Eiji Yoshikawa
Because of the picaresque nature of his early works, Asada has often been described as a picaresque writer. However, after winning the Eiji Yoshikawa Prize for New Writers for "Metro ni notte" (地下鉄に乗って) in 1995, his style and range of writing changed and expanded dramatically. His historical novel "The Firmament of the Pleiades" ("Sōkyū no subaru", 蒼穹の昴), which described vividly the last stages of the Qing dynasty China was nominated for the Naoki prize of 1996.