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 Japanese 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 noveli ...

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 (novel), Wicked City''. Biography Kikuchi was born in Chōshi, Chiba, Chōshi, Japan on Septe ...

's novel ''

Demon City Blues is a Japanese novel series written by Hideyuki Kikuchi and illustrated by Jun Suemi. The story takes place in ''Demon City Shinjukus universe and features common characters. Plot As told in the events of ''Demon City Shinjuku'', a devastating e ...

'' 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 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and t ...

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 literature, fantasy and Magic (paranormal), magic. It was written by British writer Jonathan Stroud and consists of a trilogy published from 2003 to 2005 ...

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 Corporation, Scholastic and LucasFilm. The series follows two children from distinctly different societies in a world blocked ...

,'' 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 are comics or graphic novels originating from Japan. Most manga conform to a style developed in Japan in the late 19th century, and the form has a long history in earlier Japanese art. The term is used in Japan to refer to both comics ...

started publishing, and the series received an

anime is a Traditional animation, hand-drawn and computer animation, computer-generated animation originating from Japan. Outside Japan and in English, ''anime'' refers specifically to animation produced in Japan. However, , in Japan and in Ja ...

adaptation in 2017. ''Grimoire of Zero'' finished publishing in December 2017 with 11 volumes. In August 2018, under

Kodansha is a Japanese privately held publishing company headquartered in Bunkyō, Tokyo. Kodansha publishes manga magazines which include ''Nakayoshi'', ''Morning (magazine), Morning'', ''Afternoon (magazine), Afternoon'', ''Evening (magazine), Eveni ...

's LIGHT NOVEL imprint, Kobashiri started publishing a sequel to her previous work called '' The Dawn of the Witch.'' 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 classic adventure stories and romantic comedies, and that ''Grimoire'' was her way of writing a combination of both. Being that ''Grimoire'' had a

therianthropic In mythology, folklore and speculative fiction, shapeshifting is the ability to physically transform oneself through unnatural means. The idea of shapeshifting is found in the oldest forms of totemism and shamanism, as well as the oldest existen ...

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

kemonomimi is a form of anthropomorphism in anime, manga, and games 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' ...

.'' 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 (genre), epic high fantasy novel written by English author and scholar J. R. R. Tolkien. Set in Middle-earth, the story began as a sequel to Tolkien's 1937 children's book ''The Hobbit'' but eventually d ...

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 ex ...

,'' 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 (Fujimi Shobo), Dragon Magazine'' since 1989, before being published into indi ...

,'' 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 manga magazine ''Weekly Shōnen Jump'' in 1988, after debuting with a pilot one-shot in that magazine in 1987, and has co ...

'' and ''

Berserk Berserk (meaning "very angry" or "out of control") may refer to: * ''Berserk'' (manga), a Japanese manga series by Kentaro Miura ** ''Berserk'' (1997 TV series), the first anime television series adaptation of the manga series ** ''Berserk'' (2 ...

.'' 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 logographic Chinese characters, adapted from Chinese family of scripts, Chinese script, 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 and are ...

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) * '' The Dawn of the Witch'' (魔法使い黎明期) (Original characters by Yoshinori Shizuma, illustrated by Takashi Iwasaki, published by

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 , known also by the blend word ''Housamo'' (放サモ, derived from ''Tōkyō Hōkago Samonāzu''), is an Free to play, F2P role-playing video game for Android (operating system), Android and iOS. It is developed by , a mobile gaming company opera ...

'' (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 Japanese video game writers Japanese fantasy writers Japanese novelists Light novelists Pages with unreviewed translations