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Afterword 

Welcome again, I'm Satou Tsutomu.

I hope you've enjoyed the first volume of the new series 'Magian Company'. 

Although I announced the conclusion of the series in September, I didn't feel comfortable about publishing the sequel in October, but I am pleased to say that the book will be published. 

As the subtitle says, 'Zoku?Mahouka Koukou no Rettousei', this series of books is a sequel to 'Mahouka Koukou no Rettousei'. At first, the title was just 'Magian Company', but I decided to add the subtitle because it's contents would be not understandable without reading 'Mahouka Koukou no Rettousei'. 

This story opens two years after Tatsuya and Miyuki graduate from First High, and about a month after the end of the 32nd, and last volume of 'Mahouka Koukou no Rettousei'. There is a slight time gap between this volume and the last volume of the Original Mahouka series, but this is a direct continuation of the last volume of the series. 

Despite that, this series is not 'Mahouka Koukou no Rettousei'. The setting is not Magic High Schools, or even Magic University. Sometimes the campus life of Magic University is depicted as an element of the plot, but the main setting is the Magian Company. 

As I mentioned in the postscript to the 30th volume of Mahouka, the intention of this series is to delve into elements that have yet to be explored in the 'Mahouka Koukou no Rettousei' series. The previous series persisted through "of Magic High School" and, with the exception of the eighth volume, it was limited to depicting the episodes of Tatsuya and Miyuki while they were high school students. The structure of the series, from the time they enrolled at the Magical High School to their graduation, had to be prioritized over the unexplored elements.

This series, however, is not tied to a specific period of time. Although there is no timeline for how long the series will continue, it's possible that it will continue after Tatsuya and Miyuki graduate from the University. At this point, there's some sort of point at which I would consider to be the end of the series, but the theme itself could go on indefinitely. It's possible that I'll write episodes of Tatsuya and Miyuki descendants, too.  ──At the moment, I don't have any plans for that. 

Conversely, the element of teen romance will be scarce. There will be a few characters under the apparent age of 18, but the regular members are all over 19 in their actual ages. You can expect to see the youthful elements in the other new series 'Maidens of Cygnus'.

That said, I'm not going to introduce adult eroticism into this series. To be honest, I wouldn't want you to expect that from this author, so please don't be upset. 

I think this series will have a lighter tinge of pseudo-science and more of an occult-like feel to it compared to the previous series. One of the places that retains a strong pseudo-science aspect is the Orbital Residence 'Takachiko' where Minoru and Minami live. In layman's terms, it's a residential space station. It can't be a "station" though, as there is no spacecraft traffic. That's why I coined the term "Orbital Residence". 

At first, Takachiko seemed like a mixture of Thunderbird 5 and Star Trek  ──the Star Trek TV series USS Enterprise. For those who are not familiar with Star Trek, the Enterprise sends its crew in a transporter's beam to an alien civilized planet  ──and in many cases, the landing party includes, believe it or not, the captain! ── and after a lot of intervening and messing around in various incidents, they leave the planet "all at will" (biased). 

Speaking of which, the original Thunderbird 5 and the USS Enterprise are vaguely similar in design, don't you think? The way long and thin parts are attached to a big disk. I wonder if the US had a passion for the disk shaped spaceships at that time. 

The appearance of the Takachiko of this series is composed of a disk + bar-shaped parts. But for example, 'Virtual Satellite Elevator' by means of Mock Teleportation is based on the transporter beam of the USS Enterprise. If you ask me what else they have in common, I'm at a loss for words. Also, an orbital satellite secret base is not a patent of Thunderbird. 

This is a little digression, but it is not 'Virtual Orbital Elevator', but 'Virtual Satellite Elevator'. As it refers to geostationary orbit satellites, I avoided the term "orbital elevator" because Takachiko's orbit is not geostationary. 

Speaking of coined words, all sorts of neologisms were introduced in the first volume of this new series. And more to come. Among them, "Magian" and "Mageist" were already introduced in Volume 30 of 'Mahouka Koukou no Rettousei', but from this volume onward they began to be used in earnest, and they are some of the major keywords for the series. 

As you can see from the title, the word "Magian" will be used primarily in this series rather than "Magician". Since Magian does not equate to magician, meaning persons who possess the magic gift, so, "Mageist'' has become the standard term to describe the previous series' "magician". 


One of the standouts in this first volume of the new series was undoubtedly Lina, who not only won a regular role in the series, but also became the adopted daughter of the mastermind behind the show when she became a Japanese citizen. 

On the other hand, Tatsuya's classmates didn't get much of a chance to play, except for a few appearances of Honoka and Shizuku. Instead, there was more activity from their junior classmates, especially Fumiya and Ayako. And, in the end, Minoru hinted at his future activities. Probably this trend will continue for a while. Mainly because it's easy for me to write. 

Fumiya is also useful in the sense that he's easy to carry the story forward. His somewhat pitiful situation is not out of narrative necessity, but entirely for the author's convenience. Pitiful (to others). 

On the other hand, Minoru's regularization has been announced as a structural necessity. He's going to be the third main character in 'Magian Company', if you will. Along with that, Minami's role will also increase. 

Mayumi might be the one with more increase in frequency in terms of appearances. She didn't get much of a chance to appear in the last half of the previous series, but in this series, she'll have more opportunities to play a role on par with or even more than in the "first year's part" of 'Mahouka Koukou no Rettousei'. Her fans can expect more of the same from her, if not more. But I'm afraid that "might" is all I can say. 

As mentioned before, Minoru is the "third protagonist", and the candidate for the position of "second protagonist" is the new character, Tookami Ryousuke. He would be a year above Mayumi's group if he had gone to Magic High School or Magic University. But the Extra' Ryousuke thought that " I would rather not have to hide my own bloodline and my own powers", so he decided to follow a path that has nothing to do with magic. However, while studying abroad, Ryousuke met a woman mageist, Rena, known as a "saint".

As a result, he dropped out of university and didn't have any qualifications or titles that would help him find a job, and didn't get his license as a magician, so he immersed himself in the magic he had planned to leave, and after working part-time for a while, he ended up working for Tatsuya. If you think about it this way, Rena is more like a witch than a "saint". 

As I mentioned in the story, Rena's constitution of slowed-aging , "Anageria" is an ailment, or rather a condition in "Tom Hazzard's Unstoppable Time" (Matt Haig, translated by Mayumi Otani, Hayakawa Shobo). I think "Anageria" is a term coined by Matt Haig, but if I'm wrong, I'd appreciate it if you could let me know. 

Well, there will be many other new neologisms and new characters to come, but we'll get to those in the next volume. Here's the news. 

For this series 'Magian Company', I'm pleased to announce that Kana Ishida-san will be handling the illustrations for us as well. Please look forward to seeing the older, more mature characters, and the new girls who are just as attractive as those already in the series. 
It's been confirmed that Ishida-san will also be working on the other new series, 'Maidens of Cygnus' (Provisional Title). Please look forward to that as well. 

You can get a sneak peek at the key visual for 'Maidens of Cygnus' (Provisional Title) on the official website. (https://tsutomusato.jp/news/)

I hope to see you again in the next volume. 
(Satou Tsutomu) 

Translator Notes 
First of all, I would like to thank thevoidzero, blakegriffin89 and HiroYoshida for the immense help on doing this translation. And also special thanks to the contribuition of Realkhuma2 and Snoo27157 

The first thing I want to adress is that this translation is an adaptation in the end. Not only limited to japanese, by translating from one language to another there will be losses in meanings. I've tried my best to keep close to the original, and the author's unique style as possible. 

Now, Regarding the japanese side of things, or rather, the adaptation from japanese to english, there might be some differences between my version and from the spoilers from the wikia, and that mainly applies to the terms and foreign names. The terms differ mostly in choice of words and positioning, but foreign names (and katakana terms) can be a bit tricky sometimes. 

In japanese, there is the katakana, a language system used for loaned words, which, in most cases, are foreign words and names. Taking out some cases, where it can be deduced by the context or the writing, it can vary depending on who is translating, as the katakana system does not fully encompass some of the needs that a western word requires. The biggest example of it is the lack of "L" in the japanese. Because of that, the adaptation of most of the names and terms shown in katakana will vary to each translation unless the author clarifies it.  ──In the case of Japanese names, their pronunciation is clarified by means of furigana. 

The names in question are Rena Fehr (レナ・フェール). The "Rena" name can be left to interpretation as to whether it could be "Rena" or "Lena", as there are no "L" in japanese, and "R" is put on it's place. However, regarding the "Fehr", it's one of the possible interpretations of the katakana, on the same time it has the same katakana wording as the organization she leads "FEHR". 

In Bahman and Bahadur case (バフマン and バハドゥール respectively), I've picked from the list of possible names that could be interpreted and checked if they would match the context of the characters. I did the same with their identical surname, "Mufid" (モフィード) The name of their duo "Janus" (ジェイナス) was adapted this way, as it probably is a reference to the roman god. 

In the process of translating I came across the author's reference to some books and other materials. Of which I made a difficult decision of correcting it. One of which is the reference he made to the book "How to Stop Time" by Matt Haig, of which he used the title in the japanese edition of the book. I adapted it by replacing it with the original, english title of the book. Another adaptation on the same field, it's regarding the "Arabian Nights" reference of the words "Open, Sesame" and "Close, Sesame". While the author used those words in japanese mostly, he also wrote them down in english at some points. However, he used "Shut it, Sesame" for what I adapted as "Close, Sesame". And, even considering that the author clarified the english pronunciation, I've made the difficult decision of considering it like the previous case. I replaced the "Shut it, Sesame" to match the popular version of the "Arabian Nights" in english, and I've marked the times where it is used in english with italics. 

Thank you for reading. 
__ 
[1] 四八 徹  
[2] 四十 谷徹 
[3] 東道 理奈 
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Bull  
[5] The used suffix "jou" (嬢) it’s from the word "Ojou" (お嬢), which, in this case, it’s used to refer to someone as young lady  
[6] 遠上 遼介  
[7] 東山 知時  
[8] Here its is used "姉", which means "Older sister".  
[9] 遠上  
[10] 十神  
[11] Here, he refers to himself as俺 (ore). It’s a male term, or language, that can be considered rough or arrogant  
[12] The japanese pronunciation of the abbreviated name is "Makōin" (魔工院)  
[13] Ground-effect Vehicle  
[14]"Black companies" is a popular japanese term for companies with little to no care for the health of its employees. The general characteristics of one involve: extreme long working hours and quotas are imposed on workers; low awareness of compliance throughout the company, such as rampant overtime for non-payment of wages and power harassment, and excessive selection of workers under such circumstances.  
[15] An equivalent to the english expression "counting one's chickens before they've hatched"  
[16] Terrorism Early Warning (TEW) Groups  
[17] 極散  
[18] Author's imput  
[19] Parallax  
[20] (受身) Ukemi, a martial arts term for the "art of falling safely"  
[21](合気術) Aikijustu  
[22] It's probably referring to ghuls, commonly known as ghouls  
[23] 妖術師  





COMMENTS

4 Comments

3 Years, 1 Week ago

Good work Translator san am looking forward to next time . Forward my regards to Satou Tsutomu san.

3 Years, 2 Months ago

@luigi,we are expecting in April 2021.

3 Years, 2 Months ago

ma quando esce il prossimo volume?

3 Years, 3 Months ago

dear translator, thank you for your hard work. I just wanted to say in respect of Persian names, Bahman & Bahadur Mufid, there is no problem with the spelling and translation.

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