Accel World - Volume 9 - Chapter Aft

AFTERWORD

Reki Kawahara here. Thank you so much for reading Accel World 9: The Seven-Thousand-Year Prayer.

This is the volume on the Armor of Catastrophe, Chrome Disaster, which first appeared in Volume 2, and was taken up as a main part of the story in Volume 6. But in Volume 9 here, we finally get to see the end, for now at least. I really do appreciate all of you putting up with the “to be continued” at the end of Volumes 6, 7, and 8, and sticking with me right up until “the end.”

But since there are still so many plotlines left stacked up in here (or rather, so many were added in this volume…), it doesn’t look like we’ll reach the conclusion of the story itself anytime soon. What will Haruyuki aim for in the end? What is hiding in Kuroyukihime’s past? Why does the Accelerated World exist? Although it’s not entirely certain that I’ll really be able to write everything out to that extent, I’d like to keep going the way I have been, one volume at a time, having fun with it myself. At any rate, I want to make Volume 10 something cheerful and fun that is complete in one volume! Yes!!

And I wasn’t sure whether or not to touch on this, but maybe just a little…Those of you who have read Volume 8 of my other series Sword Art Online were no doubt wondering “Who is that?!” when you saw the new girl character standing in the way in the spread with the preview of Accel Volume 9 at the end of the book. Who exactly that was is made clear in part four of this volume, but I had no intention of announcing, “So-and-so is a girl!” through her appearance there. (At any rate, I’ll avoid spoilers.)

I’m sure I’ll have a chance to write about her in more detail in the future, so until then, I’d be pleased if you could be in anguish over it…It would help, anyway. (lol)

Since I only have a few lines left, I’ll make one announcement here. I believe it’s probably also noted on the obi band of Volume 9, but Accel World is being turned into a television anime show. Sunrise is doing the production. The Sunrise. I’m right in the middle of the Gundam generation, and the structure of the duel avatars has been influenced in a variety of ways by the Sunrise robots, so I couldn’t be happier at just getting to see Crow and Lotus moving on-screen. I do sincerely hope you will all take in the anime version of Accel!

To my illustrator, HIMA, who put heart and soul into the design for said new character; my editor, Miki, who gave me more corrections than basically ever before on the scene with that character (lol); and, to repeat myself, all you readers who stayed with me right until the end of the Armor arc, thank you so much!

Reki Kawahara

August 11, 2011