Afterword
My name is Asari Endou, and I love magical girls so much that if they really existed I’d be over the moon. To change the subject a bit, my friend I-kun once told me, of all things, “I love tentacles (interacting with girls in various ways).” The next day, everyone called him Tentacles. You may be confused, but in starting this afterword by stating I love magical girls, I am saying I am prepared to be called a magical girl.
Now, back on subject.
To help me write this, I pulled out some of my old works and read the afterwords, which were filled with things like, “If possible, I hope we meet again soon.” Adding on “if possible” to protect myself in case the “I hope we meet again soon” part doesn’t come true was quite cowardly, I think. There probably aren’t many out there, but I hope any young boys reading this afterword never become like me when they grow up.
In my previous afterwords, I wrote about how my editor, S-mura-san, warned me not to write anything that could come off as socially objectionable, but this time I received no such warning. Perhaps he thought there was no need to try to cover up anything in the afterword when the novel itself was rather socially objectionable.
After all, there’s no denying the antisocial natures of our pre–writing process discussions in family restaurants about how best to kill off innocent girls, and our long discussions over the phone consisting of, “No, this won’t work. That won’t work, either. This seems interesting. Let’s go with that.”
Thus this will be an afterword with a focus on proper societal behavior. I’m sorry, that was a lie. There’s not much of that here at all.
Writing this was less of a bumpy ride and more of a roller coaster. First, I screwed up with the progression of the plot, and once I had finished my first draft, I couldn’t settle on either the middle or the ending. Slowly, after countless suggestions to change this, nix that, add this, et cetera, the polish was done. We fought with words and fists, collapsed spread-eagle by the riverbed illuminated by the setting sun, then got up and said, “You’re not so bad.” “Heh-heh. Same to you,” and laughed together. I was surprised to find that this was what authors and editors must go through together. And so, in this fashion, the novel changed shape many times until we finally settled on its current form.
But even now, I don’t feel it’s finished. I’m very sorry, but I’m not satisfied. To give you an example of how unsatisfied I am, I once dreamed about Calamity Mary. She beat me, kicked me, then finally shot me dead. It was a nightmare. Just terrible.
To the editors who guided me to the end, and especially my editor, S-mura-san, my heartfelt gratitude. Thank you very much.
To Marui-no Sensei, who drew the illustrations, I am sorry for the direct trouble my late manuscript caused. I will be keeping the beautiful illustrations of magical girls as a treasure to pass on to my descendants. I especially liked Nemurin. Thank you very much.
Lastly, to my readers: Thank you very much for buying this volume. Until next time. If possible, I hope we meet again soon. No, seriously.
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