Baccano! - Volume 14 - Chapter Aft

AFTERWORD

Hello. It’s been a long time. This is Narita.

Now then, this is the third volume of Baccano! 1931 —but in terms of Baccano! as a whole, it’s Volume 14, which makes it an irregularity.

Those of you who bought this book on impulse just because you stumbled upon it may have found some parts of it confusing.

“Who are the odd characters that showed up for the first time this time?”

“Who’s the nutcase who keeps saying ‘Smile, smile’?”

“Who’s that weird agent with the glasses?”

“What’s with the perverse reprobate?”

…I’d highly recommend that everyone asking these questions read through the previously published volumes in the Baccano! series.

And to those of you who’ve been reading Baccano! for ages already: Thank you so much for sticking with me for fourteen whole volumes! This book is a reworking of the Deadhead story, which I wrote as a drama CD bonus three years ago, with about a hundred additional pages’ worth of new content added to it.

That was the story that the OVA episodes of the anime are based on, and it also had the scene where Graham first appeared, so this time, it’s been released as an official volume. I hope those of you who read Deadhead when you listened to the drama CD enjoy it again as its novel-sized version.

I think the next Baccano! is going to be 1710.

That’s the story where the twisted, black-hearted aficionado of “cute things” finally comes into his own, so I’m preparing to crank up the part of my brain that creates truly awful stories. I am only getting ready, so I don’t know whether it will really run or not, in any case.

All right, from this point on, instead of Baccano!, I’m going to be talking about what I can probably call “current events”—

Readers, I have an announcement to make.

A manga adaptation…

That’s right, they’re turning my work into a comic!

Get this: My DRRR!! is going to be running as a manga in Square Enix’s Monthly G Fantasy magazine!

Heh-heh-heh… Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!

It’s been over half a year since they first told me about that project. Every time I saw comments online like It’s just not possible to turn DRRR!! into a manga, or I bet it won’t happen unless his sales numbers go up, I thought, Heh-heh-heh… You people have misread the times! and got the urge to release the information on my own website. Whenever I saw comments like I wish they’d make a manga of DRRR!! I thought, Thank you very much! It’s happening! You’d better believe it’s happening…! and again I got the urge to make the announcement myself. Naturally, due to the rules of nondisclosure, I couldn’t. Now that I think about it, that would have been way too immature, so I suppose I should probably be grateful for that obligation to keep quiet… And actually, I get the feeling I wrote the exact same thing, working from the exact same train of thought, back when they decided to make Baccano! into a manga. You’d think I hadn’t grown at all.

However, even if I haven’t grown, my work has undergone the growth of turning into a manga!

It’s all thanks to everyone who’s supported me!

I hope you’ll continue to stick with Baccano!, DRRR!! and my other series from here on out!

In any case, they’ll be releasing details about the manga gradually, so sit tight for now!

…Hmm. That was all about recent events, but it turned into an ad.

Well, my current events consist of either writing manuscripts, gaming, or physical breakdowns, so aside from advertisements, I don’t have much to write… If my impressions of games or movies will do, I think I could write any number of pages, but I don’t think anybody would benefit from that. I doubt anybody wants to hear stories about how I went to buy a DSi or PSP-3000 at midnight on the day they were released; or telling the one about the time I used a powerful light and the sort of mirror dentists use and managed to actually see my own vocal cords and piriform sinuses all by myself is out of the question.

My days are a bust: Since nothing about my daily routine is interesting, I have fun creating interesting, out-of-the-ordinary stuff as a reaction.

I’ve even run out of things to talk about in my afterwords. Will there be a tomorrow for me?

…Was there really a yesterday? I’m not sure, so I just keep writing.

*And now for the usual thank-yous.

To my editor, Wada-san (Papio), for whom I’m constantly making trouble. To Supervising Chief Editor Suzuki and the rest of the editorial department. To the copy editors, for whom I’m always causing problems by being late, every single time. To the designers, who make my books look good. To the people of the publicity department, the printing department, the marketing department, and ASCII Media Works as a whole.

To my family, friends, and acquaintances, who always take care of me in all sorts of ways, and particularly to everyone in S City.

To Katsumi Enami, who drew new color pictures in spite of a busy schedule instead of reusing the ones from the drama CD bonus.

And to all the readers…

Thank you very much!

December 2008

“Crying about how I want the power to write 

a clever afterword” Ryohgo Narita