Spy Classroom - Volume 9 - Chapter Aft

Afterword

I know the Volume 9 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 8.

Back when I was working on Volume 8, things were moving fast on the Spy Classroom anime adaptation. The storyboards were getting finished, the designs were coming together, and loads of merchandise proposals were rolling in. As a creator, I was happy as a clam. I was technically acting as a supervising director, but everything they sent me was so good that most of my notes boiled down to “It’s perfect.” It really doesn’t get better than that.

It was at that same time that the postrecording was taking place. Most of my involvement was remote, but for the first session, I went to the studio in person. I’d never seen voice actors do a postrecording session in the flesh before, and I was super excited.

Staff: “All right, Takemachi. When the voice actors get here, could you talk a bit about each of their characters?”

Takemachi: “Say what?!”

I thought I was just going to be exchanging light pleasantries, so that gave me quite the shock. Thinking about it logically, though, it made perfect sense. Voice actors are given their characters’ bios in advance, but if you have the original creator right there, it would be a waste not to use them as a resource. The staff member had good intentions when they made the request, but my knees trembled all the same. What was I supposed to say?

What I’m getting at is, working on the anime forced me to consider questions like “How would I explain this character’s appeal to a third party?” and “What role does each girl play in the narrative as a whole?” from the ground up.

All that thinking was what led to Volume 9. As the series moves into its second half, I decided to write a beach episode to square away all the characters’ goals and emotional states. How did you like it? The second season got pretty dark, so I also thought it would be nice to have something lighter for a change.

At this point, I have some people I’d like to thank. First off, Tomari, thank you for granting my very unreasonable wish of changing what all the characters looked like in the series’ third season. Also, I love the new designs for the Inferno twins. They really are the coolest brothers around.

Next up, it’s the end of November, and I’d like to use this afterword to extend another massive thank-you to all the staff members who are still hard at work on the anime adaptation. Every time you send me a character design or piece of artwork, I groan, “This is so much better than how it looked in my head.” It stings to admit, but all of you put me to shame.

Actually, now that I think about it, the anime will have actually started airing by the time Volume 9 comes out. I wonder what people will think of it. I’m getting butterflies already…

All that said, things are going to continue unfolding in the books, too. Next up is Volume 10, where the story will really kick off—though Short Story Collection 4 might actually come out first. There’s still a big backlog of Dragon Magazine stories to release.

Takemachi