Afterword: Volume Two, a retrospective.

Hizu, hizu. It’s Yumizuru! (Let’s try to make that stick.)

Um, just like I wrote about at the end of the first volume, Rin, who was planned for volume two got moved to one. Then, volume two was supposed to be all about Laura. Somehow I lost focus on that, and the cross-dressing girl I’d planned for later—who I hadn’t even yet named—transferred in at the same time, even moving in with Ichika. By two weeks after I’d submitted the manuscript for first volume, I had the details of the plot nailed down. I just kinda completely got into the zone with Charles this volume. I don’t even understand it. It was just that feeling you get when you go “Eureka!”

So while I’d wanted from the beginning to make Laura the main character of this volume (including her moving in with Ichika,) when I came up the part where Ichika walked in on the crossdressing girl in the shower, I just could not resist!!!!!! And that’s how Charles became his roommate instead. Speaking of which, just like Ms. Yamada was a character I hadn’t planned on last volume, this time there’s Ran. I suppose I’ll keep coming up with them. Really, though. Ms. Yamada is a good character. Yeah. I’m satisfied with her. Especially with her chest.

Now that I think of it, the hardest part of writing IS is naming the characters. Looking through dictionaries, trying to pick something out... Rin, especially, was tough. (Chinese is difficult.) She may be the character I wrote the most naturally. Though you could rephrase that as her being the character I took the most care with. Hmm, was it around then? Maybe a little later, when the anime was announced. I’m pretty sure I’d remember it being between the second and third volumes. I was hospitalized at the time.

But still: An anime! It was getting made into an anime! I was overjoyed. And it got better: I said “Wouldn’t it be great if some of the guys who did Macross Frontier worked on it,” and it ended up happening! I was shocked. After that, I said I liked a guy from “I My Me! Strawberry Eggs,” and they got him too! I kept falling asleep at night wondering whether it was all a dream, or some kind of VR.

Anyway, that’s about how it went! See you next time! Byzu, byzu!