Afterword
So, I’m an author, more or less. Making up stories—in a word, fiction—is literally my job, so, to tell the truth, I’ve always had a really hard time filling this space—that is to say, the afterword. I write fiction because I don’t want to write using my own voice, and some part of me has always wondered why I have to fill a section with the exact sort of writing I want to avoid each and every volume.
Be that as it may, I definitely can’t claim that everything I say in these sections is always my absolute, one hundred percent pure and true opinion. This goes without saying, but there are some things that you just can’t say, period, and I try to keep that in mind and not rock any boats too strongly when I write these bits. Or, to put it more bluntly, I put on a persona. I assume the mantle of Kota Nozomi, the author, and act out his part as if he were a character in a play. I do my damnedest to think about how I want to be seen by my readers, and I write my afterwords with those thoughts in mind.
Of course, in a certain sense, that’s all obvious. Every member of our society puts on a persona in that sort of way from time to time. There really aren’t any places where we can let out our hundred percent genuine selves—our true selves—and for that matter, I have my doubts about whether “true selves” are even something we have to begin with. Like, what, is the idea that we all put on personas whenever there are people around to observe us, and our true selves would only emerge if everyone else on Earth vanished and we no longer needed to hide them away? I sure don’t want to think that’s true, anyway.
With all that said, this is Kota Nozomi! When I first started writing this eighth volume, I figured I’d theme it around that whole dilemma of putting on personas and finding your true self, expressing those concepts through a story centered around the theater and making it super philosophical and stuff...but then, somewhere along the way, I took a sharp left turn into “Okay, but what if it was about grade schoolers instead?” territory, where the story would ultimately remain.
This is a story of a girl who hangs around in an unusual place like it’s perfectly natural, who makes the people she’s with wish what had come perfectly naturally for her could remain perfectly natural for them, even after they’ve realized that it is, in fact, anything but. It also feels like a story that’s taken that girl—as well as our protagonist—and led the two of them to their own personal starting lines.
Apropos of nothing, some announcements! At this particular moment (that being October 2014), the When Supernatural Battles Became Commonplace anime is currently mid broadcast. I hope you’ve been watching it!
Next, some thanks. To my editor: honestly, seriously, thank you for everything. And to 029: thank you once again for drawing such wonderful illustrations. And finally, to all the readers who’ve stuck around for eight volumes, I offer my greatest and most sincere of thank-yous.
That’s all for now! May we meet again, if the fates allow it!
Kota Nozomi
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