Pathway to Japanese Literature

Discover Japan's stories—across time, across language.

Demon CapitalAuthor: Hisao Jūran

Original Title	魔都
Author	久生十蘭
Genre	Popular Fiction
Author Type	Male Author
Summary	In the waning hours of a tumultuous year, Furuichi Kaju—a disgraced tabloid reporter for the obscure Sunset Newspaper—stumbles through Tokyo’s glittering underworld, seething with resentment after public humiliation at a journalists’ gala. His path collides with Munakata Ryutaro, an enigmatic foreign king incognito, whose regal bearing and shadowy allure pull Kaju into a whirlwind of gin-soaked backstreets and clandestine bars. Amidst the chaos, they encounter Murakumo Emiko, a sharp-witted former actress turned proprietress of the raucous "Paris," where decadence masks darker intrigues. \nThe night spirals into mystery when Kaju is lured to a modernist apartment in Akasaka, entangled with Matsutani Tsuruko—a fallen starlet ensnared in the king’s orbit. But dawn brings horror: Tsuruko plummets to her death under inexplicable circumstances, leaving Kaju framed for murder. As police close in, he grapples with a web of political machinations and supernatural rumors—including the Sunset Newspaper’s sensational claim of a singing bronze crane in Hibiya Park, an "auspicious omen" masking corporate scheming. \nCaught between rival newspapers, vanishing royalty, and a city teeming with secrets, Kaju’s desperate quest for redemption unravels a labyrinth of deception where nothing—and no one—is as it seems.