Bullfight

3 ideas

1. Osaka editor's rain-ruined bullfighting tournament

   In postwar Osaka, Tsugami, editor of a fledgling evening newspaper, commits the paper's scarce funds and credibility to sponsoring a three-day tournament of bull-versus-bull fighting in a large stadium, relying on a slippery promoter and borrowed money to stage it. Rain falls during the event, crowds stay away, and the debts mount, so the spectacle meant to make the paper's name becomes a financial loss. Throughout, Tsugami watches his own ruin with the same cool distance he shows his lover.

2. Total commitment without emotional investment

   A person can pour money, reputation and energy into a project while staying inwardly detached from its outcome and from the people around him. That split is corrosive. The same detachment that lets him take reckless bets calmly also starves his intimate relationships, because partners experience the calm as absence.

3. Rejected bulk ticket sale left tournament exposed

   The tournament's money rested on a few days of attendance, and before the rain came an offer to buy tickets in bulk, which could have secured its financing, was turned down. In this case the weather did the damage, but a choice made beforehand left the venture exposed to it.

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