Baccano! - Volume 13 - Chapter Aft

MIDDLEWORD

Um, well, I guess that brings the cruise ship incident to a stopping point.

This time, I seriously thought I was gonna die. I bled from every possible location; I puked in my sleep and almost suffocated; I started to understand why some people cut and run—it was just generally awful, but I finally managed to get this volume to the publication stage!

I was actually planning to make it a three-volume story and write a “C” side as well, but this led to that, the idea got scrapped, and I ended up being limited to a two-part story, so… The bottom line is that I cut roughly two hundred pages of material and three new characters. The events I didn’t wrap up this time—such as the Nile vs. Aging match—should be included in a subsequent volume, so sit tight!

The Baccano! stories are partitioned by era, but in this sequence, the foreshadowing is going to be divvied up and dealt with in 1705, 2002, 1710, 1935, and 2003. I hope you’ll enjoy them as self-contained stories, though, just like the previous Baccano! books!

Now, then… The anime’s wrapping up right about now, but it looks like there are all sorts of announcements, so look forward to seeing that information in next month’s Dengeki Kanzume! Um, and— Whoops, that was close! The anime is a really polished piece of work. Watching it makes me so happy I want to yell, but it also freaks me out a bit: “Crap… Is this better than the original?!” I hope you’ll enjoy it, along with the manga and the drama CDs and everything else!

On top of that! For the DS-version Baccano! that goes on sale this spring, while unworthy of the honor, I wrote what works out to more than a hundred book-pages’ worth of new scenarios! It’s packed with some unexpected characters and even some new ones, so I hope you’ll look forward to it!

And now for the thank-yous…

To my editor, Wada (Papio), the people of the editorial department, the publisher, and the printer, for whom I caused a catastrophic amount of trouble this time around. They didn’t so much attempt to walk a tightrope as haul me back up when I was about to fall from said tightrope.

To Kinoko Nasu, who christened Bride during a casual conversation.

To my acquaintances and Rabo Asai, who gave me resources for some of Bride’s characterization.

Also to Yuu Fujiwara and Makoto Sanda, who gave me input on some of the background information for SAMPLE.

To my friends and acquaintances, the anime and manga staff—and to everyone who picked up this book.

Thank you very much!

Listening to the Baccano! opening (with vocals) and ending on repeat

Ryohgo Narita

Oh, and by the way, the next section is an interlude. That said, I pretty much wrote the entire 2002 story because I wanted to write these few dozen pages, and it marks a turning point in Baccano!. I finally managed to raise the curtain on the “root of all evil” that I’ve been foreshadowing since the 1931 books. And so—please take your time and read it. See you later!