A plethora of behemoth bookstores have opened around Tokyo and Shinjuku stations this autumn, and they are waging a fierce battle for the hearts, minds and yen of readers using the tactic of mass sales under one gigantic roof.
Despite the decline in publishing sales for seven consecutive years that has been forcing more than 1,000 small and midsize bookstores out of business every year, the rush to open mammoth bookstores nationwide continues unabated.
...Caught in the middle between these super-bookshops and convenience stores offering books, many existing small and midsize bookstores went bankrupt.
In the past five years, these closures have slashed the number of bookshops from 22,000 to 18,000.
Shinichi Sano, a nonfiction writer specializing in the publishing business, said today's trend toward jumbo bookstores emerged out of a compulsive idea by book distributors to confront online bookstores, which allow customers to browse all sorts of books.
I was in the big Kinokuniya in Shinkuku on the foreign book floor when a middle-aged Japanese woman started singing "I could have danced all night". I'm no expert on the song but I suspect we got the whole thing although she managed to turn it into a mournful cry of lost hope rather than the usual bright, uplifting song of first love. The staff weren't quite sure how to react but, as customers, we all seemed to draw the same conclusion and pretended to be deeply interested in books on the philosophy of religion. Not coincidentally, the section furthest away from the impomptu performance.
