Bungo Stray Dogs - Volume SS1 - Chapter Aft

PAPERBACK EDITION AFTERWORD

Good evening. Kafka Asagiri here.

First, I want to thank everyone for reading this novel.

I would like to use this afterword to explain how this book came about. Honestly, it was nothing short of a miracle, looking back. Pure chance, the stars aligning just right.

It all started with Yukito Ayatsuji writing a comment to promote the second volume of the Bungo Stray Dogs manga. My editor said, “Hey, let’s turn Yukito Ayatsuji into a character from the series, too!” Therefore, we had Sango Harukawa draw us a beautiful illustration that was included with a backstory for Ayatsuji in the magazine Young Ace. The description was as follows:

Yukito Ayatsuji

Skill: Another

Causes target to die in an accident.

I remember being like, “What the…? That sounds way too powerful. So he’s basically invincible? How could you even write a story around that?”

I learned later that my editor just wrote the first thing that came to mind.

Eh. Whatever, I thought. It sounds cool, but it’s not like I’m going to have to create a story around this character anyway.

Four months went by, and thankfully, I was lucky enough to release a third volume of the Bungo Stray Dogs manga. This time, Natsuhiko Kyougoku wrote a comment to promote the series with Volume 3. I made sure to come up with his character’s background and skill on my own. Incidentally, Natsuhiko Kyougoku himself asked me to make him an elderly villain who had the power to possess people.

An elderly…villain?

I’m sure this goes without saying, but it took a bit of courage to make such an incredibly well-known author like him into a villain. Plus, the way he actually phrased the skill—Possession Drop—made it sound…kind of cool. Like the skill user drop-kicked the enemies to save his friends or something. Anyway, I was having trouble figuring out how to use it. However, after a lot of worrying and anguish, I came up with a simple solution.

Skill: Possession Drop

Drops evil spirits onto opponents to possess them.

What do you think? Dropping spirits onto an opponent is much cooler than drop-kicking spirits, right? It’s kinda like the TV show Ikkyu-san.

At any rate, this character’s background was also published in Young Ace. While I was checking out the incredible design, I remember thinking, Whatever. At least, I’ll never have to write a story around it.

Some more time went by, and those two very cool character designs ended up in bookstore posters and ads and handouts. They seemed to be growing more popular by the day, which I was, of course, grateful for. I had so many people getting in touch with me just to say that they saw the characters somewhere.

But one day, my editor told me, “I often get questions from bookstore clerks asking if there’s ever going to be a story about these two.”

Ha-ha-ha, I thought. Ha-ha-ha. How funny.

It ended up not being a joke, though. At all. The next thing I knew, the characters were in another magazine. I occasionally wonder if my editor’s quick thinking is some sort of supernatural skill.

Now what?

I get that it might look like I hated writing this at the time, but that couldn’t be further from the truth.

It was just a ton of pressure. After all, Yukito Ayatsuji and Natsuhiko Kyougoku are two of Japan’s greatest mystery writers. The cream of the crop. So I knew that once I wrote this novel…both of them were going to have to check it themselves before it went to print.

I wanted to die. I wanted to disappear. I wanted to crawl into a hole.

However, that was when the greatest miracle of all occurred—in the form of Naoki Award–winning author, Mizuki Tsujimura. Despite her youth, she’s an extremely popular mystery writer with just as much talent as Ayatsuji and Kyougoku, and guess what? She happened to be a fan of Bungo Stray Dogs and asked if she could be in the story, too!

I was in awe, to say the least.

Now I had to do this. I had three incredible authors on my side, all without any effort of my own. The whole thing just fell into my lap. Time wanted this to happen, and nothing makes an author happier than having a story pop up out of nowhere as if it wants to be written.

I had to do it. I wanted to do it.

As I’m sure everyone noticed, Agent Tsujimura has an extremely important role in the book. She is the core of the story. If the author herself never offered to be a part of it, then this would have been a completely different (and worse) novel.

No matter how you put it, this was nothing short of a miracle.

Perhaps my mind was personally blessed as well. Or maybe the pressure worked for me in a good way? Regardless, these three incredible authors gave me their stamps of approval after reading Yukito Ayatsuji vs. Natsuhiko Kyougoku. It ended up being well received by the readers, too.

Yukito Ayatsuji said to me, “Before I read the novel, I was worried. I thought, ‘What if it ends up being really bad?’ But it was really, really good.” I was so incredibly grateful to receive a comment that encouraging (and potentially spine-tingling depending on how you interpret it).

The birth of a new story is a true miracle. Not even the author can pinpoint exactly where their story came from, and yet once it arrives, it becomes a unique world of its own that leaves a lasting impression on all who read it.

I am grateful for every kind of miracle. I am grateful for the publishers, distributors, and bookstores—and most of all, I am grateful to the authors Ayatsuji, Kyougoku, and Tsujimura for allowing a rookie author such as myself to write this novel.

Let us meet again after the next miracle.

Referenced Literature

Komatsu, Kazuhiko. Youkaigaku Shinkou: Youkai kara Miru Nihonjin no Kokoro [New ideas of yokai studies: the Japanese spirit through yokai]. Kodansha Gakujutsu Bunko, 2015.

Miyata, Noboru. Youkai no Minzokugaku—Nihon no Mienai Kuukan [Yokai folklore studies: Japan’s unseen spaces]. Iwanami Shoten Doujidai Library, 1990.