Amagi Brilliant Park - Volume 1 - Chapter Aft

Afterword 
This all started a little over five years ago. 
I’ve never had any particular attachment to amusement parks, but I went to a famous theme park as part of a social outing. As I was watching a family playing around with the mascots, an idea struck me: Wouldn’t it be funny if that duck character hated kids? What if they really hated children, but since it’s their job, they just have to spend the day grinning and bearing it? Then, at the end of their shift, they go unwind at some local pub or something... 
The moment the idea entered my mind, I started to feel a strange affinity for that duck character. Even when I just caught a glimpse of him on TV commercials, I thought “Ah, I bet he’s having a rough time, too.” 
For a grown man like me, who prefers more edgy entertainments, a family-oriented theme park can seem really boring. That’s always when I get my most mean-spirited ideas. Thinking back, I used to fantasize about things like “What if a terrorist suddenly took over the school?!” as a method of escaping from reality. But there are good ideas lurking in that escapism. 
That idea of “a mascot who hates children” stayed in my mind for a long time. Some jerk who’s unsatisfied with his daily life, going through work in a funk every day, badmouthing the customers backstage all the time... I haven’t put any such child-hating mascots in Amagi Brilliant Park, but that idea grew into the image of a crummy amusement park over the years. 
It’s been 18 years since I first became a writer, and when you’ve been working in entertainment for as long as I have, you get to thinking about a lot of things. There are things I complain about, and things that make me happy. I understand the anguish of the people who don’t sell, and I understand the hardships of the people who do. I figure that’s probably the same in any business. Those mascots we see playing happily with children every day probably have their own grievances and their own rewards, right? 
It was from that feeling that this series developed. 
Thinking back on my career up until now, I always thought it was best to write grand military epics with lots of crazy action. But I realized I can still do those stories when I’m older, so maybe I should try this while I still can. That was how it started. There’s been a lot of trial and error involved, but I think I got it out? (I’m still a little scared, to be honest.) 
This first volume is a long-form story with a ticking clock, but I think the second volume will be more about the crazy shenanigans that the employees of this crummy park get up to day by day. 
They’ll be a little less heavy, a little more like weird stories about someone’s part-time job. 

...After I finished writing it, I realized the closest thing to this I’ve written was the Horai Gakuen anthology I wrote as my debut work. If you’re going to tell weird stories, I guess it’s best to do it with male characters. 
When I started writing my story, I did interviews with people involved in a certain top theme park. I heard a lot of stories that aren’t public, so I can’t reveal any names here, but it was very educational. Thank you so much. 
This is also just the first volume, so I didn’t have time to use everything I learned, but I’m sure it’ll pay off some day. 
In the volume, Moffle and the others do a lot of criticizing of a certain first-rate park, but keep in mind that those are just the careless remarks of people who don’t know what first-rate park workers go through. I’d like to illustrate that conflict at some point, too. 
I also lifted the design of secondary protagonist Moffle from Bonta-kun, the mascot from my own Full Metal Panic! series. I just couldn’t get away from picturing him as Bonta-kun. I’m very grateful to Shiki Douji-san for agreeing to let me use the original Bonta-kun design in a totally different book. 
And of course, I’m very grateful to Nakajima Yuka-san for handling the illustrations this time around. It was a very difficult job, but thank you for creating such appealing characters. The schedule for the next volume is harsh, but I’ll do my best! 
Lastly, to Morii-kun from Fujimi Shobo and my manager Narukawa-san, thank you both very much. I’m sorry everything’s late all the time (sweats). I’ll try to do better next time. 
Well, I hope we’ll see each other again soon. 
See you later!

Shouji Gatou 
January 2013