Bungo Stray Dogs - Volume 6 - Chapter Aft

AFTERWORD 

Long time no see. Asagiri here. 

This is the first novel I’ve done in a while. It’s based on the bonus story Beast: Akutagawa the White, Atsushi the Black, which was given to everyone who saw the Dead Apple film during the first week of its theatrical release in 2018. 

If I remember correctly, I believe I was asked to write something about Atsushi and Akutagawa. (Incidentally, there were two bonus short stories included with the film. Those who saw it during the second week of its theatrical release received a story about Dazai and Chuuya.) 

It only took me about ten seconds to come up with the main theme because for the longest time, I’d been wondering: What if Atsushi and Akutagawa switched places? 

What would change if Akutagawa was in the detective agency and Atsushi was in the Port Mafia? What wouldn’t change? It felt kind of like a thought experiment. I created the world and laid out the plot in my head like a kid who plays around in science class by gradually switching out the lab equipment. 

Now that I think about it, when I was first asked to write the story, they also told me to make it around fifty pages long. Of course, a real pro follows their client’s wishes to a T, and I’m proud to be a professional writer, so I met the deadline…and ended up writing one hundred and ninety pages. 

………… 

Nobody directly complained to me, but I’m sure the production company wasn’t too thrilled (all that paper costs money). I went to one of the first showings of Dead Apple and received a copy of the bonus story I wrote, but when I looked at it, I immediately noticed it said “bonus booklet,” and I thought, This is basically an entire novel, isn’t it? 

As it so happens, the bonus story about Dazai and Chuuya was around one hundred and sixty pages. Someone really ought to hammer some sense into the author’s head. 

After some further revisions, Beans Bunko released this definitive edition with several tweaks to various scenes and dialogue. The movie booklets are included with the Dead Apple Blu-ray/DVD release, so if you’re curious, you could pick that up and see the differences for yourself. (This might be a very niche form of entertainment, though…) 

Anyway. 

Usually, I don’t really like telling people what to think when they’re reading anything I wrote because I believe the stories themselves should be able to do all the talking, and I feel it’s a little cheap to start adding footnotes outside the work itself. 

But I’m going to have to break that rule this time because I do want you to think about something in particular after reading this novel. Specifically, how much fun it is to change one aspect of the story and observe how that moves the story along. 

Experimenting—like that kid in science class. For instance: What if Atsushi was a woman? What if the Armed Detective Agency was on the verge of bankruptcy when he joined? What if it wasn’t a detective agency, but a newspaper publishing company? What if Atsushi had met Montgomery before he ever met Kyouka? What if Chuuya joined the detective agency along with Dazai? 

The possibilities are endless, and each possibility carries the same weight. As long as you believe that, then the world that possibility creates will always be right in front of you. All that’s left is to let time pass in that world, following whatever your heart wants. Only once you do that will you come to “this side”—a world full of joy and sorrow but also relentless charm. I welcome you to our world. 

Last but not least, I would like to express my gratitude to my editors, the illustrator Harukawa, the film staff who made Dead Apple possible, and everyone who picked up a copy of this book. Thank you all. Until we meet again. 

KAFKA ASAGIRI 

Special Thanks 

Original Story and Script Supervision by Kafka Asagiri 

Manga Illustration by Sango Harukawa 

Director: Takuya Igarashi 

Script: Yoji Enokido 

Character Design and Chief Animation Director: Nobuhiro Arai 

This novel is the complete version of the bonus story “Beast: Akutagawa the White, Atsushi the Black” given to audiences during the first week of the animated movie Bungo Stray Dogs: Dead Apple’s theatrical release in 2018.