Word: hidetomo
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...brother suffers from a genetic disorder called Williams syndrome which, among other things, leaves him literally without a sense of direction. Kazuki's older sister, Mohi, is even more rudderless: the extent of her ambition seems to be part-time prostitution. At the head of this clan is Hidetomo, the almost comically loathsome pachinko-chain owner and abusive drunkard who views his children as "nonperforming assets." Hidetomo's malevolence goes unnoticed outside his family, however, as he sits on the board of trustees at Kazuki's "crassly commercial" school and is very chummy with the chief of police...
...Further violence unfolds with a detached, unsettling inevitability, and by the time Kazuki kills Hidetomo, you're almost relieved. After the murder, he descends into a surreal, Oedipal nightmare of guilt and paranoia, eerily coming to resemble his dead father as he struggles to run the household and the pachinko business. Kazuki is so frazzled he can't even get around to disposing of the corpse; as his mind begins to unravel, he desperately concludes more killing may be necessary to conceal the dead body rotting in a vault filled with gold...
...consultants. Corruption is so thoroughly entrenched it masquerades as tradition, and it's no wonder that a rich kid like Kazuki grows up believing everything is negotiable. The adults in the novel aren't outraged as they come to suspect Kazuki of murder. Instead, they plot ways to use Hidetomo's death to their financial gain. The only characters that seem shocked at all are a low-level yakuza and an orphaned peer of Kazuki's, both of whom seem powerless in the face of their own realizations. Power, Kazuki realizes, is just another word for money...
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