Spy Classroom - Volume 5 - Chapter Aft

Afterword

I know that the Volume 5 afterword 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 4.

So I have this editor named Mr. O. He’s been Spy Classroom’s editor since the very beginning, and thanks to his passion and drive, he’s made tons of huge contributions to the series like giving the first manuscript its big post-award overhaul and helping produce the seven girls’ character PVs. If it wasn’t for him, Spy Classroom wouldn’t be nearly the work it is today.

However, there’s a heavy cross he’s had to bear.

“When we unveil the girls on the official website, we’re going to do everyone except Erna…” (said through tears of blood) ← Before Volume 1 came out

That’s right—he was the one saddled with the decision of when to start making Erna’s existence public.

The book won the Grand Prize in the Fantasia Taisho awards, so it had a pretty big advertising push behind it. However, it was hard to decide how much of the Volume 1 content to reveal, and he agonized pretty hard over how to advertise it. In the end, Erna got excluded from the character PVs, the Volume 1 frontispiece, and the character bios on the main website. All of them got made with everyone but her.

At the time, I recall him saying something about making Erna’s existence public at around Volume 3, but then…

“The first book’s still selling pretty well, so we should probably keep her a secret…” ← When Volume 3 came out

…he was forced to make another bitter decision, and Erna’s big debut got pushed back again.

Note that around this point, there was a merch offering involving acrylic standees of the seven girls.

I figured I would do what I could and make Erna the protagonist of the booklet that came bundled with the special edition of Volume 4, but then…

“Turns out, I’m getting reassigned.” ← While I was writing Volume 4 “?!”

…Mr. O got transferred off of Spy Classroom.

This must be her hatred manifest! How terrifying!

(In truth, it was just a regular old staff reassignment, and he wasn’t getting demoted or anything bad like that. Also, as far as the way Erna got treated went, I always said “Well, it’s Erna. Them’s the breaks” and laughed it all off.)

The point is: I’m writing Spy Classroom 5 under a whole new world order. Farewell, Mr. O.

Tomari, thank you for the illustrations, which were as excellent as ever. When I saw the rough draft of the cover, I was deeply moved. “It’s finally her turn!” Furthermore, I would like to offer my deepest gratitude to my new editor, as well as everyone who went out and purchased this book.

Finally, a preview of what’s to come. Like it said in the Next Mission section, the team is going to be confronted with a difficult challenge. There’s one girl who has a particularly cruel destiny in store for her, and I hope I’m able to depict her emotional journey with sufficient care. Until then, that’s all from me.

Takemachi