Afterword

I’m terribly sorry for the long wait.

Here’s volume 4, at last.

I’m very grateful that I can keep telling this story. I owe it to the encouragement of you, the readers. Thank you all so much.

But as I reach volume four, I’m running out of things to say in the afterwords. It would be one thing if something interesting had happened, but things have been pretty uneventful here.

I went around sampling ramen from different restaurants, but all I can say is that Tenka Ippin’s was the best, so the story doesn’t really go anywhere. Hey, you think Tenka Ippin might send me some free merchandise for saying that? I heard that happened for some old shonen manga. They would get large shipments of things they featured prominently in their manga. Of course, I’d rather not get sent the entire Captains of Crush gripper series... though actually, maybe I would take them!

I never write about what happened in the current volume, so maybe I’ll talk about what happened last volume. I don’t think that will spoil anything. No one’s going to be starting with volume 4... right?

Remember the liu he da qiang? The spear that appeared in volume 3? I tried swinging one around as research. Of course, it was made out of wood, not some special alloy.

What’s that? You’re surprised that I do research for this silly story of mine? Actually, I do quite a lot of investigating of various concepts and materials. The research doesn’t always make it into the story, of course...

The liu he da qiang is also known as the “Six Harmonies Spear.” You might be wondering what the six harmonies are. It refers to the four cardinal directions, plus heaven and earth. In other words, it represents the entire world around us. It basically means it’s a really cool spear that can take on the whole world. That might sound like a pretty pompous name, but that sort of thing was pretty common in Medieval China.

I’ve also heard the theory that it refers to the three internal harmonies and three external harmonies from Chinese philosophy. What are those, you might ask? Well, if I get into that, we’ll be here forever, so if you’re curious, you can look it up.

Anyway, I tried swinging the spear around, but it’s not something a novice can master overnight. Just holding it right took me all I had. Once I started swinging it around, I began to want one for myself, but they are three meters long. It would be hard to find a place to keep it.

If I make a lot of money, maybe I’ll get a house with a lawn where I can do spear practice.

Now, the usual routine.

To my editor, I was a real handful here in volume four. I’m really sorry about that.

And to my illustrator, An2A. Thanks for wonderful illustrations once again.

Next up is volume 5.

I think I’ll be able to get this one out without you having to wait very long... but I’m not sure...

Tsuyoshi Fujitaka