"Morning Shot" Don't think you can win the grand prize with "tear-jerkers." Throwing cold water on the Shueisha x Everystar scheme

Don't think you can win the grand prize with "tear-jerkers." Throwing cold water on the Shueisha x Everystar scheme

From the front lines of a literary award that lowballs both teenage despair and the greenness of youth

Shueisha Orange Bunko and Everystar have once again, shamelessly, launched another "tear-jerking" youth novel award this year.

Submissions open on August 3, 2026, and the theme is apparently "'tear-jerking' youth/romance novels featuring a teenage protagonist." The publishing industry's lazy money-making—no, manuscript-gathering—intentions are transparent, as they clearly want to repeat the success of last year's first round, which saw more submissions than expected.

For a full-length novel, the prize is 100,000 yen (up to 500,000 yen) for 50,000 to 80,000 characters, and for a short story, it's a measly 20,000 yen (up to 100,000 yen) for 10,000 to under 50,000 characters. Hey, give it a rest with lowballing the passion and time of young talent. Even if you win the grand prize, the wording is cowardly and hedged with "consideration for publication." Are they trying to say we should be grateful for the editorial department's precious feedback?

But then again, the writers applying are just as bad. The moment they are given the prompt "tear-jerker," I can see crowds of them lining up, stitching together a patchwork of overused tragedies—incurable diseases, accidental deaths, sudden terminal diagnoses, or convenient tragic romances—and wearing a smug look as if to say, "See? This will make you cry."

Don't underestimate the readers. And don't take teenage youth lightly.

Real youth isn't just about those pretty, moving tears. It's a series of "cruel hells" that are far more grotesque, ugly, unreasonable, and nauseating in their own helplessness. If you offer up "pretty tears" that adults have conveniently beautified with nostalgia, no one's heart will be stirred. What readers are truly looking for is the kind of heartache that tears at your chest and the sharp pain of a season you can never return to.

If you're just going to write cheap emotional porn to gloss over things, you'd be better off throwing away your pen and going to sleep right now. Only those prepared to stun the Shueisha editors and inject a "potent drug" that will leave the readers traumatized should submit their manuscripts before the November 3, 2026, deadline.

Yutaka Seo: Youth Cruelty Story Submission Reference Sample

"Calcium Chloride by the Poolside"

At 2:00 PM in August, in the corner of a schoolyard distorted by the intense heat, we continued the futile, quiet task of snapping the legs off dead cicadas one by one.

"Hey, Yutaka. When we die, sprinkle salt in the school pool. I want to melt away and disappear cleanly, just like a slug."

Mariko said in a listless voice, pulling at the chest of her school swimsuit, which was soaked in the smell of chlorine. On her thigh, the cigarette burn marks left by her father remained like a poorly done tattoo.

Our 17th year had not a shred of freshness. My parents' divorce, bottom-tier grades, backbiting spat out behind the school building, and the barren, physical comforting that took place in the empty science lab after school—something that brought neither money nor love. To us, youth was just another name for torture, where our body heat was slowly stolen away inside a cage with no escape.

The day Mariko was to leave her house was decided at the end of summer vacation. She was to be taken in by her aunt in Kyushu, far away. It wasn't that she had found an escape. It was just that her place in this world was about to be completely erased from this town.

On the last night, we broke the lock and snuck into the school pool. The moonlight painted the water surface pitch black.

"Let's swim."

Mariko jumped into the water with her clothes on. The sound of the splash echoed hollowly through the night school building. I followed her in. My heavy uniform clung to my legs, making it hard to breathe.

When we embraced underwater, Mariko was smiling. Or maybe she was crying. Because we were underwater, I would never know how many tears she shed.

"Forget about me, Yutaka. If you turn me into a memory, I'd die of embarrassment."

She pressed her cold, damp lips against mine. That was our first and last kiss.

The next morning, Mariko was gone. She had deleted her contact information and all her social media accounts. All that remained in my hands was one of her white indoor shoes left behind on the poolside that day, and the intense smell of chlorine that clung to the back of my nose and wouldn't go away.

Can you cry? Don't be ridiculous. My youth was just a stark white incinerator, one where even tears would dry up completely.

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