Afterword

I don’t know whether to thank you for all your support or tell you that it’s nice to meet you all, but in any case, my name is Shoutarou Mizuki. Are you all living it up? As for me, hm... same old, same old.

This is totally random, but I used to know someone who was an absolute genius at finding restaurants with terrible food. And by genius, I don’t mean he just happened upon restaurants with awful food, or that he would remember to tell people about these places — that’d be bad enough in itself — but he’s the kinda person who’d say, “I found a place with really great food,” and bring you to this high-class, luxurious restaurant, complete with bronze statues and insane price tags... yet somehow everything they served you would taste awful.

Everyone has their own ideas of what tastes good, but no matter who he brought to the restaurant, remarkably, they all agreed that the food was bad, and yet expensive. Nonetheless, he thought it was delicious, which in itself is more proof that everyone has their own ideas of what tastes good. But you have to agree it’s kinda strange, isn’t it?

Anyway, if that was it the story would end there, but there’s a lesson to be learned here.

“Even if the food is bad, you have to just get over it and move on!” This is what I learned.

Things have gotten much easier since I came upon this realization. There are often people who agonize over where to eat, only to end up enraged over the taste of the food, the service, and so forth. But I’m sure their expectations are a large part of that. So if you get rid of those expectations, it’ll turn into a carefree and easy experience instead. In the end, you actually start welcoming bad food into your life.

“This is awful! I’m actually impressed that they were somehow able to make something so terrible.”

I started thinking this way, and ended up actively trying to search for restaurants with terrible food. It’s better if it isn’t a chain restaurant or somewhere cheap. I’m not looking for some café that just serves food out of the packages they came in. I want that sense of surprise I get when I ask myself, “Wait, did someone actually make this?”

I also want to avoid weird places that serve up things like “sweet dessert spaghetti,” or foods that are an acquired taste, making it hard for many people to enjoy. If you eliminate places like this, it’s surprising how few and far between bad restaurants are. For example, one of the restaurants I’ve found was... Wait, I can’t just openly go on about them here!

Incidentally, all of these are from different restaurants, but I will announce some of the names I’ve given to those dishes that truly moved me after I had finished eating them.

“The Mysterious Cheesecake.”

“Motsunabe from Hell’s Caldron.”

“Roadkill Hairtail.”

These would be the top three.

Even now they are waiting for customers to come and order them.

If you should happen to find a restaurant like this, please tell me about it! Even better if it’s around the Kanto region. Someday, I’m sure I’ll go and eat there.

Anyway, about this book.

I hope you had a fun time reading it. There’s no need to read too deeply into it.

Although, as the writer I have put a tremendous amount of effort into the story, so I hope you took your time and enjoyed it.

Relatively speaking, this book doesn’t really require me to say much about it, so I’ll leave it at that. I am delighted that you have purchased my book. While the schedule has yet to be decided, I would like to turn this into a series and give it my absolute freakin’ best! I’m gonna need all your support in order to do so! I won’t let you all down!

Now for my acknowledgments.

To the illustrator, Souichi Itou.

Thank you very much for your wonderful illustrations. Even from the rough sketches, those involved with the book had nothing but praise for them, and Keena is already quite popular.

To my editor, Ohashi.

Thank you for all the hard work you put in during the end of the year holidays. Going forward, I hope to get through my work fast enough so I don’t give you extra work on your holidays.

Finally, I want to thank everyone else who was involved in the making of this book.

Well then, let’s all enjoy ourselves!

Shoutarou Mizuki/Souichi Itou