★ A work by Natsuo Ishida, a rising star who has been shortlisted for the Akutagawa Prize multiple times and won an honorable mention in the 45th Subaru Literary Award.
★ “No business trips allowed due to high body fat percentage”—an absurd company rule that lays bare the invisible gender discrimination in the workplace.
★ A comically uproarious counterattack by a female employee at a trading company: Losing weight isn’t about looking good; it’s about breaking free from this suffocating society.

“If you really feel sorry for me, just send me on a business trip!”

Yukari Arita is a trading-company employee who has spent years traveling the globe. One day, she is summoned back to headquarters—only to be told that she is now forbidden from going abroad on business. The reason? Her body-fat percentage is too high; should anything happen, it would cause a lot of trouble.

Forced to stay in Japan against her will, Yukari grows increasingly fed up with the small-town atmosphere where everyone can’t help but ask whether she’s married or single. She longs to escape back overseas at once. Determined to get her travel privileges restored, she eagerly joins a gym to lose weight. Just as her numbers start to improve as planned, she stumbles upon something…

Rising star Natsuo Ishida fully delivers here, serving up razor-sharp satire that hits close to home and will have you laughing uncontrollably—and craving more!

Natsuo Ishida

Born in Saitama Prefecture in 1991. She graduated from the Faculty of Engineering at Tokyo Institute of Technology. In 2021, she made her debut by winning an honorable mention in the 45th Subaru Literary Award for “My Friend, Smith,” which was also shortlisted for the 166th Akutagawa Prize. Her 2023 novel “The Stingy You” was nominated for both the Noma Literary New Face Prize and the Oda Sakunosuke Prize, while “The Sun in My Hands,” published the same year, was shortlisted for the 169th Akutagawa Prize and the 45th Noma Literary New Face Prize. Other works include “On the Edge of the Golden Ratio” and “Mr. Smith as Team Leader.”