Tokunaga is a young comedian struggling to make a name for himself when he is taken under the wing of Kamiya, who is either a crazy genius or perhaps just crazy. Kamiya's indestructible confidence inspires Tokunaga, but it also makes him doubt the limits of his own talent, and dedication to manzai comedy. Reception Sales As of February 2017, the Japanese version of the book has sold more than 2.53 million copies. Awards * The 153rd Akutagawa Prize The is a Japanese literary award presented biannually. Because of its prestige and the considerable attention the winner ...
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Japanese Language
is spoken natively by about 128 million people, primarily by Japanese people and primarily in Japan, the only country where it is the national language. Japanese belongs to the Japonic or Japanese- Ryukyuan language family. There have been many attempts to group the Japonic languages with other families such as the Ainu, Austroasiatic, Koreanic, and the now-discredited Altaic, but none of these proposals has gained widespread acceptance. Little is known of the language's prehistory, or when it first appeared in Japan. Chinese documents from the 3rd century AD recorded a few Japanese words, but substantial Old Japanese texts did not appear until the 8th century. From the Heian period (794–1185), there was a massive influx of Sino-Japanese vocabulary into the language, affecting the phonology of Early Middle Japanese. Late Middle Japanese (1185–1600) saw extensive grammatical changes and the first appearance of European loanwords. The basis of the standard dialect moved f ...
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Japan
Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north toward the East China Sea, Philippine Sea, and Taiwan in the south. Japan is a part of the Ring of Fire, and spans Japanese archipelago, an archipelago of List of islands of Japan, 6852 islands covering ; the five main islands are Hokkaido, Honshu (the "mainland"), Shikoku, Kyushu, and Okinawa Island, Okinawa. Tokyo is the Capital of Japan, nation's capital and largest city, followed by Yokohama, Osaka, Nagoya, Sapporo, Fukuoka, Kobe, and Kyoto. Japan is the List of countries and dependencies by population, eleventh most populous country in the world, as well as one of the List of countries and dependencies by population density, most densely populated and Urbanization by country, urbanized. About three-fourths of Geography of Japan, the c ...
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Pushkin Press
Pushkin Press is a British-based publishing house dedicated to publishing novels, essays, memoirs and children's books. The London-based company was founded in 1997 and is notable for publishing authors such as Stefan Zweig, Marcel Aymé, Antal Szerb, Paul Morand and Yasushi Inoue, as well as award-winning contemporary writers, including Andrés Neuman, Edith Pearlman, Ayelet Gundar-Goshen, Eka Kurniawan and Ryu Murakami. History Pushkin Press was founded in 1997 by Melissa Ulfane whose ambition was to bring literature in translation to the UK. Pushkin Press is notable for rediscovering less known European classics of the twentieth century and is largely responsible for reigniting worldwide interest into authors such as Stefan Zweig and Antal Szerb. In 2012, Pushkin Press was bought by Adam Freudenheim, then Penguin Classics publisher, and Stephanie Seegmuller, a former Penguin senior business development manager. Seegmuller left Pushkin in March 2015. In 2013, Pushkin ...
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Novel
A novel is a relatively long work of narrative fiction, typically written in prose and published as a book. The present English word for a long work of prose fiction derives from the for "new", "news", or "short story of something new", itself from the la, novella, a singular noun use of the neuter plural of ''novellus'', diminutive of ''novus'', meaning "new". Some novelists, including Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Ann Radcliffe, John Cowper Powys, preferred the term "romance" to describe their novels. According to Margaret Doody, the novel has "a continuous and comprehensive history of about two thousand years", with its origins in the Ancient Greek and Roman novel, in Chivalric romance, and in the tradition of the Italian renaissance novella.Margaret Anne Doody''The True Story of the Novel'' New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1996, rept. 1997, p. 1. Retrieved 25 April 2014. The ancient romance form was revived by Romanticism, especially the histori ...
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Naoki Matayoshi
is a Japanese comedian, screenwriter, and novelist who won the Akutagawa Prize in 2015 for his book ', which was adapted into the Netflix series '' Hibana: Spark''. Matayoshi is the '' boke'' of his comedy duo ''Peace'' alongside his partner Yuji Ayabe. Ayabe left Japan for New York in 2016 to continue his comedic career overseas while Matayoshi stayed in Japan, effectively making the duo inactive since then. He is from Neyagawa City in Osaka Prefecture. He graduated from Hokuyo Senior High School (presently Kansai University Hokuyo Senior High School). Filmography Film *''The Great Passage'' (2013) – Togawa *''Sekai no Owari kara'' (2023) Television *''The Untold Story: How Tezuka created his "Black Jack"'' (2013) – Fujio Akatsuka *''Botchan'' (2016) – Natsume Sōseki *''Segodon'' (2018) – Tokugawa Iesada *''Maiagare!'' (2022) – Iwao Yagi Bibliography * ', Bungeishunjū, 2015, * ', Shogakukan, 2016, * ', Shinchosha is a publisher founded in 1896 in Japan and ...
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Manzai
is a traditional style of comedy in Japanese culture comparable to double act comedy or stand-up comedy. usually involves two performers ()—a straight man () and a double act, funny man ()—trading jokes at great speed. Most of the jokes revolve around mutual misunderstandings, double-talk, puns and other verbal gags. In recent times, has often been associated with the Osaka region, and comedians often speak in the Kansai dialect during their acts. In 1933, Yoshimoto Kogyo, a large entertainment conglomerate based in Osaka, introduced Osaka-style to Tokyo audiences, and coined the term "" (one of several ways of writing the word in Japanese; see below). In 2015, Matayoshi Naoki's manzai novel, , won the Akutagawa Prize. A mini-series adaptation was released on Netflix in 2016. History Originally based around a festival to welcome the Japanese New Year, New Year, traces its origins back to the Heian period. The two performers came with messages from the gods and t ...
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Akutagawa Prize
The is a Japanese literary award presented biannually. Because of its prestige and the considerable attention the winner receives from the media, it is, along with the Naoki Prize, one of Japan's most sought after literary prizes. History The Akutagawa Prize was established in 1935 by Kan Kikuchi, then-editor of ''Bungeishunjū'' magazine, in memory of author Ryūnosuke Akutagawa. It is currently sponsored by the Society for the Promotion of Japanese Literature, and is awarded in January and July to the best serious literary story published in a newspaper or magazine by a new or rising author. The winner receives a pocket watch and a cash award of 1 million yen. The judges usually include contemporary writers, literary critics, and former winners of the prize. Occasionally, when consensus cannot be reached between judges over disputes about the winning story or the quality of work for that half year, no prize is awarded. From 1945 through 1948 no prizes were awarded due to po ...
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Netflix
Netflix, Inc. is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service and production company based in Los Gatos, California. Founded in 1997 by Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph in Scotts Valley, California, it offers a film and television series library through distribution deals as well as its own productions, known as Netflix Originals. As of September 2022, Netflix had 222 million subscribers worldwide, including 73.3 million in the United States and Canada; 73.0 million in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, 39.6 million in Latin America and 34.8 million in the Asia-Pacific region. It is available worldwide aside from Mainland China, Syria, North Korea, and Russia. Netflix has played a prominent role in independent film distribution, and it is a member of the Motion Picture Association (MPA). Netflix can be accessed via web browsers or via application software installed on smart TVs, set-top boxes connected to televisions, tablet computers, smartph ...
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List Of Netflix Original Programming
Netflix is an American global Internet streaming-on-demand media provider that has distributed a number of original streaming television shows, including original series, specials, miniseries, and documentaries and films. Netflix's original productions also include continuations of canceled series from other networks, as well as licensing or co-producing content from international broadcasters for exclusive broadcast in other territories, which is also branded in those regions as Netflix original content. Netflix previously produced content through Red Envelope Entertainment. The company has since increased its original content. All programming is in English unless stated otherwise, is organized by its primary genre or format, and is sorted by premiere date. These shows had their original production commissioned by Netflix, or had additional seasons commissioned by Netflix. Drama Comedy Kids & family Animation Adult animation Anime Kids & family Non-English langua ...
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Spark
Spark commonly refers to: * Spark (fire), a small glowing particle or ember * Electric spark, a form of electrical discharge Spark may also refer to: Places * Spark Point, a rocky point in the South Shetland Islands People * Spark (surname) * Jessica Morgan (born 1992; formerly known as Spark), female singer-songwriter from East London Companies and organisations * Spark (architects), an international architectural firm * Spark (U.S. organization), a Trotskyist group * Spark Energy, a UK electricity and gas supplier * Spark Infrastructure, an investor in Australian infrastructure assets * Spark New Zealand, a telecommunications company * Spark Unlimited, a computer game developer * Spark Networks SE, an online dating company * Spark Racing Technology, a French motorsport manufacturer specializing in electric racecars Computer science * Adobe Spark, a suite of media applications developed by Adobe Systems * Apache Spark, a cluster computing framework * Cisco Spark (application ...
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2015 Japanese Novels
Fifteen or 15 may refer to: *15 (number), the natural number following 14 and preceding 16 *one of the years 15 BC, AD 15, 1915, 2015 Music *Fifteen (band), a punk rock band Albums * ''15'' (Buckcherry album), 2005 * ''15'' (Ani Lorak album), 2007 * ''15'' (Phatfish album), 2008 * ''15'' (mixtape), a 2018 mixtape by Bhad Bhabie * ''Fifteen'' (Green River Ordinance album), 2016 * ''Fifteen'' (The Wailin' Jennys album), 2017 * ''Fifteen'', a 2012 album by Colin James Songs * "Fifteen" (song), a 2008 song by Taylor Swift *"Fifteen", a song by Harry Belafonte from the album '' Love Is a Gentle Thing'' *"15", a song by Rilo Kiley from the album ''Under the Blacklight'' *"15", a song by Marilyn Manson from the album ''The High End of Low'' *"The 15th", a 1979 song by Wire Other uses *Fifteen, Ohio, a community in the United States * ''15'' (film), a 2003 Singaporean film * ''Fifteen'' (TV series), international release name of ''Hillside'', a Canadian-American teen drama *Fif ...
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Novels Set In Tokyo
A novel is a relatively long work of narrative fiction, typically written in prose and published as a book. The present English word for a long work of prose fiction derives from the for "new", "news", or "short story of something new", itself from the la, novella, a singular noun use of the neuter plural of ''novellus'', diminutive of ''novus'', meaning "new". Some novelists, including Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Ann Radcliffe, John Cowper Powys, preferred the term "romance" to describe their novels. According to Margaret Doody, the novel has "a continuous and comprehensive history of about two thousand years", with its origins in the Ancient Greek and Roman novel, in Chivalric romance, and in the tradition of the Italian renaissance novella.Margaret Anne Doody''The True Story of the Novel'' New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1996, rept. 1997, p. 1. Retrieved 25 April 2014. The ancient romance form was revived by Romanticism, especially the histori ...
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