Kakeru Kobashiri (虎走かける ''Kobashiri Kakeru'', born 1986) is a Japanese novelist and game scenario writer. She is from Tokyo, Japan and graduated from the

Open University of Japan is a distance learning university which has students from all over Japan; it accepted its first students in 1985. History Although founded by the national government initiative with a single-issue law and heavily subsidized by the government, i ...

. In 2013, she won the 20th

Dengeki Novel Prize The is a literary award handed out annually (since 1994) by the Japanese publisher ASCII Media Works (formerly MediaWorks) for their Dengeki Bunko light novel imprint. The contest has discovered many popular and successful light novelists, like K ...

for the ''

Grimoire of Zero is a Japanese light novel series written by Kakeru Kobashiri and illustrated by Yoshinori Shizuma. The light novel won the Grand Prize at the 20th annual Dengeki Novel Awards. ASCII Media Works has published it in eleven volumes from Feb ...

.''

Career

Kobashiri grew up in downtown Tokyo. In Japanese class in elementary school, she was assigned to read

Hideyuki Kikuchi is a Japanese author known for his horror novels. His most famous works include the '' Vampire Hunter D'' series, ''Darkside Blues'' and '' Wicked City''. Biography Kikuchi was born in Chōshi, Japan on September 25, 1949. He attended Aoyama ...

's novel '' Demon City Blues'' which inspired her to start writing. From a young age, she was deeply fascinated by

medieval European In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire an ...

paraphernalia, and with the influence from foreign juvenile novel series such as the ''

Bartimaeus Sequence The ''Bartimaeus Sequence'' is a series of young adult novels of alternate history, fantasy and magic. It was written by British writer Jonathan Stroud and consists of a trilogy published from 2003 to 2005 and a prequel novel published in 2010 ...

The Saga of Darren Shan ''The Saga of Darren Shan'' (known as ''Cirque Du Freak: The Saga of Darren Shan'' in the United States) is a young adult 12-part book series written by Darren O'Shaughnessy about the struggle of Darren Shan, a boy who has become involved in ...

,'' and ''

The Seventh Tower ''The Seventh Tower'' is a series of six books written by Garth Nix, the result of a joint partnership between Scholastic and LucasFilm. The series follows two children from distinctly different societies in a world blocked from the sun by a mag ...

,'' Kobashiri decided to become a fantasy novelist. When she submitted her work for the 15th Dengeki Novel Prize, it reached the second round before being rejected. A few years later, Kobashiri's submission to a female-orientated label reached the final round. Under the name Koketa Kobashiri (虎走こけた, ''Kobashiri Koketa''), she submitted ''Grimoire of Zero'' for the 20th Dengeki Novel Prize and won it. After changing her pen name to Kakeru Kobashiri, she debuted as a novelist under this name on 10 February 2014. ''Grimoire of Zero'' received a manga adaptation in December of the same year, in October 2015 a spinoff manga started publishing, and the series received an

anime is hand-drawn and computer-generated animation originating from Japan. Outside of Japan and in English, ''anime'' refers specifically to animation produced in Japan. However, in Japan and in Japanese, (a term derived from a shortening of ...

adaptation in 2017. ''Grimoire of Zero'' finished publishing in December 2017 with 11 volumes. In August 2018, under Kodansha's LIGHT NOVEL imprint, Kobashiri started publishing a sequel to her previous work called ''

The Dawn of the Witch is a Japanese fantasy light novel series written by Kakeru Kobashiri and illustrated by Takashi Iwasaki, with partial character designs by Yoshinori Shizuma, and a Spin-off (media), spinoff sequel of Kobashiri's earlier series ''Grimoire of ...

.'' Just like its predecessor, it received a manga adaptation and an anime adaptation was announced in 2021. In 2019, she was in-charge of writing the main scenario for the mobile game ''Kurosu × Rogusu'' (クロス×ロゴス).

Personal life and writing style

Kobashiri has said she enjoys royal road adventure stories and romantic comedies, and that ''Grimoire'' was her way of writing a combination of both. Being that ''Grimoire'' had a

therianthropic Therianthropy is the mythological ability of human beings to metamorphose into animals or hybrids by means of shapeshifting. It is possible that cave drawings found at Les Trois Frères, in France, depict ancient beliefs in the concept. The b ...

protagonist and her work generally being filled with such characters, many speculate that Kobashiri particularly enjoys ''

kemonomimi is a form of anthropomorphism in anime and manga where '' moe'' qualities are given to non-human beings (such as animals, plants, supernatural entities and fantastical creatures), objects, concepts, or phenomena. In addition to ''moe'' feature ...

.'' However, she denies this rumor, stating "what interests her most is the dynamic found in human-nonhuman relationships" which she says extends to human-robot and human-monster relationships also. Kobashiri likes video games, and reading children's literature, picture books, manga, and movies, and has stated that ''Grimoire'' was influenced by novels such as ''

The Lord of the Rings ''The Lord of the Rings'' is an epic high-fantasy novel by English author and scholar J. R. R. Tolkien. Set in Middle-earth, intended to be Earth at some time in the distant past, the story began as a sequel to Tolkien's 1937 children's b ...

Kino's Journey , shortened to ''Kino's Journey'', is a Japanese light novel series written by Keiichi Sigsawa, with illustrations by Kouhaku Kuroboshi. The series follows a traveler named Kino and her talking motorcycle named Hermes, as they explore ...

,'' and ''

Slayers is a Japanese light novel series written by Hajime Kanzaka and illustrated by Rui Araizumi. The novels have been serialized in ''Dragon Magazine'' since 1989, before being published into individual volumes. They follow th ...

,'' as well as manga such as ''

Bastard!! is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Kazushi Hagiwara. It began its serialization in Shueisha's ''Weekly Shōnen Jump'' in 1988, and has continued irregularly in ''Ultra Jump'' since 2000, with its latest chapter released i ...

'' and '' Berserk.'' As a technical high school graduate, where she was the only female student in her class, she says she cannot write novels based on school life. In describing her how she writes, Kobashiri says that she first creates the characters before molding the setting and storyline around them. In addition, she says she is always conscious of her prose's rhythm and the tempo of her story, being careful not to distract the reader with minutiae, especially during dialogue, and avoids using difficult words and

kanji are the logographic Chinese characters taken from the Chinese family of scripts, Chinese script and used in the writing of Japanese language, Japanese. They were made a major part of the Japanese writing system during the time of Old Japanese ...

as much as possible.

Works

Novel series

* ''

'' (ゼロから始める魔法の書) (Illustrated by Yoshinori Shizuma, published by Dengeki Bunko, 11 volumes, 2014 – 2017) * ''

'' (魔法使い黎明期) (Original characters by Yoshinori Shizuma, illustrated by Takashi Iwasaki, published by Kodansha LIGHT NOVEL, 4 volumes, 2018 -)

Other

*''World End Eclipse ~Chops no Yūtsū~'' (ワールドエンドエクリプス〜チョップスの憂鬱〜) (Online short story, February 2016) *'' Faust 8: Eien no Eliza'' (永遠のエリザ) (Kodansha KC Deluxe, September 2018) *''Succubus Idol no Keiyakusha Bokkuko Succubus to Himitsu no Roomshare'' (サキュバスアイドルの契約者ボクっ娘サキュバスと秘密のルームシェア) (Published by Kodansha LIGHT NOVEL, October 2019)

Game Scenarios

*''Yuiitsusei Million Arthur'' (唯一性ミリオンアーサー) (Social network game, some scenarios, 2013) *'' Tokyo Afterschool Summoners'' (東京放課後サモナーズ) (Social network game, some scenarios, 2018) *''Kurosu × Kogosu'' (クロス×ロゴス) (Social network game, main scenario, 2019)

References

External links

*
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– Blog {{DEFAULTSORT:Kobashiri, Kakeru 1986 births People from Tokyo Metropolis Living people Video game writers Japanese fantasy writers Japanese novelists Light novelists Pages with unreviewed translations