Chapter 65: Stocks, Targets and Television Stations

Summer vacation, early morning, Yamagami residence.

In Seiko’s bedroom, two girls wrapped in bath towels snuggled together, flipping through a large pile of newspapers. The exposed, snow-white skin still bore the marks of their intimate “morning exercise.”

The newspapers on the bed were the last three years of the Nihon Keizai Shimbun that Seiko had someone buy. In this era, the Nihon Keizai Shimbun still had a special column on stock trading.

Saori helped Seiko circle the companies with rising stock trends over the past three years with a red marker. Seiko then, based on her memories and the information she could find from these years, analyzed whether these companies had room for a small profit in the short term.

The Plaza Accord was to be signed in just over a month.

The bubble economy was coming.

But Seiko lacked the capital to maneuver in the bubble, which was a real headache.

Of course, the bubble economy was a rising tide, and a pig could fly in a typhoon, but there was still a difference between flying high and flying low.

Flipping one hundred yen a hundred times and flipping one hundred million yen a hundred times were obviously not the same thing.

“Ugh… my head hurts…”

Seiko rolled over, flopped onto Saori, and said in a muffled voice, “Why is Japan so strong? No wonder it’s doomed.”

The best-performing companies in Japan in the early 1980s could be roughly divided into three categories: one was the automotive industry, like Toyota and Nissan; another was the electronics industry, like Sony, Panasonic, and Toshiba; and the third was heavy industry, like Mitsubishi and Nippon Steel.

The representative companies in these three industries had indeed achieved a world-leading status in this era. Their performance justified their stock prices, leaving Seiko with absolutely no opportunity for a short-term “hit and run.”

However, it was precisely the strength of these three types of companies that created the ever-widening trade surplus between Japan and the United States, which in turn forced the United States to pressure the yen to appreciate, thereby increasing Japan’s export costs. The final result of this pressure was the Plaza Accord.

The measures agreed upon in the Plaza Accord mainly fell on the currency market, but the root cause that led to the Plaza Accord was actually in imports, exports, and manufacturing.

“Your logic… is it correct?”

Saori laughed. She couldn’t see the future like Seiko, so naturally, she couldn’t unravel the intricate cause-and-effect relationships in Seiko’s words.

“You’ll know in the future…”

Seiko was too lazy to explain. She noticed a hickey she had left on Saori’s plump, white breast and, out of boredom, picked up the red pen and completed the hickey into a flower.

Saori didn’t press the issue. She waited for Seiko to finish drawing, then took out another newspaper and said, “There’s another piece of good news here. Do you want to see it?”

“What good news?”

Seiko took the newspaper without much expectation, and then saw an analytical article about Japan Airlines’ (JAL) stock rising.

It turned out that JAL had recently announced its financial report from the previous year. The columnist for the Nihon Keizai Shimbun analyzed the data and said that in 1984, JAL’s international passenger numbers had increased by forty percent compared to 1980. They had also been the first to introduce new models of aircraft last year. He advised stock market investors to buy in and hold for the long term.

“This kind of after-the-fact good news is meaningless, and I don’t want to hold JAL for the long term…”

Seiko’s words trailed off as she suddenly froze.

‘JAL, 1985…’

‘JAL Flight 123!’

“What’s wrong?” Saori asked, puzzled.

“I think I know which stock to fish for…” Seiko took a deep breath.

On August 12, 1985, an old Boeing 747, a JAL plane that had been in service for over eleven years, crashed into a mountain in Gunma Prefecture. The Japanese media called it the “Mount Osutaka air disaster.”

Because the crashed plane was exactly “Flight 123,” it was particularly easy for Seiko to remember.

It might sound a bit cruel, but the sudden swing of the Grim Reaper’s scythe was indeed one of the most sudden and unsolvable black swan events in the stock market…

“Which stock?” Saori asked curiously.

“You’ll know in the future!” Seiko picked up Saori’s newspaper-flipping hand, kissed it, and laughed, “Mission accomplished! Shall we play another game?”

Seiko didn’t want to say for the time being, so Saori didn’t ask. She smiled, “Didn’t you say the ink on the newspaper is unhealthy?”

Seiko looked at the newspapers spread all over the bed and said, “Let’s do it in the bathroom, and we can take a shower before we go out.”

“Alright.” Saori glanced at the time and nodded.

The game plus the shower took another hour or so before the two of them finally, dawdlingly, left the house.

The first three episodes of Mother had been filmed, and the sample tapes had been sent to various television stations. Ōmori Ryō said that several stations were interested in Mother, and one of them had a strong desire to purchase it and had requested a face-to-face meeting.

So, Seiko planned to go to the set today to check things out.

“Sister!”

Aiko ran over excitedly.

The little one was already very familiar with the set. She was the main actress and the boss’s sister, so the entire crew could only pamper her. However, Aiko was a sensible child, and with Otake Shinobu as her teacher, she was in no danger of being spoiled.

Seiko reached out and ruffled Aiko’s head, thinking her sister was just coming to say hello.

But the little one hid both her fists behind her back and looked up, “Sister, let’s play rock-paper-scissors.”

Seiko was puzzled.

“Come on, let’s play.” Aiko giggled and wiggled.

“Alright.” Although Seiko was confused, she still knelt down.

But then, Aiko held up a small finger and made a request.
“If I win, Sister will give me a reward, okay?”

Seiko nodded, a brilliant smile on her face. Just as Aiko thought she was about to succeed, Seiko blurted out.

“Oh dear, Sister…”

Seiko stood up and walked away. Aiko chased after her on her short legs, grabbing the corner of her sister’s skirt.

At that moment, Ōmori Ryō came over with a middle-aged man. This man had a rather shabby appearance, was short, a bit overweight, and had a mouthful of yellow teeth that were particularly “conspicuous.” However, his brand-name suit and the gold watch on his wrist indicated that he was financially well-off.

“This is the representative from our company, Miss Yamagami Seiko,” Ōmori Ryō introduced him to Seiko.

“Hello, hello,” the middle-aged man showed little surprise at Seiko’s youth. He immediately took a business card from his suit pocket and handed it over. “I am Watanabe Shuichi, the group leader of the drama production and programming bureau at Tama TV. 

I apologize for coming so abruptly and for any disturbance.”

Business card culture is very strong in the Japanese workplace, but the yakuza’s workplace might still be lacking a bit in cultural literacy. The probability of pulling a watermelon knife out of their pocket when meeting someone is slightly higher than that of pulling out a business card. Therefore, this was Seiko’s first time being handed a business card in a social setting, and it felt a little novel.

But Seiko had just taken the business card and hadn’t had a chance to say anything when the middle-aged man opposite her gave a ninety-degree bow.

“Miss Yamagami, please, you must let our television station broadcast Mother. I’m begging you!”