AFTERWORD
Hi there, Yuu Miyazaki here.
At long last, The Asterisk War has come to a successful conclusion. It’s been ten years since the release of the first volume, and I have only gratitude for those of you who have supported me throughout this time. Since this is the final volume, this afterword is going to be slightly longer than usual, but as always, it contains spoilers, so be warned if you haven’t read the main story yet.
First of all, since the series is now complete, we’ve put together a new promotional video ranking episodes cut from the overall story. The video is aimed at existing readers, so if you have time, please take a look. I’m pleased to announce that first place goes to “Christmas Date,” an episode that was supposed to take place between Volumes 10 and 11. It was supposed to be an opportunity for Ayato to go on dates with Julis, Saya, Claudia, and Kirin around Christmastime, following on from his date with Sylvia during the school fair. There were many reasons why it was cut, but the main one was that I wanted to get the Lindvolus arc properly underway. But now that I look back on it, I think maybe we should have included it. After all, we hardly did any seasonal events in the main story, and it would have been nice to include Christmas at least…
The first half of this volume details Ayato’s and Julis’s final battles, while the second half is what you might call the follow-up to the main arc. Personally, I love reading a satisfying conclusion, and my original plan was for the entire volume to serve as a denouement. But when I started writing about the Lindvolus tournament, the contents grew beyond my wildest expectations, and so the final battle was postponed. That being said, I had decided from early on that the final showdown would simultaneously be between Julis and Orphelia on the one hand, and Ayato and Madiath on the other, so I’m glad I was finally able to bring it to fruition. By the way, you probably noticed that Madiath scorns Ayato’s fighting style and learned techniques. But as you can see from the fact that he gave the Golden Bough Alliance its name, he did have a fondness for such things at one time. He even had secret names for all of his Raksha-Nada moves. Since there wasn’t an opportunity to reveal them in the story itself, I’ll list them here: The one that automatically defends him using shards of the weapon is called Viscum, the technique that attacks its target from all sides is called Deserta, his whip-sword attack is called Aprilis, and his weapon-forging technique is known as Regicide.
I had planned to return to as many characters as possible in the conclusion, but once I started writing, I realized that there weren’t enough pages to go around, so I had to narrow it down to just a few. There was so much that I wanted to include, such as why the Li twins moved up to Jie Long’s headquarters, the current situation of everyone in Team Kaguya from the side story, what Fuyuka was doing over at Mount Emei, Eishirou and his love interest, Ardy and the autonomous puppets, and more, but I’m sorry to say that we ran out of space.
As for the love story, the last scene shows Ayato setting off down the Julis route. The other heroines haven’t given up yet, and it’s possible that they could turn the tables on each other, but I think it’s fair to say that Julis has taken the lead. So long as the others don’t interfere in some way, Ayato and Julis will probably end up tying the knot sooner or later. But of course, there’s no way the others will just sit by and watch.
As the title suggests, The Asterisk War is based in the academic city of Asterisk. And of course, school is a place that everyone eventually leaves one day. Ayato and his friends have, for the most part, completed everything they needed to do at school, so the curtain closes on them for the time being. But their stories will continue in a different setting. One example of this is Lieseltania. I touched on this briefly in our last scene with Percival, but a new generation of students will be taking the reins at Asterisk, too.
Personally, I’m really fond of the world of Asterisk, and I hope to be able to release another work connected to it in some way. When I do, I hope you’ll pick up a copy.
Last of all, my thanks.
First, I’d like to thank Okiura for his illustrations and character designs. The cover art and artworks this time around are like a culmination of all his splendid work. Every time I look at them, they seem to sparkle with life. Without him, these works wouldn’t have been possible. I can’t thank him enough.
I’m truly grateful the series has been blessed with a wide mix of media formats. To Ningen, who was in charge of the manga adaptation of the main story, and Akane Sabi, who worked on the manga adaptation of The Wings of Queenvale, thank you for all your wonderful work.
In addition, I took a great deal of inspiration from the anime adaptation—so many elements from it fed back into the main work. I’d like to thank the chief director, Manabu Ono; Atsushi Tamaru for playing Ayato; Ai Kakuma as Julis; Shiori Izawa for voicing Saya; Nao Toyama as Claudia; Ari Ozawa as Kirin; Haruka Chisuga as Sylvia (and who also sang the ending song for the second season); Shiena Nishizawa, who sang the opening song; everyone at A-1 Pictures and Aniplex; everyone involved in the video game The Asterisk War: Phoenix Festa and the social game The Asterisk War: Radiant Stella; and the many staff and performers involved in the various productions.
I’d also like to thank everyone in the editorial department at M. F. Bunko for working so hard to bring this work to life. Some faces have now left, but here goes… S. was my editor when this project first launched; O. consulted with me until the first draft of the first volume was ready for publication; I. worked with me and Okiura to essentially create Asterisk, helping us continue to develop the premise up till now, including the anime adaptation; O., my current editor-in-charge, staying the course patiently until the very end; S., for supervising Fuyuka’s Kyoto dialect; and all the publishing and sales staff—thank you all so much.
In addition, I’d like to thank my family and friends for supporting me, including my creative mentors, manga artists Hekiru Kikawa and Minari Endoh, for helping me find an opening in the publishing world.
Above all, to all the readers of The Asterisk War who have supported Ayato, Julis, and the others to the very end, I cannot tell you how much your feedback has encouraged me over these past ten years. Once again, I’d like to thank you with all my heart.
I hope we meet again sometime in the future.
Yuu Miyazaki
May 2022
Afterword
It seems that we’ve all been sharing the world of Asterisk for ten whole years now. Excellent work all throughout, Miyazaki. I know I’ve caused you more than a few headaches myself, so thank you for letting me stick with you all the way through to the end.
And thank you so much to all the readers for your love of The Asterisk War. I hope you all know how much it means to me.
May 2022
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