Kotaro Isaka Books In Order

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Maoh: Juvenile Remix Books

Kotaro Isaka
Kotaro Isaka was born on May 25, 1971 in Matsudo City, Chiba Prefecture. After he graduated from the law faculty of Tohoku University, he worked as a system engineer, and he quit his company job and focused on his writing after he heard a song by Kazuyoshi Saito, and the two have collaborated several times since.

In the year 2000, he won the Shincho Mystery Club Prize for his first novel, called “Odyubon no Inori”, after which he started writing full time. “Juryoku Piero”, “Children”, “Grasshopper”, and “Shinigami no Seido” were all each nominated for a Naoki Prize. His novel “Ahiru to Kamo no Koin Rokka” won the 25th Yoshikawa Eiji Prize for New Writers.

Kotaro is the only author in Japan to ever be nominated for the Hon’ya Taisho in each of the award’s first four years, and finally won in the year 2008 for “Golden Slumber”, which also won the 21st Yamamoto Shugoro Prize.

His books are published in English, Chinese, Taiwanese, French, Korean, and Thai. Stories such as “Grasshopper”, “Golden Slumber”, “Bullet Train”, “Fish Story”, and “A Cheerful Gang Turns the Earth” have all been adapted into Japanese movies, as have others.

“Remote Control” is a stand alone novel that was released in the year 2007. Masaharu Aoyagi, an ex-delivery truck driver in the city of Sendai, is unemployed. Two years before he achieved short notoriety for rescuing a local actress from a robbery attempt as he makes a delivery to her apartment. He’s now returned to the spotlight, this time being the main suspect in the assassination of a newly elected prime minister that had come to Sendai for a hometown victory parade.

Set in a near-future of Japan that is modeled on the United States, this follows Aoyagi during a forty-eight hour chaise, in a dramatic retelling of the Kennedy killing with Aoyagi being put into the role of a framed Lee Harvey Oswald. A huge manhunt is underway. While Aoyagi is running, he has to negotiate Security Pods set up throughout the city to monitor email and cell-phone transmissions and keep a photo record of the street traffic, some trigger-happy law enforcement.

Will he be able to figure out why he’s been set up at all and who it is that’s responsible? Can he locate the actual hitman and prove to the world he is in fact innocent, amid media pronouncements of his guilt, before the conspirators succeed in taking him out?

Right when you start thinking you know what’s going to happen, something else will happen at the turn of a sentence. These are such down to earth and likable characters that are helping the protagonist out. The writing in this novel is quite distinctive, and evokes strong feelings in the reader, since the truth of what happens is going to influence the fate of an entire nation and its a hundred million citizens.

“Maoh: Juvenile Remix, Volume 1” is the first novel in the “Maoh: Juvenile Remix” series and was released in the year 2009. In the city of Nekota, where rapid modernization is threatening everything that the longtime residents hold dear, a young man has stood up and opposes progress.

Inukai and his gang of vigilantes, who are known as Grasshopper, keep the citizens safe from a rising crime wave as well as the greedy hands of businessmen looking to turn every block into a modern strip mall. However what could this public hero’s true motive be? Is this angelic man really be a devil in disguise?

Ando, a high school student, has got the special ability to make others speak what he is actually thinking. However will this be enough to uncover Inukai’s secrets and stop this plot to control the city?

“Bullet Train” is a stand alone novel that was released in the year 2021. Following the perilous train ride that is being taken by five highly motivated hitmen, this is a satirical and dark thriller.

Nanao, nicknamed Lady Bird, who is the self-proclaimed “unluckiest assassin in the whole world”, boards a bullet train from Tokyo to Morioka with just a simple task: grab this one suitcase and get off at the next stop. Unbeknownst to him, the lethal Lemon and Tangerine are also going after the exact same suitcase, and they aren’t the only dangerous passengers onboard.

Satoshi, “the Prince”, with the looks of just an innocent schoolboy and the mind of a savagely cunning psychopath, is also in the mix and has got history with some of the others. Risk fuels him just like a good philosophical debate does. Like is killing really all that wrong? Chasing the Prince is another hitman that has a score to settle for the time that the Prince casually pushed a young off a roof, leaving him comatose.

Once the five hitmen learn that they are all on the same train, they realize that their missions are not as unrelated as they first seemed. Kotaro takes readers on a tension packed journey while the bullet train hurtles on toward its final destination. Who will make it off of the train alive, and what is waiting for them at the final stop?

“Three Assassins” is a stand alone novel that was released in the year 2022. Set in Tokyo’s criminal underworld, pits one ordinary man against a group of talented and incredibly strange assassins.

Suzuki is just an ordinary man until his wife gets murdered. Suzuki, to get his revenge and answers, abandons his law-abiding lifestyle and takes this low-paying job with a front company that is operated by Maiden, the crime gang that is responsible for his wife’s death. Before too long, Suzuki finds himself getting caught up in a network of highly effective and quirky hitmen.

There’s The Pusher who nudges people into oncoming traffic, The Cicada is a knife expert, and The Whale whispers bleak aphorisms to his victims until they finally take their own lives.

This novel delivers a wild ride through the criminal underworld of Tokyo, which is populated by contract killers that are almost superhumanly good at their jobs.