Technically speaking, even from the point of view of a novelist, he found Goro’s cinematic approach to telling the story uncommonly interesting and exciting. He even had the feeling that he was discovering a whole new side of Goro’s character—not just as a director but as a human being. This may sound like a contradiction, but at the same time he also had keen flashes of realization that Goro was always exactly this kind of person, from the first day they met. Kogito knew that even when Goro opposed his marriage to Chikashi, that was absolutely predictable behavior, and because he knew that extreme reaction was just part of Goro’s nature, Kogito never had any feelings of being hurt, betrayed, or disillusioned.Even during the twelve years while Goro was racking up spectacular successes in the film industry, one after another, Kogito never revised his essential perception of his old friend. Rather, he recognized that the potential for such exceptional accomplishments was there all along, in the facets of Goro’s character he had observed during their schoolboy days.
