Grimgal of Ashes and Illusion - Volume 6 - Chapter Aft

Afterword

In the afterword for each volume of Grimgar of Fantasy and Ash, I’ve usually ended up writing about video games, but I think I’ll do something a little different this time.

As has already been announced, this novel will be receiving an anime adaptation.

I hadn’t anticipated this at all, and honestly, when my editor, Mr. K, first told me it might be happening, I laughed it off as unlikely. I was sure that the project would just up and vanish. Even after meeting Director Ryosuke Nakamura, as well as Mieko Hosoi-san and all of the producers, I was still half in doubt.

When I read the script, it was very entertaining, and I admired what they had done. “Why, this Grimgar of Fantasy and Ash, it’s quite an impressive story. I wonder who wrote the original work. Oh, I did? Are you sure?” That was how disconnected I felt from it all. It just didn’t feel real.

It’s Mr. K and Mr. H of the editing department that deal directly with the anime production staff, so, in a way, it’s like everything’s happening off somewhere far away. It’s hard for it to sink in. There was a lot of actual work involved for me, including checks and adjustments, as well as giving my opinion on things. Though I never calmed down, I was relatively clear-headed about it all. But, you know, I just couldn’t calm down about it, and I still can’t.

This project came about because someone liked the novel and wanted to make an anime of it, so I am, of course, grateful for and happy about that. In the process of meeting the production team directly and speaking with them a number of times, I saw the passion and the seriousness with which they approached the work. I was surprised and overwhelmed by how deeply and with how much detail they thought about everything, and I was sincerely pleased by the fact that the thing they were creating was based on my own original work.

There are many people involved in the production of an anime, and a lot of money changes hands. It’s on a completely different scale from a novel. Obviously, they aren’t just doing all of this for their own entertainment, so I’m hoping it’s a success for them.

This is all just a matter of my own mentality, but one day I noticed I was watching the anime of Grimgar of Fantasy and Ash from a surprisingly objective perspective.

Why is that? I wondered. I quickly found my answer.

Fundamentally, I am the kind of person who, even when it isn’t going well, and he is feeling pain and loneliness, can be happy so long as he is writing novels. I think being a novelist is truly my calling. But does it absolutely have to be novels? I don’t think it does.

What I enjoy is imagining this or that in my head, and then capturing it in some form. Whether that’s as manga, movies, pictures, music, I think anything would probably do.

However, if you have a pen and paper, or even just a PC these days, you can write. What’s more, you can do it by yourself, no help from others needed. That’s an important point.

I want to do everything by myself. I want to create something that’s purely my own.

Well, I’m sure there are people who do it all by themselves with manga, but it’s not as easy as with a novel. As for pictures, if there had been something that gave me the impetus to do it, I might have worked with them. I tried music, or songs rather, but I hated the sound of my own voice. With my voice, my songs wouldn’t turn out the way I was imagining them. There’s no helping that.

Due to various factors, I ended up choosing novels, which I could begin and complete entirely by myself. By the way, even with novels, when you think about the publication of the book, there are the editor and designers, the proofreaders, and the illustrator involved, as well. However, the first draft, I believe, belongs entirely to the novelist.

That’s why I do as little to change my first draft as possible. Almost the only time I make corrections is when my editor or the proofreaders note a mistake or something contradictory and I feel there is a valid need to. My novels are mine and mine alone, and that’s why I love being a novelist.

Because of that, I am very grateful to those who make my novels into books for me. I pay great respect to the talents of those men and women.

It’s true that the anime for Grimgar of Fantasy and Ash is based on my novel, but naturally, it is not my novel. It’s something that Director Nakamura and many other people have worked together to create. It’s absolutely not mine. If the anime turns out to be something wonderful, that achievement belongs to the people who created it. I only provided the original source materials. The anime is entirely their work.

I have ended up in a position where I can, directly and indirectly, see the incredible labor they put in, the skills they’ve developed, and the rare sense of taste that they have put to use in creating anime. I am the person with the greatest expectations for the anime Grimgar of Fantasy and Ash, and also one of the people looking forward to it.

If my novel were not the original work, I wouldn’t have had the chance to have these expectations and anticipation for it. That is a fact. In a broad sense, that may be because I am one of the creators. If there’s anything I can do to make the anime a success, I will gladly do it. But, really, I’m a novelist, and the anime is not my novel. It’s because I’ve drawn a firm distinction between the two in my mind that I’m able to wait for the anime with great expectations, and to look forward to it.

This is a first experience for me, and I’m having trouble keeping calm about it, but it looks like I’ll be able to become one of the fortunate viewers of the anime Grimgar of Fantasy and Ash. Because of my position, I’ve had a glimpse at the production process (which was incredibly fun me, too; the script, storyboards, roughs, everything, it was all incredible), and so I can say this with absolute certainty: It’s going to be a really, really, really wonderful anime!

I’ve run out of pages.

To my editor, K-san, to Eiri Shirai-san, to the designers of KOMEWORKS among others, to everyone involved in production and sales of this book, and finally to all of you people now holding this book, I offer my heartfelt appreciation and all of my love. Now, I lay down my pen for today.

I hope we will meet again.

Ao Jyumonji