Afterword
It truly has been a long time since we’ve had a book in the main story. When I checked the afterword of Magical Girl Raising Project: Black, I was saying exactly the same thing. This is Asari Endou.
To everyone who has been waiting for so long, I am very sorry. I would be happy if White has resolved everyone’s desire to read even a little more of Magical Girl Raising Project.
And then there’s something else that I must apologize for. Veridian Green, also called Red, which was supposed to come after White, will be a little late. I’m very sorry about this. It won’t be as long as the wait between Black and White, so please forgive me.
And so I have begun with one apology after another. This is mainly my fault. And the apologies have yet to end. I believe that those of you who have already read this volume will know this, but here in White, Lazuline the First/Old Blue finally makes a legitimate appearance. Her student 0 Lulu shows up along with her, and they do some scheming behind the scenes and other things.
And if we’re going to talk about the Lazuline Faction, then blue is the color. After blue magical girls like Lapis Lazuline, Bluebell Candy, Ranyi, Diko Narakunoin, now here comes Old Blue and 0 Lulu, too.
While the schedule was already being pushed back (my fault), I made Marui-no bear the burden of mass-producing blue magical girls, which I’m very sorry for. Lazuline the First and everyone else, thank you.
Doing nothing but apologizing might make readers of this afterword feel rather depressed, so let’s go for a bit of a lighter topic. It’s been about one year since I’ve begun my Twitter account, but recently I went viral for the first time. I kept worrying about whether I should advertise or not, since it had nothing to do with Magical Girl Raising Project; in fact I was talking about another work entirely, so in the end, I didn’t advertise MGRP. Rather, I couldn’t. I was too scared.
Was this actually a lighter topic? I don’t even know.
Speaking of social media, when I used to see pictures of food, I would think, This looks good, but I don’t have an appetite. Lately, I’ve become more like, This looks good, okay, let’s eat.
My health, or rather my stomach, is doing really well lately. Up until about ten years ago, I’d get diarrhea over everything, and if I ate anything even slightly oily in the evening, I would feel sick and be unable to sleep, I was tormented by reflux esophagitis, and when I didn’t have diarrhea, I would be basically always constipated—there was absolutely nothing good about the state of my stomach. But lately the trio of yogurt, konnyaku jelly, and black oolong tea has made me feel really great, and I’ve eaten too many potato chips, ice cream, chocolate, pastries, ramen, and youkan, leading me to be the fattest I’ve ever been.
By the way, the reflux esophagitis is the one thing I still have. I wonder why.
As for who’s eating snacks with me, that would be my younger sister—but just the other day, I heard from her that Magical Girl Raising Project had come into the library.
“Huh, that’s amazing.”
“And the whole series, too.”
“For real?”
“But they weren’t allowed to be loaned out.”
“Huh? Why not?”
“I’m not sure, but I figure it was because it was a local collection.”
“A local collection… I see…”
Does that mean it’s a record of the history of the battle in N City?
The history of Magical Girl Raising Project is the history of magical girls. And lots of minor magical girls appear this time around.
I love minor magical girls—even those girls who don’t even get a character introduction, never mind getting into local lore. Every single one of them has a life, a magical-girl life—in other words, a history. They all have their unique traits, their own philosophies, and lives as magical girls—which, if they’re not watching out, can take them somewhere they won’t come back from.
No, generally speaking, those who if they’re not watching out will go somewhere they won’t come back from are in the minority among magical girls. But even minor characters who appear in this main story are often of that sort of dangerous profession.
I really hope even the most trivial actions and lines from them, as well as their looks and everything else, gets across that sort of information and fantasy.
This time, the minor magical girl who moved my heart the most was Adelheid’s senior, the “baby magical girl who controls a powered suit.” She appears hiding her face with a mask, but my editor S-mura asked me the very reasonable question, “Is this magical girl hiding her face? Or is she hiding the face of her humanoid powered suit?” and because of this, I wound up imagining “a baby magical girl hiding the face of her powered suit but with her real face completely exposed,” and I kept laughing for about five minutes and wound up cutting off that meeting. I even burst out laughing remembering it now. I laughed the hardest I had in years. I don’t know what about it tickled me so much. That’s kind of frustrating.
In the end, I settled on both the baby’s own face and the powered face being hidden. Even now, every time I remember it, I just can’t stop laughing, but well, it was good.
To everyone in the editorial department who has guided me, and to my managing editor, S-mura, who has helped me not only with this book but also with things on Twitter: Thank you very much.
Marui-no, thank you very much for your fantastic illustrations. Myself and Old Blue have caused a lot of work for you, but upon receiving your designs for Old Blue that were so precisely Old Blue, progenitor of the Lazulines, I have bowed my head to the west.
To director Hiroyuki Hashimoto, who made such wonderful comments, thank you very much. It truly is an honor. Please do keep your eyes peeled for what Snow White will see at the end of the story. I will also keep writing until the end.
And to all my readers, sorry for the wait. Thank you very much. I don’t think I will be putting off Red as much as this. Please wait for a little while longer.
Let us meet again in Red, and in the books before it.
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