Durarara!! - Volume 10 - Chapter Aft

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AFTERWORD

Hello, I’m Ryohgo Narita.

The following piece of text is the same thing I wrote in the afterword of Baccano! 1932 Summer, which came out in June, but given that not all my readers follow both series, I decided to reprint it here. Please forgive the redundancy.

I don’t know when you might be reading this. At the time that I’m writing this, Japan is on the road to recovery. Fortunately, the area where I live was unhurt by the earthquake, but at a time when so many relatives, acquaintances, and readers are suffering, it’s hard for me to even know how to offer condolences to my own extended family. Everyone says, “They don’t want to hear your empty encouragement,” while on the other hand, I’ve also heard directly from those affected, saying, “I just want a word of comfort.” So I spend these days thinking long and hard about what words I can prepare for others.

But if you’re reading this afterword, then I choose to believe you’ve regained enough of an ordinary life that you’re able to read a book, at least. I hope this volume will help lead you to the next thing in that process. When I write books, I hope they’ll be idle entertainment, something you can read while eating popcorn or hold with sweaty palms. Times might be hard right now, but I’ll keep writing in the hopes that what I create is worth your idle entertainment time once you’ve got enough normalcy left to sit around, reading books and eating popcorn.

So, here we are at the very special tenth volume of Durarara!! at last.

After I brought out Celty’s head in the last one, I thought, Whew, this was the biggest story leap since Volume 2! But then I heard a lot of people saying, “We want to see more about the main trio’s story!” That was a bit sad for me, given that I consider Celty the main character, but I did choose to push forward the story surrounding Mikado quite a bit this time. Since I write Durarara!! in alternation with other stories, I was planning to focus each individual book on a particular character, but at that pace, I’d be on call for another ten books at least. (And in fact, I did have plans to write books about Togusa, Vorona, and the main Awakusu-kai cast.) I didn’t want it to get long in the tooth, so I decided to rush forward with the Dollars story line so that I could finish it up.

My plan is to wrap up the Dollars/Saika/Yellow Scarves story line in Durarara!!, Volume 12, with whatever comes afterward to depend on Celty’s status at the end of Volume 12. I haven’t thought that far ahead, so whether there is a Volume 13, or I change the title and start a new series, or just end the whole thing is still up in the air.

I hate to be so amateurish that I intentionally push the story forward a whole bunch and yet throw you into a cliff-hanger ending, but if you don’t mind, you could check out one of my other series while you wait for Volume 11… (Baccano! is up next, but there are a number of other possibilities I’m considering after that.)

It’s been about half a year since the last DVD of the anime series came out, but Mr. Yasuda still has a Durarara!! art book coming out (along with another art book from Kodansha, both of which are great!), and the manga version of the Saika arc is about to start in G Fantasy magazine. On top of that, there’s an augmented version of the PSP game with more content on sale, too. The Durarara!! world is ever expanding, so I hope you enjoy all the places it goes!

*The following is the usual list of acknowledgments.

To my editor, Mr. Papio, and the rest of the editorial office. To the proofreaders, whom I give a hard time by being so late with submissions. To all the folks at ASCII Media Works.

To my family, who do so much for me in so many ways, my friends, fellow authors, and illustrators.

To Director Omori, Akiyo Satorigi, and everyone else involved in the various media projects, including anime, manga, and video games.

To Suzuhito Yasuda, who took time out of his busy schedule with his art book in June and Devil Survivor 2 and Yozakura Quartet manga serials to provide his wonderful illustrations.