[1] The next year he won the 6th Noma Literary New Face Prize for his novel Muyū ōkoku no tame no ongaku (夢遊王国のための音楽, Music for the Kingdom of Somnambulism).

In her review for The New York Times, Julia Just praised Dream Messenger as "proof that the Japanese novel is taking some fantastic turns in the hands of a new generation of writers.

"[3] A 2017 retrospective review by Stephen Mansfield of The Japan Times described Dream Messenger as "existential novel that manages to remain firmly grounded within the parameters of a compelling narrative.

"[4] The same year that Dream Messenger was published in English, Shimada won the 20th Izumi Kyōka Prize for Literature for Higan Sensei (彼岸先生), a parody of Natsume Sōseki's novel Kokoro.

[5][6] Shimada wrote the libretto for Shigeaki Saegusa's opera Chūshingura, which Werner Herzog directed in its 1997 Tokyo debut.