During the first coronavirus shutdown in Japan last year, Daihachi Yoshida had an epiphany.
¡°I live in the suburbs, and when I went to a local bookstore, the queue for the cash register was longer than I¡¯d ever seen before,¡± he recalls. ¡°Everyone had been staying at home, and they¡¯d gotten sick of watching TV, so they¡¯d go there.... It gave me a bit of encouragement: in times like that, people still come back to books.¡±
The public¡¯s reading habits are a subject of particular interest to the 57-year-old filmmaker, whose latest movie takes a deep dive into the troubled waters of Japan¡¯s publishing industry.
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