Majo no Tabitabi - Volume 11 - Chapter Aft

Afterword

Chapter Comments   Beware of spoilers!

• Chapter 1 The Case of the Blood-Drenched Diner

I came up with the idea for a character with puppets on her hands, and for some reason, she turned into a detective. It took quite a lot of time to reconcile the contents of this chapter with the other stories, but somehow, I’m delighted with the character of the Puppet Detective. If you read Chapter 5, I think you’ll more or less understand the reason why she touched Wine Lady’s chest.

• Chapter 2 Attention and Praise

This isn’t limited to creative works, but sometimes things gain a bizarre level of popularity for reasons that have nothing to do with their original design. They receive a lot of attention for a short time, then completely disappear from people’s memories as time goes on. I often wonder whether they are popular because people like them or for some other reason.

• Chapter 3 Just a Story About People Who Want to Eat Some Tasty Meat

When a strange person starts clamoring in support of something strange, at first, people just give them a chilly look, but if it goes on for a long time, I think the strange thing ceases to be strange. More and more people continue raising their voices to endorse it. Then before you know it, society has changed, and the people who at first just gave chilly looks have become the strange ones.

• Chapter 4 The House of Fluttering Birds

I came up with the idea for this story when I was is middle school or thereabouts, and actually, if I’m not mistaken, I even uploaded it to a story sharing site a long time ago, but, well, since this is a rare chance to get my work out into the world, I realized I could rewrite it as a chapter of Journey of Elaina. By the way, I’m not really sure if bird brains and human brains are similar in any way.

• Chapter 5 Moonlight Vampire

I’ve been wanting to write a story featuring a vampire for a while now, but no matter how hard I tried, they all turned out so serious, so I was disappointed for a long time. Also, the vampire put too many constraints on the story.

The end of this chapter leads into the start of Chapter 1.

• Chapter 6 Beasts

After humans hunted the wolves of Yellowstone National Park to extinction, the ecosystem collapsed. The herbivores proliferated out of control, greenery was lost, and wildlife disappeared in a chain reaction. About twenty years ago, wolves were rereleased into the national park. Since then, the park seems to be returning to its natural state.

• Chapter 7 Junk Princess

The thought experiments known as the Ship of Theseus and the Chinese Room form the basis for this story. To summarize the Ship of Theseus, it poses the question, “If an object has its parts continually replaced, until it no longer has a single original part, is it still the original object?” The Chinese Room takes longer to explain, so I’ll ask you to Google it, but in short, it’s a way of simply representing conversations between humans and AI. At the end of my story, I chose to have Halverie escape her box.

That concludes my comments on the chapters.

And so once again, greetings, I am Jougi Shiraishi.

I’ve long been plagued by a mysterious phenomenon, where, as my work accumulates, so too do my deadlines accelerate. And as a result, I finally got just a little bit of time to myself when I finished Volume 11, so I went on a little trip. I just went out to the country, though. I didn’t even leave my prefecture.

I sat absentmindedly on a stone bench beneath trees swaying in the wind, ate seasonal fish, and slept like the dead at home. That was how I spent the day. It was the best. I also went to a café and read a book, which had a certain aesthetic appeal.

Describing it like that would give the impression that the day passed in an incredibly brilliant fashion, just as planned, but actually, that’s not what happened at all.

All right then, let’s take a look at how I really spent my day off.

A certain place in Aichi. Apparently known for salt-grilled sweetfish and skewered mochi rice cakes. I sat down on a bench, and before too long, I started seeing people pass by sporadically. Among them was the shopkeeper of a store operating nearby, who walked past just as I was getting hungry. Yay! Mochi skewers! I thought as I walked into the shop.

“Excuse me, are you open yet?” I passed through the shop curtain, full of expectation.

The shopkeeper saw me and said briefly, “Huh? No, not yet…”

“…………”

Too early…

Business hours didn’t start for another two hours. I was obviously too early. As you would expect, I couldn’t wait for two hours, so I gave up on getting salt-grilled sweetfish and skewered mochi. On my way back, I stopped in at a café with a cozy, homey atmosphere, and as I was idly reading my book, I had a flash of inspiration. “Ah, I’ve got it! I can just buy sweetfish at the supermarket!”

I just have to go about it from a different angle! Create my own experience!

So as for how that turned out, there wasn’t any sweetfish, even at a reasonably large supermarket. Instead, there were tightly packed rows of saury. I looked it up later and found out that sweetfish is only in season from early- to midsummer. That’s why there wasn’t any.

Ultimately, I couldn’t completely disregard my longing for sweetfish, so I compromised with the saury. But later, after I went to bed, I soaked my pillow with tears, moaning, “Augh…I want to eat sweetfish…” It didn’t go to plan at all.

Well anyway, even so, that one day off was certainly worthwhile, and next time I think I’d like to go solo camping. A quiet day is nice now and then.

I will say that next time, I want to do a really good job preparing ahead of time, though.

By the way, I’m changing the subject, but this series is definitely becoming an anime.

I think I was only about twenty years old when I first started writing Journey of Elaina, but from the very beginning, one of my big goals was to have Elaina’s story depicted in anime format. But I’m sure something like that is the dream for anyone who aims to become a light novel author, and for a long time I had no idea how to reach that point or if I would ever get there. I puttered around for a long time, never losing sight of that goal. I feel pure joy at the fact that I was finally able to reach this day. Truly, thank you so much for supporting me this far. I look forward to your continued support.

Things are starting to get underway with the anime. I met the director, as well as the scriptwriter and the producer and all sorts of other people, and I got to chat with them, even though I was trembling with fear at the magnitude of the position I had been placed in. Without exception, they are all tremendous people, and as I stood there freaking out in an unfamiliar space, I could really get a sense for the unbelievably enormous number of people who are now involved with this property.

It makes me truly happy that this story, which I initially started writing without any expectations, like someone taking the same entrance exam year after year because I couldn’t completely give up on my dream of becoming an author, has now turned into a tale that ties together so many people.

Also, the release of the third drama CD is set.

It was already set when the second one came out, but no matter what, I just couldn’t accept having some characters that only served to liven up the drama CD and then disappeared, so I wrote the script hoping to make a drama CD that would give every character a highlight. If the third CD, which comes out alongside Volume 12, turns out that way, that would be great.

…But since I’m the kind of guy who arrives at a sightseeing spot way too early and doesn’t get to eat sweetfish or mochi skewers and has to settle for saury, when it comes to the work of writing the script for the third drama CD, I want to be painstaking with my time management…no, really.

And so on to the acknowledgments.

To M, the head editor.

Thank you, as always. This time, you really didn’t have much time, and I caused you a lot of trouble, but I’m grateful that you quietly kept an eye on me without hurrying me too much.

To Azure.

You went back to the beginning for this cover, huh…? It’s incredible, as always… I want to hang it on the wall next to the cover for Volume 1…

In Volume 10, I didn’t have enough pages and wasn’t able to thank you properly, so I’m glad I get to do it here. Truly, thank you so much. I look forward to seeing what you draw for the third CD.

To the editor in charge of the comic adaptation, Itsuki Nanao.

Thank you for your constant support. I’m so sorry I didn’t put out a promotional tweet for the comic in time… As one of your readers, I always enjoy reading the comics as soon as I see your name. I’m changing the subject, but congratulations for taking first place in the Next Manga Award contest with The Apothecary Diaries!

To everyone involved with this property.

We have an anime adaptation, a comic adaptation, a drama CD adaptation, and the original books. I’m truly delighted that, through this mix of media, so many people have engaged with my stories. I hope we can continue working together from here on out.

So yeah, I think it’s about time to wrap up this afterword.

Let’s meet again in Volume 12. See you there!