Afterword

AFTERWORD

To my first-time readers, it’s great to meet you!

To those of you who know me from the Internet, it’s great to see you again!

This is Mamare Touno.

Thank you very much for buying Log Horizon, Vol. 1: The Beginning of Another World. This book is an edited and revised version of an online serial I started writing in April 2010. When the story was turned into a book, I changed the setting a bit and revised the text to improve the quality of the writing and its readability. I’ll be thrilled if you add it to your personal collections.

…Enough of the boring preamble. I think I’ll talk about Little Sister Touno. Yes, the rumors are true: I have a little sister, and she has a distressingly weak constitution. I’m a fairly dim bulb myself, but Sister Touno is a very silly creature indeed.

A long time ago, when we were little, I told her that all the eggs in komochi-shishamo (Japanese smelt with intact roe) were injected in through the fishes’ butts with a syringe, and she believed me. Even now, I remember her nodding earnestly as I told her, “Workers in Sakhalin toil away with their syringes in a huge, freezing cold factory.”

The other day, she’d completely forgotten I was the one who’d introduced her to the Shishamo Injector Theory, and she let it drop in conversation as trivia.

Well, yes, it’s trivia, but it’s fake trivia.

Of course, I didn’t call her on it. I just looked very serious and acted impressed, but apparently she finally found out the truth from somebody else, and she got really mad at me.

So, Sister Touno is another few steps up the stairway to adulthood. Still, since the stairway she’s climbing is a lot like the down escalator, it’s hard to tell whether she’s actually going up or whether the scenery’s just scrolling backward.

Later, when I ran an Internet search on the Shishamo Injector Theory, I discovered that it’s actually a rumor with a bit more truth behind it than your average urban legend. Real life trumps my ability to fib on demand.

When I told Sister Touno, “Apparently they do sometimes inject eggs into male shishamo and sell them,” she pulled the futon over her head and refused to talk to me. I don’t think she’s going to believe anything I tell her about this anymore. It takes a long time to build up trust and only an instant to lose it. —Although, in this case, I still think she’s a dim bulb for letting me fool her for almost a decade.

That said, my memory has never been the greatest, and neither has Sister Touno’s. After a while, I’m pretty sure her head will fill up with thoughts about dinner, and she’ll completely forget.

As you can see, Sister Touno and I are as chummy as England and Ireland, so I told her, “Hey, remember that story I told you? You know, Log Horizon. —Get this: It’s going to be in bookstores,” but she didn’t believe me at all. She said, “Quit lying, stupid big brother,” or something like that.

That’s only to be expected. Even I still don’t quite believe the publishing thing. Sister Touno may think everything I say is a lie, but letting her think that is fun, too, so I haven’t tried to make her understand.

…So that’s what Log Horizon went through before ending up in your hands. The characters kick up more of a ruckus than they did in the online version, and I think they’ll drive the story. The character status screens at the beginning of each chapter symbolize this. As a matter of fact, the items listed on each of these screens were submitted by readers via Twitter in January 2011. There were close to three hundred items submitted, and the items I used came from IGM_masamune, LAN, akinon29, ebius1, gontan_, izumino, kane_yon, oddmake, roki_a, sawame_ja, and vaiso. Thank you so much!! I can’t give your names here, but I’m grateful to everyone who submitted suggestions. Shiroe and the other characters are psyched, too.

Log Horizon began online, and I’d like to keep running projects like this one from Volume 2 onward. For details and the latest news, check out http://mamare.net. The site has all sorts of other non–Log Horizon Mamare Touno information, too.

Finally, I’d like to thank Shoji Masuda, who produced this book; Kazuhiro Hara, who drew supremely cool illustrations for it; Tsubakiya Design, the agency who designed it; Oha, who proofread it; and Fta of the Enterbrain editorial department! Thank you very much!

If you read this book and enjoy Shiroe and the other characters’ journey, then the book will truly be complete. Bon appétit.

Mamare “I love shishamo” Touno

AUTHOR: MAMARE TOUNO

A STRANGE LIFE-FORM THAT INHABITS THE TOKYO BOKUTOU SHITAMACHI AREA. IT’S BEEN TOSSING HALF-BAKED TEXT INTO A CORNER OF THE INTERNET SINCE THE YEAR 2000 OR SO. IT’S A FULLY AUTOMATIC, TEXT-LOVING MACRO THAT EATS AND DISCHARGES TEXT. IT DEBUTED AT THE END OF 2010 WITH MAOYUU: MAOU YUUSHA (MAOYUU: DEMON KING AND HERO). LOG HORIZON IS A RESTRUCTURED VERSION OF A NOVEL THAT RAN ON THE WEBSITE SHOUSETSUKA NI NAROU (SO YOU WANT TO BE A NOVELIST).

WEBSITE: HTTP://WWW.MAMARE.NET

SUPERVISION: SHOJI MASUDA

AS A GAME DESIGNER, HE’S WORKED ON RINDA KYUUBU (RINDA CUBE) AND ORE NO SHIKABANE WO KOETE YUKE (STEP OVER MY DEAD BODY), AMONG OTHERS. ALSO ACTIVE AS A NOVELIST, HE’S RELEASED THE ONIGIRI NUEKO (ONI KILLER NUEKO) SERIES, THE HARUKA SERIES, JOHN & MARY: FUTARI HA SHOUKIN KASEGI (JOHN & MARY: BOUNTY HUNTERS), KIZUDARAKE NO BIINA (BEENA, COVERED IN WOUNDS), AND MORE. HIS LATEST EFFORT IS HIS FIRST CHILDREN’S BOOK, TOUMEI NO NEKO TO TOSHI UE NO IMOUTO (THE TRANSPARENT CAT AND THE OLDER LITTLE SISTER). HE HAS ALSO WRITTEN GEEMU DEZAIN NOU MASUDA SHINJI NO HASSOU TO WAZA (GAME DESIGN BRAIN: SHINJI MASUDA’S IDEAS AND TECHNIQUES).

TWITTER ACCOUNT: SHOJIMASUDA

ILLUSTRATION: KAZUHIRO HARA

AN ILLUSTRATOR WHO LIVES IN ZUSHI. ORIGINALLY A HOME GAME DEVELOPER. IN ADDITION TO ILLUSTRATING BOOKS, HE’S ALSO ACTIVE IN MANGA AND DESIGN. LATELY, HE’S BEEN HAVING FUN FLYING A BIOKITE WHEN HE GOES ON WALKS.

WEBSITE: HTTP://WWW.NINEFIVE95.COM/IG/