Spy Classroom - Volume 4 - Chapter Aft

Afterword

I know that Volume 4 isn’t the greatest place for it, but I hope you don’t mind if I take a moment to talk about my writing process for Volume 3.

The thing about Spy Classroom is that when I began the series, I had this structure for the first four books laid out in my head. I was going to have all eight girls play a role in Volume 1, spend Volumes 2 and 3 doing deep dives on four of them apiece, and then have them come back together for a big mission in Volume 4. I had it planned out.

However, I spent all my time down to the last minute trying to figure out which girl to center Volume 4 around. I’m telling you, I was really racking my brain.

My original plan was to have it be Thea, but there was this other idea that I just couldn’t get out of my head. It really should be her, shouldn’t it? I kept thinking to myself.

That’s right—I’m talking about Erna.

After all, wouldn’t it be poetic? She shows up in the very first book, but due to her unique circumstances, she barely shows up in any of the illustrations, and as of right now, December 2020, she’s been completely left out of all the merchandise offerings! She deserved to stand big and proud on the cover of season one’s big finale! (And more to the point, I felt sorry for her.)

But then, as I was working on Volume 3, I realized something.

“Yeep!” “Yeep! “Yeep?” “Yeep!” “How unlucky…” “YEEP?!”

I could see the writing on the wall.

Yeah, this isn’t the right spot for her…

I love her to bits, but Volume 4 wasn’t really the kind of story that would let her shine, so she’s going to have to wait a bit before she gets to be the lead. In the end, I went with Thea after all.

Now I have some news for you—at around the same time Volume 4 of Spy Classroom comes out, the first volume of SeuKaname’s manga adaptation will be going on sale as well! Being a manga lets the scenes of the girls chatting with one another really pop, and it’s crammed with all sorts of fantastic stuff I wasn’t able to describe to its fullest in the light novel! (Annette and Erna are especially adorable in it.)

I actually wrote the manga script from scratch, and starting from the back half of the manga’s first volume, there’s going to be a whole bunch of completely manga-original content. There were a bunch of scenes I wanted to do that relied on the manga format to work, and thanks to all of SeuKaname’s help, we were able to pull them off. Granted, SeuKaname did most of the work, but still. Chapter 5 was a particular favorite of mine.

Here at the end, I have one last announcement I’d like to make. Starting with the next book, Spy Classroom will be entering its second season. Pretty exciting, right? Originally, I included a little “Next Mission” teaser at the end of Volume 4, but that part got nixed for being too much of a cliffhanger and for “ruining all the catharsis!” My editor came at me pretty hard for that one.

Anyhow, the girls’ next battle is going to be a harsh one, so I hope you look forward to it. The key word to look out for is weakling. Until then, though, that’s all from me.

Takemachi