Xie Xie, Taiwan

It was a day in mid-August, and Itsuki was up in the air, traveling from Haneda Airport in Tokyo to Taipei Songshan Airport. He had a business-class seat and manga artist Kaiko Mikuniyama seated next him, and back in coach were Kenjiro Toki and Kohei Tokuyama, Kaiko’s editor.

Itsuki and Kaiko had both been invited as guests to a convention taking place in Taiwan. It was held around this time every year—a very large event run by publishers and companies in the fields of manga, anime, light novels, and more. For every con, they’d always invite a bunch of guests from Japan—voice talent, singers, manga artists, novelists, game designers, and so on. It ran for five days straight, and on day four tomorrow, Itsuki and Kaiko would be holding an autograph session.

The convention staff selected the guests they’d invite every year. Generally speaking, Japanese publishers and talent agencies couldn’t pick the people they wanted to push and have them appear at the con. Receiving an invite, in other words, was a sign from actual Taiwanese people that you really were a name-brand star down there—a great honor to have.

Gift Publishing had received invites for ten or so novelists and manga artists in the past, including Kasuka Sekigahara. They sent an offer to Nayuta, but she’d turned it down. Haruto never got one, and of course he was incredibly envious of Itsuki before he took off.

“Ooooh, I’m too nervous to eat…”

Kaiko’s groaning was unconvincing, considering the rate she was scarfing down a meal the menu said was overseen by the chef of a first-class French restaurant.

“Is it really okay for a newbie like me to be a guest…?”

Itsuki grinned. “You know, Kaiko, I think I’m just the bonus garnish compared to you, so…”

This convention offer came about a month after the All About anime was announced. This announcement was made at the same time as Volume 1 of the All About manga adaptation, which generated huge buzz after its launch and became a sales hit. It was probably only a matter of time before the manga started outselling the novels. A translated version was released in Taiwan at almost the same time as Japan, and Itsuki was told that it did well over there, too.

“No, no… I wouldn’t be here without your original work, Mr. Hashima. And they love the anime over there, too, don’t they?”

Itsuki’s eyes thoughtfully wandered upward.

“I wonder…”

The All About anime was getting streamed overseas pretty much simultaneously with the Japan TV broadcast. Japanese anime was illegally put on the net pretty much instantly, complete with carefully translated subtitles and everything, so a lot of series had contracts with distribution firms to stream the official translated versions ASAP.

According to what anime producer Tsutomu Oshima told him at a recording session the other day, the All About anime was getting good reviews outside Japan. Its performance in China was particularly good compared to other nations, even Japan—enough to maybe reach the top three in anime this season.

When he’d written his books, Itsuki knew they’d be translated and released in other countries, but he never considered a non-Japanese audience or adjusted his content for it. His target was Japanese readers, and he used his full Japanese language abilities to write for them. That’s why learning that his work was popular outside his home nation was honestly kind of hard to believe. Even in Japan, it was a love-it-or-hate-it kind of series—how could anyone elsewhere like it?

Did the translators do that good of a job handling it? And if they did, doesn’t that make it more the translators’ work than mine…?

This, among many other thoughts and concerns, was on Itsuki’s mind as his plane traveled toward Taiwan on schedule. The flight from Haneda to Songshan took about three and a half hours, no different from that impromptu trip to Okinawa a while back.

The plane landed at around three in the afternoon, and upon arrival, Itsuki’s entourage was greeted by two editors from the Taiwanese publisher, alongside the (Japanese) director of Gift Publishing’s overseas business. This trio would be attending to their needs during the trip.

From the Taiwanese publisher came Hong, a slim woman in her mid-twenties or so, and Wen, a tall man in his early thirties and apparently the editor in chief of his company’s light novel department. Both were proficient in Japanese, and the Gift Publishing liaison was fluent in Chinese and Japanese as well, so communication didn’t seem like it’d be an issue.

After a few introductions, they left the airport and headed for their hotel.

“Whoa… It’s so hot…!”

The onrush of humid, tropical air made Itsuki groan. The temperature around Taipei in the summer was about the same as Tokyo, but the humidity was cranked up to maximum and made it all the more punishing. Itsuki didn’t deal well with heat—his summers were mostly spent in air-conditioned rooms, and he made every possible effort to stay away from the outdoors—so this hit him hard.

They hurriedly climbed into an SUV and set off for the hotel.

Itsuki stared at the sights of Taipei out the window. The city didn’t look terribly different from Japan, but he was surprised at how many motorbikes were all around him. They’d snake all over the road, and on the shoulders in front of industrial facilities, he’d see impossibly long lines of them parked neatly in a row. Taiwan is truly a motorcycle-driven society, with one bike for every 1.8 people; there are even shops specializing in helmets and anti-exhaust masks.

“It’s kind of like Japan, but kinda not like it, too. It’s so fascinating!”

Kaiko admired everything she saw as she pointed her digital camera to and fro. She always had one with her, as she never knew which photos might come in handy as art references.

After around fifteen minutes of taking in views they’d never see in Japan, Itsuki’s group reached their hotel. This was one of Taipei’s foremost hotels, a place that celebrity actors and famous artists would stay in, supposedly.

“…This… This is really our hotel…? They’re not confusing us with Mamoru Miyano or Nana Mizuki, are they? I’m just a Japanese light novelist.”

Itsuki’s head swiveled around the large, glittering lobby entrance. He was completely out of his element.

“Who’d ever confuse you with Mamoru Miyano? …I heard about this from the others in editorial, but this is a pretty nice hotel… They’d never give me the budget for this…”

Despite the diss against Itsuki, Toki was just as surprised. None of his writers had ever come down here before, so this was his first Taiwan business trip.

“Well, if you’re right, I better get some pictures before somebody realizes I’m not Nana Mizuki.” Kaiko began snapping away at the lobby, whose European-style glitz probably would be useful reference material for a fantasy series.

As she and Itsuki worried over whether this was all a big mix-up, editor in chief Wen checked in for them, as well as Toki and Tokuyama. A hotel staffer led them to their suite—a massive one with two double beds, a luxuriant sofa, and a bunch of other furniture, with space to spare. Every person could have their own room if they wanted.

“…This is bigger than my apartment…”

If you put a bed from here into Itsuki’s one-bedroom studio space, you’d likely be unable to fit anything else. Now he felt even more out of place as he put down his luggage and checked the schedule.

They planned to stay here for two nights. In an hour’s time, the Taiwanese publisher would take them on a tour of Taipei 101, followed by dinner and a trip to Lungshan Temple and a night market before returning to the hotel. Tomorrow after lunch, the team would hold their signing event at the convention, beginning at one PM. They’d follow this up with visits to a few bookstores around Taipei, then another signing event at the main Animate otaku-goods store in the city. Dinner was planned with the president of their Taiwan publisher, followed by a traditional foot massage and then back to the hotel. They’d swing by the National Palace Museum on the morning of day three, then catch their plane back to Japan later that afternoon.

Itsuki was the kind of tourist who never really planned an itinerary, going instead wherever his whims took him. This might be the first time since his last class trip in high school where he had such a rigid schedule in place.

After resting in their hotel room a bit, Itsuki headed for the lobby. The rest of the gang was already there, including their three attendants.

Their first stop was Taipei 101, a 101-floor skyscraper 1,671 feet tall—the tallest in the world until the Burj Khalifa in 2007. It was clearly visible from the hotel, but the closer you got, the more overwhelming its height became. Going inside, they decided to travel up to the observation deck. This was accessible via an elevator that went straight from the first to the eighty-ninth floor, traveling at speeds upwards of thirty-seven miles an hour (earning it a Guinness world record).

“Whoa… I don’t think an elevator ride’s ever excited me this much!”

The sensation of thrilling speed was like no regular elevator at all, wowing Itsuki as they hurtled toward floor eighty-nine. It wasn’t like a high-speed roller coaster, exactly, but the feeling of being on an elevator going far too fast for its own good was addictive.

“The people who work here must have so much fun with this every day!” Kaiko was just as excited.

“You like this?” a nervous-looking Tokuyama asked. “I’m not very good with heights, so this is hard… If I had to work here every day, I’d probably die…”

“Yeah, you were shaking a bit on the plane, too, weren’t you?” Toki grinned and turned toward Itsuki and Kaiko. “You know, I’ve thought this before, but you two really have similar personalities, don’t you?”

“Maybe so.” Tokuyama nodded.

Perhaps, if the gears were meshed some other way, Itsuki Hashima and Kaiko Mikuniyama might’ve become a couple. This what-if world can be enjoyed in the drama CD that comes with the Sister Blu-ray box set in Japan—on sale now!

After enjoying the views up high, they gawked at the giant tuned mass damper in the central atrium, the coral jewelry displays on floor eighty-eight, and the shopping mall down below. From floor six to the basement, there was a huge variety of shops selling fashion goods, cosmetics, watches, jewelry, coral, groceries, Taiwan souvenirs, and more. It was full of food courts and restaurants as well, and a shopaholic could easily stay entertained the entire day in there.

Itsuki purchased a few things for Chihiro and Haruto, while Kaiko shopped for her family and roommates—not to mention herself, judging by all the brand-name lingerie she piled into her bag.

“Wow, Kaiko… You never change, do you?”

Kaiko smiled at the admiring Itsuki. “I bought some panties for Chihiro, too, you know. Kind of a sexy design, but just imagining her all blushing as she tries these on gets me so excited.”

“Can you stop thinking about people’s sisters that way, please?!”

After a fine dinner of Peking duck, Shanghai hairy crab, and chili shrimp, the group moved on to Lungshan Temple.

“Wow… This is almost as flashy as before.”

The shining LED-illuminated temple stunned Itsuki. It was a completely different image from the reserved, one-with-nature feel of Japanese temples. Vivid gold leaf, greens, and reds blared across the whole building, and it was all lit up after dark, so “eye-popping” wasn’t the half of it. The dragon statue on the roof had real presence as well, giving the whole thing a juvenile-fantasy feel. Itsuki loved it more than the temples back home.

The main building was devoted to bodhisattva, so it was a Buddhist temple, but still, it was a worship site for Taoism, Confucianism, and a good hundred or so gods and goddesses. Having this one-stop shop for all kinds of pilgrimages was pretty convenient, making it popular among both Taiwanese and foreign tourists.

Itsuki’s group paid their respects at a shrine devoted to Emperor Guan, the divine form of Guan Yu from the Romance of the Three Kingdoms and a deity bringing good luck to businesses, and one popular in Japan, too. Kaiko, meanwhile, offered a prayer to Yue Lao, the Taiwanese god of marriage and love, and purchased two good-luck charms themed after him—one for herself and one for Miyako, as she put it.

“Do you have any potential partners in mind, Kaiko?”

Kaiko bashfully shook her head at Itsuki. “No, no one like that…but looking at how happy Nayu is every day, I hope very much for someone like that to show up in my life!”

“…Oh.”

“I wonder if there’s anyone who shares my hobbies. Someone who I can pursue my dreams together with…” Then she snapped out of it. “…Come to think of it, Hashima, you’re pretty close to my ideal, aren’t you?”

“No, I got Kanikou, so…”

Kaiko smiled as Itsuki panicked a little. “I know that. I’m not out to steal you from your girlfriend… But, you know, if we had encountered each other in a different order or something, maybe I would’ve fallen in love with you, Hashima.”

“Yeah,” Itsuki said with a laugh, “maybe it worked out that way in some parallel universe.”

There was no point to hypotheticals like this; that’s why he could laugh at it. By this point, he had no option but to pursue this reality, the one where he chose Nayuta Kani.

By the way, the what-if drama CD where Itsuki did pair up with Kaiko is available now at [etc., etc., etc.]

Putting Lungshan Temple behind them, the group traveled about fifteen minutes by car to a night market. There were actually two others right nearby Lungshan, but apparently, they weren’t ideal for a first-timer.

A night market is a street of stalls, booths, and eateries that operates from evening to late night. They developed in the tropical and subtropical areas of Asia, taking advantage of the fact that people did more business in nighttime hours to avoid the heat, and Taiwan’s night markets in particular were popular tourist draws.

This one was packed end to end with people, like some kind of local festival, and the food aromas wafting from here and there were already whetting their appetites—spicy, sweet, fishy, even downright funky. All of these smells freely mixed together, thoroughly confusing the palate.

It hadn’t been that long since they had enjoyed a pretty hearty dinner, so nobody was very hungry. Still, they made a variety of unfamiliar purchases, sharing them among each other. As creators, it was important they took in all the novel experiences they could get—things they could draw upon for inspiration later. Food especially was vital; your depiction of a dish could be a thousand times more persuasive if you’d actually eaten it before.

So Itsuki ate some fruit he didn’t really catch the name of; he ate something that was kind of like a gyoza dumpling, but not exactly; he ate balls of batter about the size of a donut hole but filled with shrimp; he ate “world-famous” Taiwanese mango-flavored shaved ice; he ate a springy, pancake-like treat stuffed with meat and veggies; he ate fried frog; he drank boba milk tea that was touted as a “frog eggs drink” on the sign; he ate some hujiao bing pepper buns; he ate some stinky tofu; and he ate some fried chicken feet. Some of it took a little bravery to reach out to, but Toki, Tokuyama, and Kaiko all helped.

“You have a lot of guts, Ms. Mikuniyama…”

Toki watched Kaiko gnaw on a chicken foot with a mixture of admiration and repulsion.

“You know, I’ve never really been turned off by so-called disgusting food. I’ve eaten insects before, too.”

“Man. They grow ’em tough over in Gunma Prefecture, huh?” Itsuki shivered as Kaiko blushed.

“G-Gunma doesn’t have anything to do with it! Besides, don’t they survive mostly off bee larvae over in Gifu Prefecture?”

“That’s just one region!” [Editor’s note: Bee larvae are mixed in with rice in the Tono region of Japan’s Gifu Prefecture, but it’s not their main sustenance.]

This playful bickering was interrupted by Wen, the editor in chief. “You know, maybe the night market in nearby Lungshan would’ve been better after all.”

“You mean the one not suited to beginners?” Toki asked.

“Yes. You can eat things like rats and venomous snakes over there. Bee larvae, too.”

“N-no, um, this market’s just fine! Thanks for looking out for us!”

“Snakes and rats are a little too much even for me,” Kaiko said, visibly a bit more nervous than before.

They also had an eye out for the clothing and home goods shops along the street. A lot of items featuring cute Japanese characters were on sale, some of which was clearly bootleg merchandise.

“Wow, this blue, catlike cartoon character [Editor’s note: identity withheld] doll looks like such a rip-off.”

Toki chuckled at it, as did Itsuki.

“Aw, too bad. If I was writing for Shogakukan Gagaga Bunko, I could’ve pretended not to notice and tweet out a pic like ‘I found D______ goods at the night market! D______’s super popular over in Taiwan, too!’”

“Don’t cause any more trouble for us than you already are,” Toki said, his tone serious. But it was soon forgotten as they all ate as much as their distended stomachs could bear before returning to the hotel.

The next day—after sampling a breakfast buffet with Chinese, French, Japanese, and Italian selections, then taking an impromptu nap to digest it all—Itsuki’s group left the hotel with their Taiwanese editors.

Together, they headed for Din Tai Fung, a world-famous restaurant specializing in dumplings. There was a line out the door, but someone from the publisher had lined up earlier in the morning to score them a table ticket, so they were escorted right in.

Din Tai Fung was best known for its xiaolongbao soup dumplings, offered in a dizzying array of variants—standard, truffle, crab paste, shrimp, and much more. They were all excellent, especially the “brown meat” crab dumplings—the soup inside gave the meat a melt-in-your-mouth consistency, a perfect harmony of flavors.

These were followed up with shumai, gyoza, wontons, and more, all brilliant and all making the group full to bursting once again. Every single creator who made the trip to Taiwan will tell you “they made us eat so much, and it was all so good,” and now Itsuki could see why.

Once they ate to their hearts’ content at Din Tai Fung, it was finally time to visit the convention. This was in a large hall filled with booths, including publishers, anime companies, figure makers, and more from Japan. Besides the dealer’s room, there were panels, autograph sessions, and mini-concerts held in this or that conference hall, giving the whole con a frenetic atmosphere.

“It’s like the big-name booths at Comiket,” said Toki.

“It sure is.” Tokuyama nodded.

Neither Itsuki nor Kaiko had ever gone to Comiket, so they looked all around as they walked, fascinated by the sights as Wen and the others guided them.

“Huh. Which character was that again?”

Itsuki was pointing at a large poster on the wall of one publisher’s booth. It was part of a line of posters depicting the biggest heroines from Japan’s light novel scene, but there was one character among them that Itsuki had never seen before.

“Hmm…? I’m not sure. I don’t think I’ve seen her.”

Toki, who knew even more about light novels than Itsuki, raised a puzzled eyebrow.

“Oh,” interjected Hong, “that’s a character from an original novel series that we publish.”

The market for light novels in Taiwan offered not only translations from Japanese works, but also a large number of original works by Taiwanese authors. The character Itsuki spotted was drawn with a quality that’d fit right in with any popular Japanese series—in fact, Itsuki could picture a series starring that girl hitting it big back home.

Their signing event was being held in a space right next to the publisher booth. Itsuki went in through the staff door, which led to a greenroom. He peeked out from it to look at the stage, only to find a pretty young girl cosplaying as All About heroine Ichika Akatsuki on it, holding a mic and chatting with the audience. He couldn’t understand her, but presumably she was explaining how the autograph session would work.

The seats were fully occupied by attendees, which made Itsuki and Kaiko wince—then, as the MC’s voice crescendoed upward, the audience erupted into applause.

“Wow, they’re really into it,” Itsuki said, his voice shallow. “This is just an autograph thing, right?” In his eyes, it looked more like a concert.

“Are you sure they’re not confusing this with some voice actress event? I guess I really will have to pretend to be Nana Mizuki!” a similarly nervous Kaiko said.

“All right. I’ll be T.M.Revolution, then! Time to shout to the world and start a revolution!!”

“Roger that, Mr. Hashima… Oh, I mean Mr. Nishikawa!”

“Calm down, you two.” Toki stepped in before their silliness got any further out of hand.

“But how can we? That’s a ton of people… How many are there, even?”

“Three hundred.”

““Three hundred?!”” Itsuki and Kaiko shouted. This, by the way, was the first signing event for either of them—they had both signed copies of their work for giveaways and stuff, but never more than around a hundred at once.

“Don’t worry. You’ll get a break halfway through.”

“That’s not what I’m worrying about,” groaned Itsuki.

“We’re about ready to begin,” Hong the editor said. “So, creators, stand by.”

Itsuki and Kaiko gulped.

“…We’ll just have to dive in and do it.”

“I guess so,” Kaiko said as Itsuki nodded to himself.

Then he took out a mask and a pair of sunglasses from his bag. They were filming this event, and it’d show up on Taiwan media, but Itsuki had never revealed his face online or in magazines, so he thought it better to keep it hidden here. Kaiko, meanwhile, unfurled the pair of panties she wore as a ribbon and applied it to her face—just like when she was working.

“Tian ah!”

“Huhhh?!”

“Ms. Mikuniyama, what are you doing?!”

The three attendants didn’t hide their surprise at Kaiko’s bizarre behavior.

“Oh, um, don’t worry about it,” replied Tokuyama, resigning himself to his fate. “This is how Mikuniyama dresses in public events.”

Meanwhile, the MC on stage raised her voice high—and began speaking Japanese.

“We love Mr. Hashima! We love little sisters!”

All three hundred people in the audience replied in Japanese.

“We love Mr. Hashima!! We love little sisters!!”

“We love Ms. Mikuniyama! We love little sisters!”

“We love Ms. Mikuniyama!! We love little sisters!!”

The chanting made Itsuki and Kaiko delighted and ashamed in equal measures.

“This is the most embarrassing moment of my life…!”

“Yeah… Now I’m getting super nervous…!”

“Okay, you’re on.”

Pushed by Toki, Itsuki and Kaiko walked from the greenroom to the stage. Toki, Wen, and Hong, who were helping run the session, followed behind them. The MC took one look at Kaiko and visibly reared back for a moment, but quickly recovered her smile and prompted the audience to applaud—a real pro through and through.

Greeted with cheers and clapping, Itsuki and Kaiko went up to center stage. The MC gave him the mic.

“D-dake ho… Wo shi Yudao Yiyue.”

“Wo shi Sanguochuan Tian.”

They introduced themselves in their best broken Chinese (Itsuki’s especially so), earning roars of applause for it. The response made Itsuki wonder once more whether they were being mistaken for voice talent. But behind them on the stage were giant posters showing off Volume 1 of the novel and manga versions of All About My Little Sister (or Meimeidi Yiqie, to be fully accurate), and a banner hanging from the wall had their names and what they assumed was “Signing Event” in Chinese written on it.

Taking their assigned seats, they prepared for the session to begin. The way this was set up, Itsuki would write today’s date and his signature on a sheet of thick autograph paper, then turn it over to Kaiko, who’d add the recipient’s name and her own autograph to it. These autograph sheets came prefolded in half, like a somewhat large greeting card; the “cover” had a closeup of Ichika Akatsuki’s face, while half of the inside was taken up by an exclusive illustration of Yukiko Onizaki that Kaiko had drawn for the event. They’d be autographing the area next to this, writing in gold pen on a black backdrop.

One look at these sheets and it was clear they had to cost more than your typical paperback book or manga volume. To participate in this session, you were required to purchase X Taiwan dollars’ worth of All About books or merchandise—but between the airfare, the hotel, and how much these signing sheets had to cost, there’s no way anyone was making money off this.

And that’s why, thought Itsuki, I need to be serious about this.

The first autograph seeker to step before him was a boy, probably in his late teens.

“Xie xie,” Itsuki ventured.

“Mr. Hashima! Volume 6 was really good! The anime’s wonderful, too!”

Being answered in fluent Japanese threw him. “Xie…” he reflexively began, before correcting himself and replying “Thank you!” back in Japanese as he signed.

Accepting the signed sheet, the boy broadly grinned and said, “Keep up the good work!”—again, in Japanese. He extended his right hand; Itsuki accepted it, saying “I will, thank you!”

It wasn’t just the first kid, either. Nearly everyone in the audience gave Itsuki their kindest wishes in Japanese. Some of them had even imported Itsuki’s non-localized work and read it in Japanese, which amazed him. As they signed away, the MC kept the energy going, giving the audience quizzes, playing rock-paper-scissors with them, and talking about the answers Itsuki and Kaiko gave in the questionnaire they’d filled out earlier.

Three hundred autographs (and one break) later, the audience got a chance to ask them both questions.

“Mr. Hashima! I want to have Ichika!”

“Nuh-uh! Ichika is a little sister who belongs to everyone!”

Itsuki instantly responded to the fan’s request, Hong kindly translating. The audience laughed and cheered.

It was a long event, lasting over two and a half hours, but it was constantly lively, fun, and stimulating. To Itsuki, it felt over in a flash. At the end of it, they took a photo onstage, where an excited Itsuki had draped his arms over Kaiko and the MC’s shoulders.

This picture of Itsuki getting carried away was posted with the event reports across Taiwanese media, getting some buzz in Japan as well. Itsuki didn’t get bashed for it much, mainly thanks to the distraction of Kaiko wearing panties over her face. This was around the time when her nickname Panty Manga Sensei began to stick.

Leaving the convention, Itsuki and the gang visited a few bookstores before their next signing event at Animate Taipei.

“Kind of weird to see series published by different labels sharing the same shelf space, isn’t it?” Itsuki observed as he walked the aisles.

The shelves had a lot of titles familiar to him from Japan, but deals for translated editions were worked out by the individual series, not for a publisher’s full light novel lineup. Thus, for example, you could have Haganai (published by MF Bunko J in Japan), No-Rin (GA Bunko), and Baka and Test (Famitsu Bunko) all come out from the same publisher in Taiwan. You could also have the same author’s work be spread across multiple outfits—Yomi Hirasaka’s Haunted! and Nekuroma. were released by Tong Li Publishing in Taiwan, while Haganai got picked up by Sharp Point Press.

“These feel nicer to handle than the little paperbacks in Japan.”

Light novels in Taiwan were a measure larger than the bunko format normally used in Japan. Often, they’d have some fancy details added to them—matte covers, for example, or embossing on the title and cover characters. That made them a bit more expensive than their Japanese counterparts, but if you liked having a physical collection of light novels, these must’ve felt a lot nicer to own. Having the illustrations printed on a larger-sized page was another plus.

Books would often come with bonuses as well—a metal bookmark with color artwork from the series, a card illustrated with a heroine whose clothes disappeared when you warmed up the paper, and so on. These were high quality overall, and on occasion there’d be special-edition copies that came with desk calendars, keychains, and other freebies not available in Japan. Sometimes Japanese fans—and, for that matter, the authors themselves—would beg the publishers to release some of this merch back home for them. The convention had some exclusive goods on sale, too. Itsuki saw a poster advertising them; he couldn’t tell what it was, but the packaging was every bit as nice-looking as what he’d seen back home.

“Wow… They do a really good job on these…”

Toki picked up a Taiwan-original light novel, examining it carefully from assorted angles.

“You know,” Itsuki thoughtfully remarked, “maybe we’ll see a Taiwanese novel get translated into Japanese and hit it really big someday.”

“There’s a decent chance of that, I’m sure.”

“…I’ve got more rivals than ever, huh?”

From the new novelists debuting every year to writers toiling away on web novel sites to pros working in other countries… Let your guard down once, and you’ll fade from the front lines in an instant.

“I’ll sure need to brace myself…” Kaiko looked resolute. The manga business, of course, was even fiercer than novels, with many overseas titles becoming hits in Japan. With at least one series, Magika no Kenshi to Vacileus, a Taiwanese artist had successfully adapted a Japanese light novel into manga.

The bookstores were an eye-opening experience, one Itsuki and Kaiko were glad to have before their Animate Taipei signing. There, too, they were greeted by an electrified audience, writing autographs for about a hundred and fifty people. After that came dinner with the president of their Taiwan publisher, along with bird’s nest soup, shark fin dumplings, and other lip-smacking delicacies.

Immediately after that was their Taiwan-style foot massage, which—to Itsuki, at least—was painful enough to make him want to scream. Between that and the rest of the day’s events, Itsuki fell asleep the moment he made it back to his hotel room.

Day three began with breakfast, followed by an early checkout and a trip to the National Palace Museum. This was the largest museum in Taiwan, housing around seven hundred thousand pieces of art and ancient Chinese artifacts. The displays were broadly divided into properties, calligraphy, and literature; as Itsuki wondered which section to explore, Wen told them to follow him to the main showpiece before it got too crowded.

This showpiece was the Jadeite Cabbage, a piece of jade carved into the shape of a head of Chinese cabbage by an unknown artist. About seven and a half inches high, it featured a locust and katydid lurking within its leaves. The green-and-white color resembled an actual cabbage, but this was apparently the original color of the stone.

“Hmm… Yeah… It’s a cabbage, all right…”

Itsuki stared closely at the piece as he appraised it. It was pretty. All the intricate details impressed him, and it was neat how the artist took advantage of the jade’s original coloring. Beyond that, though, he couldn’t say much. He wondered a bit why it had occurred to anyone to carve a Chinese cabbage out of jade.

“Kaiko,” he asked as she peered at the carving, “as a professional illustrator, what do you think about this?”

“Oh? ……Well, how to put it?” She raised an eyebrow. “It……… It’s a beautiful cabbage, is all I can say.”

They looked around the other main exhibits after that, but Kaiko didn’t have much reaction to those, either. “All these intricate sculptures and paintings look really great to me, but…I dunno. They’re not shaking my soul or anything.”

“This one time,” replied Itsuki, “I went with Setsuna to the Picasso section of a museum, and all of Picasso’s art and sculpture work really got to him. His art even took on a cubist style for a little while. But nothing like that with you, Kaiko?”

“Puriketsu went Picasso?” Kaiko asked, surprised. “I’ve never experienced that with fine art, no. With manga and panties, though, many times.”

“Yeah, uh, I guess I’m the same with some novels…”

Top on the list was the shock he felt reading Nayuta Kani’s The Silvery Landscape for the first time. But he’d often be moved by novels that stood out from the pack—in terms of characterization, expression, foreshadowing, structure, readability, synergy between the text and illustrations, and so on.

“I guess you need to have a firm grounding in something before you really appreciate how great its best examples are. It sounds like Puriketsu has a keen interest in fine art, doesn’t he? Not just illustration.”

Kaiko seemed a little frustrated about that as she spoke.

After enjoying their last Taiwanese meal at the National Palace Museum restaurant, the group headed for the airport. They said their goodbyes to Wen and their Taiwanese counterparts in front of the escalator leading to the international departure lobby.

“Mr. Hashima, Ms. Mikuniyama, thanks for all your hard work,” Wen said. “I hope you can come back here sometime.”

“No,” Itsuki said, “thank you for everything. You’ve been a huge help.”

Thanks to their assistance for the past three days, the trip went astonishingly smoothly for being in a foreign country. Having so little to worry about almost made traveling overseas without a guide seem like a hassle now.

“I’ll do my best to earn another invitation, certainly,” Kaiko said with a smile and a deep bow. “Thanks again.”

After Toki and Tokuyama said their own goodbyes, they all waved and went up the escalator. Upon checking in, they made just a few more souvenir purchases and hung out in the lounge until they boarded their flight. As on the departing flight, Itsuki and Kaiko scored business-class seats, while Toki and Tokuyama made do with coach.

“It’s such a nice place,” Kaiko said with a sad smile as she looked out the window.

“Yeah,” replied Itsuki.

“We really have to come back sometime…as invitees, of course.”

“You bet.”

Itsuki firmly nodded at her. He couldn’t say how many years it’d take, but if he remained on the front lines of his industry, the day would come sooner or later. Such was their shared resolve as they took off from Taiwan.

…And, of course, once he was back home, Nayuta interrogated Itsuki about the autograph session photo. Kaiko became immensely popular (in a way, at least) for her own photos—but when she saw the photoshops online of her be-pantied self starring in Hentai Kamen, appearing on the cover of Shimoneta, and standing tall as a Fate/Grand Order Servant, she fainted on the spot.