Sword Art Online Alternative – Gun Gale Online - Volume 9 - Chapter Aft

AFTERWORD 

Gun Gale Diary: Part 9 

Hello, everyone. I’m Keiichi Sigsawa, the author of this book. 

It’s been four months since the release of Volume 8. Has anything changed in your life? 

Sword Art Online Alternative Gun Gale Online (hereafter “the series”) has reached its ninth volume! I’m so happy. 

And that means this Afterword Gun Gale Diary, where the author can write whatever he feels like, has also reached its ninth installment. 

In the first eight installments of this segment, I mentioned how to dance when your back feels itchy, my favorite bullets, the fact that my ring finger is longer than my index finger, my recipe for turning thick sushi rolls into tempura, the easiest way to get to the moon in a rental car, and the fact that I had my first-ever three-part miniseries. We’ve covered a wide range of topics, beloved by all. And this time, the subject of choice is “the turbulent year of 2018.” 

If you are buying this book on the very day it comes out in Japan, it’s early December. 

2018 is coming to an end. In Japanese, the traditional name for this month is Shiwasu. It means “the teacher is running.” This is because at the end of the year, even calm and mild-mannered instructors are bustling about, busy with their tasks. 

I am writing this afterword in October, so I can only speak for the first ten months, but I want to make something very clear: 2018 has been the most turbulent year in the life of Keiichi Sigsawa! 

I have never known a crazier time. I cannot recall one. 

I completed an astonishing amount of work in 2018. 

The reason, as I mentioned in the previous volume, was the GGO anime. 

I had perfect attendance on recording and overdub sessions. I went to every single one. 

To my surprise, I also was tasked with writing a script, so I did my best and made my animation screenwriter debut with episode 5.5! 

I also penned a special story that came packed with the sixth DVD/Blu-ray! 

I worked very hard on promoting the original airing in April, and then the re-airing in July. My Twitter account really came in handy for that. If I didn’t have one, I’d just be yelling through a loudspeaker outside my local train station. I guess that’d make me no different from any other weirdo. 

Among all of this, I received news that made me just as happy as the anime series itself. 

Tokyo Marui, Japan’s most famous air gun manufacturer, put out official GGO merchandise…the pink electric air gun P90 Version Llenn! 

I can’t believe that my story has its own real-life air gun made by an official manufacturer… 

I’m so happy. This is the feeling of true fulfillment. I got to hug P-chan. It did not speak to me. It must be because I’m not Llenn. 

I got to write a bonus short story packed in with that product, too. You better believe I was pumped up for that one! 

But of course the thing I worked on the hardest was the book in your hands at this very moment, GGO 9. 

SJ4 has ended at last, I wonder how it went? 

This book’s a thick one, isn’t it? I needed all those pages to get the entire plot written out. GGO 3 was very hefty, too, but this one just barely surpasses it in length. 

There was so much writing and so little time that we nearly ended up having Volume 7 (Part One), then Volume 8 (Part Two), followed by 9 (Part Three, First Half) and 10 (Part Three, Second Half). But I kept it together and got it done—barely. 

And now, I’d like to talk about the pistols Llenn is shooting on the cover of this book. (Incidentally, this is the very first GGO cover that features Llenn actually firing a gun.) 

To explain without spoiling anything, the weapons are of custom design, modified versions of an existing handgun called the Detonics. 

I had their design done by Kouji Akimoto, who also worked on the Flute, a fictional modular semi-auto rifle that Kino uses in Kino’s Journey, as well as the gun illustrations that appeared at the end of GGO 3. 

Akimoto’s job with Tokyo Marui is designing fictional firearms that aren’t based on real ones. He showed me pictures of a gun that he had announced at a previous event. 

It was so cool that my blood pressure rose to a dangerous level. I requested permission to have Llenn use it in my book and received it. 

Akimoto, Tokyo Marui, thank you so much for this! 

I asked him if he could paint it pink because Llenn would be using it in the story, and at my request, he also added a white line on the “ear” of the gun to match Llenn’s hat. 

While writing SJ4, I was continually asking myself What would be the right sort of pistol for Llenn to use? because I wasn’t sure of the answer. I’m delighted with the final gun. Or, uh, guns. 

Look forward to more pistol action! 

But while my year was hyper-charged with GGO, let’s go back to early July, when I was invited to attend Anime Expo, the largest anime convention in the United States. 

For the first time in my life, I went to Los Angeles! 

The previous year, I went to Crunchyroll Expo in San Francisco for the Kino’s Journey anime. For the second year in a row, I was overseas during the summer. 

And let me tell you, Los Angeles was hot… 

California is hot in general, but I happened to be visiting during a record-breaking heat wave. Even the locals were sick of it. 

I got to experience something you’ll never feel in Japan: According to my heat sensor, it reached 109 degrees Fahrenheit. (Of course, in Japan, we have our own swampy sort of heat…) 

After the event, I got a full day to go sightseeing, so I took the opportunity to visit a firing range for the first time in a while. I got to use lots of guns for the first time. It was very interesting. 

Doing research is crucial. I’ll have to set up another visit to Guam, I think. This Sigsawa guy sure loves his research. 

Let’s not mention that I kept buying more ammunition to fire while I had my attending staff waiting in the heat. 

And that was how my 2018 was hyper-charged with GGO. 

Admittedly, at the same time, I went through some very big events in my private life. I mentioned this on Twitter, but I’ll detail a little of it here, too. 

At the end of 2017, my mother went into a coma after a long battle with an illness. She was hospitalized for two months before passing away. 

My mother would always read my books. As soon as I got my samples back, she would read them—probably the very first reader in the entire world of each of my works. And now she’s gone. It hurts. 

Perhaps some of you are aware, but when you get the box holding someone’s cremated remains, it’s still warm. 

The warmth of my mother’s skin while she was unconscious in the hospital. The coldness after she died. The warmth of the box when I held it. 

I’ll never forget 2018. 

As for my mother, I’m sure she’s making a name for herself after being reincarnated in another world. If you hear any rumors about her adventures, let me know. 

I started with something sad, but there were many enjoyable things in my life this year, too. 

While I was busy with work and visiting the hospital, I’ve got nothing but gratitude for the friends who joined me for dinners and traveling. 

I hope we’ll continue to enjoy things in 2019. 

Around the time all the meetings started for the Kino’s Journey anime (January 2017), I’d been leaving the house and eating out more often, as well as getting less exercise. Inevitably, I gained a lot of weight. I’m not in very good shape right now. 

At my medical checkup, my doctor told me to slim down. At the time of writing this, I’m in the midst of a weight-loss regimen. 

I wonder what the results will be by the time this book comes out. It’s a contest against myself. Don’t give up, me. Hang in there, me. You’ve got me on your side. 

With that, it’s time at last to conclude this column all about 2018. 

I don’t know what will be happening in the next volume yet—but I’d really like to put out a short story collection for GGO sometime. 

Shining the spotlight on minor characters, pursuing some unsolved mysteries, showing off Llenn from before SJ1, revealing how Karen and Miyu met in high school, and so on. 

I’ve made it through many trials, and now I’m ready to charge into 2019. It’s the end of the Heisei era, and a new imperial age is beginning. 

That’s all for now. Let’s meet again in the next volume! 

By the way, my next idea for this little column is “Using your computer monitor as a cutting board so you can see your food preparation and the recipe steps at the same time; isn’t that convenient?” Look forward to that. 

Keiichi Sigsawa