Maidens of Cygnus - Volume 2 - Chapter Aft

Afterword

This has been the second volume of the ‘New - The Irregular at Magic High School’ series. How was it? I hope it was to your liking.

This book was difficult to write. I won’t say it was the hardest one I’ve ever done, but the number of trials and errors may be my highest ever. I wrote and corrected, wrote and corrected repeatedly, and I have reached a single conclusion.

I can’t write youth. It appears I’m not cut out for peaceful school things.

Being that what it is, I can’t change my path now. Writing this series will continue to be difficult.

As of this second volume, I feel the series’ regular and semi-regular cast has almost been completely introduced. Ichijou Akane for Marika and Hiiro Hiromi for Alisa. Unlike the previous series, in this series the protagonists will challenge higher ranked rivals. As a structure for fiction, I think I can say this is a more usual approach.

In the previous series, the protagonist had an advantage in abilities because they were placed in a world where if they lost, it was the end and it wasn’t possible to try again. In this series, it is possible to retry sports competitions again. That is the main difference.

Even if a loss is the end in a battle story, if it’s a group against a group, I think the kind of development where the protagonist stands up from defeat and seizes victory at the very end is possible. But in the previous series, the protagonist seemed to be making enemies even in the groups he belonged to.

In that way, in sports, losing is kind of where it really starts... Though I can’t say this is always the case. In martial arts stories, if anything, it seems there is a recent trend where they push their way to the top undefeated.

Now then, this time protagonist 1, Alisa, suffered a defeat by the ends of a rival due to their respective abilities, but what about protagonist 2, Marika? Please look forward to future developments.

Marika’s rival, Hiiro Hiromi, is from the same Isshiki Family as the rival character Isshiki Airi from ‘The Honor Student at Magic High School’, which has started airing this month, and they use the same magic. But she is an entirely different person. Isshiki Airi won’t appear in this series nor the sequel series. The original character from ‘The Honor Student at Magic High School’ is a ‘Honor Student’-only character.

Airi is a showy character the likes of which is not in ‘The Irregular at Magic High School’, so it’s worth seeing her take an active role. And she’s not as unreliable as Lina.

With that said, please watch the TV anime ‘The Honor Student at Magic High School’ as well.

Now, it’s about time to end this digression. These are hard times, but please take care of yourselves. Please look forward to the next instalment of this series.

Satou Tsutomu

Translation Notes

[1] The common English equivalent is ‘study hard while you are young’. The Japanese proverb is said to be based on a Chinese poem by Zhu Xi (1130-1200).

[2] Lyrics from a 1915 romantic ballad, Gondola no Uta.

[3] Similar gestures are associated with flirtatious girls who act cute, pretending to be innocent and helpless to gain the favor of men.

[4] Free-style practice. In Judo, a spar against a single opponent.

[5] Akane mishears his first and last name. She misunderstood the intonation of the last name, and assumed it was the word ikura, meaning “salted salmon roe”. The first name she mishears as the English word salmon. Combining both misunderstandings, his name sounds ridiculous.

[6] Enter the Dragon (1973)

[7] Zanshin is a term that refers to a state of relaxed alertness. It is a concept used in several martial arts.

[8] Literally: not a good match for the horse. The pun is that Souma’s name has the kanji for horse.

[9] 104 in Fahrenheit.

[10] In the previous chapter it was claimed that the second years had their exams for this month on the same day the first years got their results. The ones taking their exams tomorrow should be the third years. This is probably a mistake by the author.