Chapter 204: Information Cocoon! Identity Recognition! Political Correctness! Going Big!
And you? You monster, what are your thoughts?
The air in the meeting room seemed to be sucked into a vacuum the instant President Shimazu’s question landed.
Nobuhiko Sakata, Mr. Asumi, and Toshihide Takada’s hearts all skipped a beat almost simultaneously.
They jerked their heads around, and those three gazes filled with shock, astonishment, and a hint of “you’d better not say anything rash” complexity all focused sharply on the young person who had remained silent from start to finish.
What a joke?!
President Shimazu actually… actually at this critical moment deciding the selection for Tokyo Television Station, the Mayor of Tokyo City, and even the future fate of the entire “Tokyo Faction,” was soliciting the opinion of a young person only twenty-three years old?!
This was no longer simply valuing someone; it was practically… blind!
Hiroshi Nohara felt those three gazes that seemed about to pierce him through, and a perfectly timed expression of embarrassment and helplessness appeared on his face.
He slowly stood up from his seat, first bowing respectfully to President Shimazu, then spreading his hands with a wry smile.
“President Shimazu, you’re really thinking too highly of me.”
His voice clearly echoed in everyone’s ears, that humility and composure forming a strange, amusing contrast with the tense and solemn atmosphere around them: “Governor Koike’s successful re-election was entirely due to his own long-accumulated political prestige and his people-loving governing philosophy that won the public’s recognition. I… I just happened to make a movie about Akita Dogs; how dare I take credit for it.”
“Yes! President!” Mr. Asumi was the first to react; he shot to his feet, his usually cheerful face now full of urgency, like an old father afraid his child might say the wrong thing: “Hiroshi-kun is still young and doesn’t understand politics at all! Please don’t make things difficult for him!”
“Exactly, President.” Toshihide Takada chimed in, a rare “protective” expression appearing on his usually gloomy face: “Elections are intricate and affect the whole body if one part moves. Hiroshi-kun is just a producer after all; asking him to think about these things is really forcing him too hard.”
Nobuhiko Sakata went straight to President Shimazu’s side, looking at his old leader who was both mentor and friend, his eyes filled with sincere concern.
“President, you should rest first.” His voice was gentle yet full of strength, like the firmest shield protecting Hiroshi Nohara behind him: “We’ll take a long-term view on the election. Your health is the most important; we absolutely can’t have any more mishaps. Otherwise, we subordinates won’t have peace of mind even if we win the election.”
However, faced with the successive dissuasion from his three trusted aides, President Shimazu merely slowly shook his head.
He let out a long breath, one carrying an indescribable fatigue and the unwillingness and anger of a volcano about to erupt.
“I really… can’t accept this.” He murmured to himself, flames reigniting in his turbid eyes.
He licked his dry lips, as if having made some resolve, and slowly uttered that earth-shattering secret that could shake the entire meeting room.
“Just last month, I already… went to the United States.”
“What?!”
Nobuhiko Sakata’s body shuddered violently!
“Moreover, I met with the United States Treasury Department and executives from several top investment banks.” President Shimazu’s voice grew low and oppressive, each word like a precise heavy hammer striking everyone’s hearts: “They told me they… they’re about to target our Neon Country’s economy soon.”
“And this time, it will be unprecedented thunderous measures!”
“Boom—!”
This sentence exploded in the meeting room like a nuclear bomb!
“President! You… what did you say?! The Americans are targeting us?!” Mr. Asumi sprang from his seat, his eyes bulging wide, his face full of incredulous horror!
“This… is this real? Is the information reliable?” Toshihide Takada’s voice trembled slightly, a deep fear appearing on his usually gloomy face.
Nobuhiko Sakata grabbed President Shimazu’s arm directly, his shrewd eyes filled with irrepressible agitation: “President! Please tell us in detail! What’s going on?!”
President Shimazu looked at these three “old workers” whose faces were flushed with excitement and eyes sparkling like stars, and his heart, hardened by reality, couldn’t help but feel a trace of warmth at that moment.
He knew these were the people he could truly trust.
He nodded slowly, the solemnity making the air in the meeting room seem to freeze.
“It’s real.” His voice was hoarse yet full of power: “This is something that will definitely happen. After the Plaza Accord, our Neon Country’s economic development was too fast, fast enough to make the Americans feel fear. They won’t allow a second country in the world that can challenge their dominant position.”
“Baka yarou!” Mr. Asumi slammed his fist on the table, his usually cheerful face now full of irrepressible fury: “Those damn Americans! They’re… they’re nothing but robbers! Bandits!”
“Exactly! We’ve worked hard for decades to achieve today’s prosperity! What right do they have… what right to destroy it just like that?!” Toshihide Takada chimed in, veins bulging on his gloomy face.
“Calm down!” Though Nobuhiko Sakata’s heart was equally filled with anger, years of professional experience kept him with a last thread of rationality: “President, then… what do we do now?!”
However, faced with the three’s anger and questions, President Shimazu merely slowly raised his hand, the gesture full of powerlessness and dejection.
“That’s why…” He sighed deeply, his voice carrying a tragic heroism of a hero at the end of his road: “I need to unite all key forces in our Neon Country, and before this storm arrives, do everything possible to preserve our Neon Country’s economic foundation. At the same time, take this opportunity to thoroughly excise those… economic tumors that have long burrowed into our bones!”
“Economic tumors?” Mr. Asumi was slightly stunned upon hearing this, looking at President Shimazu with confusion in his usually cheerful eyes: “President, what do you mean…?”
As soon as he spoke, the meeting room fell into an eerie silence.
Nobuhiko Sakata and Toshihide Takada both subconsciously fell silent.
They exchanged glances and saw the same solemnity and… a trace of fear in each other’s eyes.
They knew what President Shimazu meant.
“Real estate.”
In the end, it was President Shimazu who personally opened that Pandora’s box everyone knew but dared not touch.
“Those who got rich overnight from real estate don’t understand the economy at all!” President Shimazu’s voice turned icy cold and full of disdain: “They only know to use bank loans to frantically acquire land, build buildings, then sell them at higher prices to ordinary people equally dazed by the ‘land myth’! They’re like a swarm of greedy locusts, bit by bit devouring our Neon Country’s future!”
“And do you think no one backs them?” President Shimazu sneered, his voice full of self-mockery and anger: “Behind them stand those Americans who want our Neon Country’s economy to collapse completely! Wall Street’s capital giants! They’re the sharp knife the Americans have plunged into the heart of our Neon Country’s economy!”
“Once this knife is fully detonated, once the real estate bubble is thoroughly burst, our Neon Country’s economy will collapse instantly! Stock market crash, asset shrinkage, countless people bankrupted and homeless! Then, the wealth we’ve accumulated over decades will become the Americans’ spoils! Our Neon Country will become their economic colony!”
“What we’ll lose then won’t just be money, but… the future! Our entire nation’s, one generation or even two generations’ future! It’ll take at least fifteen to twenty years for our economy to recover!”
President Shimazu’s voice echoed like the heaviest death knell in everyone’s ears.
The future he depicted, full of despair and destruction, sent a bone-chilling cold through everyone present.
“That’s why…” President Shimazu’s voice rose again, the tragedy gradually replaced by unyielding fighting spirit: “I’m running in this mayoral election! I want to join those like-minded people equally concerned with the nation’s future to thoroughly kick those real estate parasites out of Tokyo City’s power core!”
“I want our Neon Country’s economy to achieve a soft landing, not… crash directly!”
The meeting room fell into dead silence once more.
Everyone was thoroughly shocked by President Shimazu’s declaration full of tragic heroism and resolve.
They looked at this white-haired yet still high-spirited old man, and their hearts, numbed by reality, were at this moment ignited by an unprecedented emotion called “sense of mission.”
“President…” Nobuhiko Sakata’s voice was hoarse as he looked at President Shimazu, his eyes full of admiration and powerlessness: “We’re… we’re just TV station people, only knowing how to produce programs and boost ratings. About the economy, about Neon Country’s future… we… we really can’t help much.”
“Who says we can’t help?” President Shimazu suddenly chuckled upon hearing this, casting gazes full of expectation and trust toward everyone present.
“We have our mission too.” His voice grew gentle yet full of power: “That is to soothe our Neon Country’s nationals. No matter what happens in the future, no matter how bad the economy gets, we absolutely cannot let the nationals fall into panic, chaos, or… despair.”
“We must use our programs to warm them, heal them, give them hope and courage to live on.”
“This is Tokyo Television Station’s most important role in this impending battle for national fortune.”
Nobuhiko Sakata, Mr. Asumi, and Toshihide Takada listened quietly, all expressions on their three faces freezing in an instant.
They exchanged glances and saw the same solemnity, the same responsibility, and a thoroughly ignited fighting spirit in each other’s eyes.
They knew President Shimazu was right.
They had their battlefield too.
“Sigh…”
After a long while, Mr. Asumi let out a deep sigh, his voice full of complex emotions.
This path was destined to be full of thorns and bumps.
Yet in this atmosphere heavy with solemnity and tragic heroism, a calm, almost indifferent voice suddenly rang out.
“I actually think it might not be that pessimistic.”
The speaker was the young person who had remained silent throughout—Hiroshi Nohara.
He still sat there calmly, a faint smile on his face, his clear eyes undisturbed, as if the discussion just now about national fortune and decline was merely an ordinary work report to him.
Hiroshi Nohara’s heart was currently surging with massive waves, but beneath those waves hid a trace of schadenfreude only he could understand.
The lost thirty years?
He looked at these important people anxiously worried about Neon Country’s future and couldn’t help letting out a mocking sneer in his heart.
You think it’s just losing thirty years?
Too naive.
In his previous life, he had witnessed firsthand how Neon Country went from an economic giant that could rival the United States to an economic dwarf unable to control its own fate, step by step.
That real estate bubble starting at the end of the 1980s was like an infinitely inflated balloon, ultimately mercilessly popped by the Americans’ poison needle called “rate hikes.”
Followed by decades of prolonged, endless economic stagnation.
Stock market crash, housing prices halved, companies bankrupt, unemployment soaring… everything collapsed like dominoes.
Countless middle-class people became destitute overnight.
Countless young people, facing a hopeless future, chose to “lie flat,” becoming so-called “Heisei shut-ins.”
And those high-quality core assets Neon Country people once prided themselves on, like semiconductors, automobiles, high-end manufacturing, were frantically acquired, merged, and dismantled at near “cabbage prices” by Wall Street capital that had long been eyeing them.
Forget thirty years; even by 2025 before he transmigrated, Neon Country’s economy was still stagnant waters, listless.
What was lost? Where was it just thirty years?
It was clearly… a lifetime!
But what did that have to do with him?
He was just a transmigrator, a lucky one who happened to arrive in this era full of opportunities and challenges.
What he needed to do was seize enough profit in this unprecedented great wealth reshuffle for himself and the Nohara Family Home.
As for Neon Country’s future?
Heh, none of my business.
At this thought, the corners of Hiroshi Nohara’s mouth curved into an imperceptible icy arc.
He knew his opportunity had come.
So Hiroshi Nohara spoke: “I actually think it might not be that pessimistic.”
This sentence was like tossing a stone into a dead-still lake, instantly rippling waves and breaking the suffocating solemnity.
Nobuhiko Sakata, Mr. Asumi, Toshihide Takada, and even President Shimazu, who had just been immersed in tragic heroism and resolve, all whipped their heads around at the same time, their four gazes full of shock, astonishment, confusion, even… a hint of absurdity, all focusing sharply on the young person who had remained silent throughout.
“Hiroshi-kun, you…” Nobuhiko Sakata’s lips moved, his eyes full of disbelief.
“Nohara-kun, this isn’t the time for jokes!” Mr. Asumi stood directly from his seat, his usually cheerful face now full of anxiety and disapproval: “This concerns our entire Neon Country’s national fortune! How can you say something so… so casual?!”
“Yes, Hiroshi-kun.” Toshihide Takada frowned too, a rare seriousness appearing on his usually gloomy face: “We’ve all experienced the Americans’ methods. Over these decades since the war, they’ve been like a mountain over our heads—politics, economy, culture… which area have we truly escaped their control? What do we have to fight them with?!”
Toshihide Takada’s words, like the coldest reality, mercilessly extinguished the spark of fighting spirit that had just ignited in the meeting room.
A deep powerlessness and bitterness appeared on Nobuhiko Sakata’s face.
He sighed deeply, his voice weary: “Takada is right.” His voice was hoarse and full of unwillingness: “We… we simply can’t resist. From political top to economic lifelines, to cultural infiltration, they’ve extended tentacles into every corner of our country. We’re like butterflies bound in a spider web, no matter how we struggle, we can’t escape that invisible great net they’ve meticulously woven.”
“Baka!” Mr. Asumi slammed the table again, his usually cheerful eyes now blazing with fury: “I just can’t accept it! Neon Country people, in talent, wisdom, diligence—which are we inferior to the Americans in?! We lack only land area, only the limited resources under our feet!”
He whipped his head around, casting eyes full of expectation and unwillingness toward Hiroshi Nohara, his voice tragic like a cuckoo’s blood cry.
“Hiroshi-kun! I believe in you!” His voice trembled slightly, that heartfelt trust infecting everyone present: “As long as we give you enough time, with your talent, we’ll surely surpass the United States in culture, in literature someday! We definitely will!”
The meeting room fell into dead silence again.
Everyone was silent.
Yet beneath this silence surged an undercurrent called “sense of identity.”
Yes, they all believed.
They all believed this excessively young yet unfathomably deep man possessed power to change the world.
However, President Shimazu merely slowly shook his head.
He looked at Hiroshi Nohara, his hawk-like sharp eyes flickering with a deeper, almost pleading light.
He knew what Mr. Asumi said was the future.
What he needed now was the present.
“Nohara-kun.” President Shimazu’s voice was unprecedentedly solemn, the superior’s dignity turning at this moment into an almost equal plea: “If you really have any good promotion strategy, please… help me.”
Everyone’s breathing seemed to halt at that moment.
Hiroshi Nohara finally snapped out of his thoughts filled with mockery and schadenfreude that only he understood.
He slowly raised his head, looking at this white-haired yet still high-spirited old man, a trace of imperceptible complexity flashing in his usually calm eyes.
He thought of the era in later generations completely drowned by information floods.
He thought of the one trapped by countless fragmented junk information and meticulously woven traffic traps.
He thought of the one caged by a means called “information cocoon.”
They were precisely divided by big data into groups that couldn’t understand each other.
They thought they possessed the whole world, yet ultimately lived only on that isolated island of information.
And what he needed to do now was bring this “weapon” proven invincible in his previous life, full of deadly poison, ahead to this era.
Seeing Hiroshi Nohara lost in thought, Nobuhiko Sakata, Mr. Asumi, and Toshihide Takada exchanged glances again.
This time, their eyes held no worry or doubt, but… a flame of “hope” thoroughly ignited!
“Hiroshi-kun… he… he really seems to have an idea!” Mr. Asumi’s voice trembled slightly, looking at Hiroshi Nohara like beholding a deity about to create a miracle.
“Mm.” Toshihide Takada nodded heavily, an irrepressible agitation on his face: “Whenever he shows this expression, it means that monster brain of his has come up with another earth-shattering idea that subverts all our cognitions!”
Nobuhiko Sakata even held his breath, looking at Hiroshi Nohara with shrewd eyes full of inexpressible expectation.
“Nohara-kun…” President Shimazu’s voice grew urgent too, his superior’s composure gone, leaving only a desperate grasp at a lifeline: “You… do you really have a way?”
Hiroshi Nohara slowly raised his head.
He looked at these four big shots representing Tokyo Television Station’s highest power, all gazing at him expectantly, and revealed a calm yet powerful smile.
“Yes, President Shimazu.” He spoke softly, his tone calm yet full of power: “I do have an immature idea.”
He paused, then slowly uttered that name enough to make this era tremble.
“I call it the ‘information cocoon’ promotion strategy.”
“Information cocoon?”
President Shimazu, Nobuhiko Sakata, Mr. Asumi, and Toshihide Takada all repeated the unfamiliar term in unison, their four faces full of the same confusion and curiosity.
“Hiroshi-kun, what… does this mean?” Toshihide Takada, the former Tokyo Faction leader known for calm rationality, asked first.
Hiroshi Nohara just smiled calmly; he knew it would take time for these big shots still in the traditional media era to grasp this concept full of postmodern deconstructionism.
“Everyone, please imagine.” His voice like the most precise notes instantly drew all attention: “What is our traditional promotion method? Broadcasting the information we want to convey through newspapers, through television. It’s like using a big net to catch all the fish in the fish pond. It catches some, but inefficiently, and not necessarily the fish we want.”
“But ‘information cocoon’?” He paused, a confident arc at his mouth: “It doesn’t use a net, but… countless fishing rods with different baits.”
“Bait?” Mr. Asumi’s eyebrows rose slightly, an interested expression on his face.
“Exactly, bait.” Hiroshi Nohara nodded, looking at their expectant faces and slowly revealing the answer: “The first thing we do is conduct market research to… segment all our nationals.”
“This segmentation isn’t by traditional region, occupation, or age. But by their interests, values, lifestyles.”
“For example, we can group those who like raising pets especially dogs as the ‘dog lovers’ group. Those women daily toiling for family and focused on daily necessities as the ‘housewives’ group. Those young people full of longing for the future and enthusiasm for society as the ‘hot-blooded youth’ group. Those who like anime, games, two-dimensional culture as the ‘otaku’ group…”
“And then?” Nobuhiko Sakata pressed, a dawning realization in his shrewd eyes.
“Then,” Hiroshi Nohara’s voice grew low and powerful: “We produce exclusive content they most like and are most willing to believe, targeted at these different groups.”
“For example, for ‘dog lovers,’ we heavily promote how you, President Shimazu, cherish animals and care for stray dogs. Show heartwarming images of you intimately interacting with those poor little animals.”
“For ‘housewives,’ we heavily promote how you care about people’s livelihood, strive to lower prices, fight for more benefits and security for them. Through newspapers, television news, we constantly instill in them the idea—President Shimazu is their most caring ‘family’!”
“For ‘hot-blooded youth,’ we heavily promote how you support young people starting businesses, provide them more opportunities and platforms. Listen to their dreams, encourage their enthusiasm!”
“With these tailored messages full of ‘sense of identity,’ we wrap each group up. Make them feel understood, valued, heard. Make them feel you, President Shimazu, are their group’s staunchest advocate!”
“Ultimately, these groups wrapped in information will be like silkworms in cocoons, only willing to believe the ‘mulberry leaves’ we feed them. They’ll spontaneously cheer for us, contribute votes, even actively attack ‘others’ with differing opinions!”
“This is the ‘information cocoon’.”
Hiroshi Nohara’s voice calmly echoed in the meeting room.
Yet the scene he depicted, full of precise scheming and public opinion manipulation, sent a chill to the bone through everyone present.
“This… this is just…” Nobuhiko Sakata’s breathing quickened, looking at Hiroshi Nohara with shrewd eyes full of incredulous horror: “This is pandering to preferences, isn’t it?! We make whatever content the audience likes! Then use it to get close to them, please them, ultimately making them willingly vote for us!”
“Yes.” Hiroshi Nohara just nodded calmly, his breezy demeanor as if what he just described wasn’t an earth-shattering plot to subvert the election system, but just an ordinary program proposal.
“Ugh!” Mr. Asumi sprang from his seat, his face full of fear: “This… this isn’t an election at all! This is… manipulation! Treating all our nationals as puppets to control at will!”
“Mr. Asumi, calm down!” Though Toshihide Takada was equally shocked, his strategist’s calm kept his last thread of rationality.
He looked at Hiroshi Nohara, complex light of both fear and fanaticism in his deep eyes: “Hiroshi-kun, this idea of yours is really too… too terrifying. This isn’t simple promotion anymore; it’s… social engineering!”
“Yes, Hiroshi-kun.” Nobuhiko Sakata chimed in, his usually serious face full of struggle: “Tokyo Television Station has always stood on ‘fairness,’ ‘objectivity,’ ‘truth.’ If we use this near-‘brainwashing’ method to interfere in elections, then… what right do we have to call ourselves the ‘conscience of media’?”
Yet amid this denunciation full of moral struggle and idealism, a laugh full of unbridled satisfaction, even somewhat cruel, suddenly rang out.
“Hahahahahaha!”
President Shimazu, the old man who had just been lamenting national fortune, now slapped his thigh and burst into laughter as if hearing the world’s funniest joke.
That voice was full of undisguised appreciation and… ecstasy!
“Interesting! Truly too interesting!” He pointed at Hiroshi Nohara, excitement of meeting a worthy opponent in his hawk-like sharp eyes: “I’ve lived over sixty years, been in countless elections, yet never heard such a… genius idea!”
He paused, his gaze sweeping over his three subordinates stunned speechless by his “abnormal” reaction, a disdainful arc at his mouth.
“Conscience? Fairness?” He sneered, his voice full of worldly world-weariness and… helplessness: “You think politics is what? Feasting, gentle courtesy? Let me tell you, politics is war! A smokeless war of you die I live!”
“In this war, there’s no right or wrong, only victory or defeat! Winners write history, define justice! Losers are swept into history’s trash heap, spat upon!”
“So I don’t care what means!” His voice turned icy cold and powerful: “I only care if we can win! After all, only winners can contribute to the nationals, to Neon Country!”
He turned, casting eyes full of fanaticism and appreciation toward Hiroshi Nohara again.
“Nohara-kun, this idea of yours is too good! Too brilliant!” He was so excited he was incoherent, his heartfelt praise overflowing: “We don’t need everyone’s support! We just need the ‘identity’ of the majority groups we’ve ‘segmented’! This… this is the must-win method for elections!”
Hiroshi Nohara just smiled calmly, his humility and composure perfectly timed.
“You’re overpraising me, President. This is just my little immature idea; it still needs a helmsman like you to refine it.”
Though he said this, in his heart he couldn’t help sneering mockingly.
Must-win method?
What must-win method? This was clearly… a deadly poison enough to destroy a country!
In his previous life, the Americans used this exquisitely packaged “identity politics” to push their once mighty nation step by step into the abyss of division and decline.
They used various labels to divide their nationals into mutually hostile, attacking groups.
They strangled what should be a nation’s foundation with “political correctness.”
A nation unclear on its own identity, internally full of rifts and hatred—how could it have a future?
Whoever uses this playbook ends up doomed.
And the deeper it’s used, the worse the death.
But what did that have to do with him?
He was just a transmigrator who happened to know the “answer.”
At this thought, the humble smile on Hiroshi Nohara’s face became even more sincere.
“Actually, this method isn’t without drawbacks.” He spoke softly, his “worried for country and people” look moving everyone present: “If not used well, it could indeed exacerbate social group opposition and rifts. But if controlled within reasonable bounds, it can instead make our nationals… easier to manipulate.”
He paused, giving the simplest and most straightforward example.
“It’s like filmmaking.” He smiled, his breezy demeanor as if what he just said wasn’t a national-fortune-shaking plot, but just an ordinary movie proposal: “We know some audience like tear-jerking warm films, some like blood-boiling action films, some like brain-burning suspense deduction films. So we make their favorite films for different audiences. That way, we make money and gain their love and support. Isn’t that killing two birds with one stone?”
“Hahahahahaha! Well said! Too well said!”
After hearing this, President Shimazu finally couldn’t hold back; he slapped his thigh and roared with laughter.
That voice was full of exhilarating satisfaction and triumph.
“Killing two birds with one stone! Perfect word!” He pointed at Hiroshi Nohara, his hawk-like eyes full of undisguised appreciation and ecstasy: “I like it! I love this method! Let’s do it! For this election, we’ll use this ‘information cocoon’ to have a good play with that Mikami Tanaka guy!”
So excited he stood directly from his seat, he shouted loudly to the secretary outside the door.
“Quick! Bring paper and pen! I want to personally record Nohara-kun’s genius idea completely!”
Hiroshi Nohara watched his excited demeanor and showed a helpless yet “sincere” smile.
“President, don’t rush.” He spoke softly, his “strategic planning” composure convincing everyone present: “Though starting the layout now is indeed a bit late timing-wise. But if we concentrate all resources, through Tokyo Television Station’s various channels and those tabloids willing to cooperate with us, for high-intensity, high-density saturation promotion, perhaps… we still have a chance.”
“Exactly! Exactly! Nohara-kun is right!” President Shimazu nodded deeply in agreement, looking at Hiroshi Nohara with eyes full of inexpressible trust and reliance.
He said no more, just took the paper and pen from the secretary and hurried out of the meeting room.
That back was full of decisive efficiency and a tragic heroism about to charge into battle.
He was going to immediately, right away, share this “must-win method” enough to change Neon Country’s political landscape with his like-minded compatriots equally concerned with the nation’s future!
As long as they could employ this playbook, perhaps their Liberal Democratic Party could perfectly win election after election.
Ultimately becoming Neon Country’s true rulers.
Win everything!
PS: Only one update today, cousin’s wedding, really busy, sorry.
