Durarara!! - Volume 13 - Chapter Aft

AFTERWORD

And that is the end of Durarara!! as the story of the Dollars and Yellow Scarves.

It’s been a very long journey.

My original plan, starting with the fourth volume, was to do a story set two years after the third volume, without Mikado’s group, and based around a completely different plot kernel—but instead, it turned out to be a massive thirteen-volume epic centered around the trio of teenagers.

The story of Mikado Ryuugamine, Masaomi Kida, and Anri Sonohara will reach an end here, but I hope that you will imagine them on the other side of this story, making new connections and weaving a new tale.

Incidentally, while I did not touch upon the past of Kine and Mikage Sharaku very much, I was going to write about that in a book that was scheduled to be published last year, except that certain publishing conditions did not line up for it to come to fruition. Please wait for that.

Now, in the process of getting my mind out of Durarara!! mode, I had a meeting with my editor, discussing whether to move next to Vamp!, or Baccano! 1935, or maybe 5656! Two, or Vamp! or Hariyama-san, or a new series, or Vamp!, or…

This is how that conversation went.

Me: “As for my next plans…”

Editor: “About that. April 2014 is the tenth anniversary of Durarara!!”

Me: “Right.”

Editor: “So let’s do Durarara!! next, as a ten-year memorial project.”

Me: “Right…? …What?! Wait, but I just finished wrapping it up, at least for now…and it’s Vamp’s tenth anniversary, too…”

Editor: “Well, if this is the end of Part One, we should do another one now for the anniversary, to let the fans know that Part Two is going to keep the gravy train rolling!”

Me: “I…I see… I didn’t think of it that way…”

So in the coming spring, I’ll be starting up Durarara!! SH, the continuation of the series.

This is the story I initially wanted to write starting in Volume 4, a depiction of the ordinary life of Ikebukuro two years after the Yellow Scarves incident in Volume 3. I would love it if you’d follow along with me!

And as for what the SH stands for, I intend to make that clear within the story and my afterword, so you’ll have to check it out to find the answer.

And in coordination with this, there will be all kinds of things to announce and promote on the tenth anniversary ahead. I hope that you all enjoy Durarara!! Year!

First of all, there are new Durarara!! comic adaptations coming out in the pages of the Sylph and Dengeki Maoh magazines!

These will be an adaptation of the PSP game Durarara!! 3way Standoff—Alley— by Izuko Fujiya and a chibi-style spin-off called Minidura by Yoko Umezu!

There’s also Akiyo Satorigi’s Durarara!! Yellow Scarves Arc, covering the events of the main story, running in G Fantasy!

Also, for the Blu-ray release of Suzuhito Yasuda’s own Yozakura Quartet series, we have a special limited-edition bonus: a collaboration manga of Yozakura Quartet and Durarara!! I love doing collabs like this and can’t wait to see the finished product!

And in even more news, in Sega and Dengeki’s crossover fighting game Dengeki Bunko: Fighting Climax, Shizuo Heiwajima will be appearing as a playable character, with Celty as a support character! He’s got some extreme stats as a fighter, so if you have the chance to play, try him out and rage to your heart’s content!

And from what I hear, there are other tenth-anniversary plans I still don’t even know about yet. We’ll be saving some of those for the release of Durarara!! SH and some future Dengeki events, so keep your eyes peeled!

And lastly, I must deliver my acknowledgments.

To my editor, Papio, and everyone at ASCII Media Works and the printers, I am so sorry for all the trouble I’ve caused throughout the entirety of this first part of the series!

I am full of gratitude to all the readers who have stuck with me for nearly ten years to read this story about a rather unique take on the district of Ikebukuro in Tokyo.

And I am overflowing with thanks for my illustrator, Suzuhito Yasuda, and all the other people involved in making the anime, manga, and games, for sharing the world of Durarara!! with me and helping to expand it further than I could ever do on my own.

In the process of writing about a sprawling cast of characters interacting on the streets of Ikebukuro, I myself became associated with so many wonderful people in return, and it is this that is my greatest reward from the series.

I am grateful to my friends, acquaintances, and family, for all their emotional support.

And though I said this already, a true thank-you to all the people who enjoyed and supported the story of the Dollars, Saika, the Yellow Scarves, and the Headless Rider, as well as the three high schoolers and the many, many characters surrounding them!

I hope that we will meet again soon.

December 2013—Ryohgo Narita