Afterword

Hullo, light novelist Sakaki here, bringing you Volume 10 of Outbreak Company: The Power of Moe.

How about that? Outbreak Company has hit the double digits! Obviously I’ve needed a lot of help to produce the limited-edition Volume 9 with drama CD, the anime and manga versions—the whole media mix thing—but just the fact that I’ve made it to ten volumes is a testament to the support of my readers, and for that I’m extremely grateful.

Now then, Volume 10 is the second part of the story that started in Volume 9. I deliberately left a few loose ends at the conclusion of this volume, though. I don’t know exactly which ones I’ll have the opportunity to pursue, but there’s some foreshadowing for later books and even the final volume... but you can just kindly ignore all that for now.

Anyway.

The afterword below includes some minor spoilers, so if you haven’t read the book yet, I suggest doing so first.

Now, about the Homecoming Arc, or Japan Arc, or whatever you want to call it.

Shinichi’s dad is pretty transparently me—that is to say, he’s very Sakaki Ichiro-ish (both the way he acts and the way he’s drawn, heh!). Making him a light-novel author was just an easy-to-use plot detail; I don’t mean to imply that Shinichi, his little sister Shizuki, or his mom are anything like my real family—just so we’re clear (lol). My lovely bride isn’t a bishoujo-game designer and doesn’t possess mad hacking skills.

And I don’t play KanColle (lol).

Besides, my kids are actually an older sister and a younger brother, so Shinichi would have to have a big sister who’s about college age... I have to admit, picturing how that character would look in the illustrations is a lot of fun.

Eh, it’d be too easy for her character to overlap with Minori-san’s if I wasn’t careful.

As for Shizuki, the tsundere younger sister, I was surprised to realize how rarely I had written a character who relates to the protagonist in that way, so it was kind of refreshing. Petralka herself, and a number of my other female characters, might seem to fill the role of a strong but somewhat shy heroine, but all of them have gone fairly easy on the tsun (prickliness). They might have a sharp word for the hero, but they rarely outright make fun of or attack him. In fact, they tend to acknowledge and demonstrate their affection for him pretty quickly.

For that reason, as well as simply to help differentiate her, I tried to write Shizuki as more of an orthodox tsundere. So, readers: how did I do? Personally, Yuugen-shi’s design turned out younger than I had been picturing, which give a little something extra to that orthodoxy (she’s grown meaner to her brother the older she gets, but she’s not always completely comfortable with that side of herself), I thought.

Also, Elvia’s whole “I-wanna-see-fairies” shtick at the end was dreamed up by a particular member of my assistant staff so rotten she’s practically fermenting. At first, I (and my editor) had absolutely no idea what she was talking about, and thinking it felt a little weird to call my assistant purely to ask about it, we decided to look it up on the web. And, uh... wow. I guess the world is always a bigger place than you thought.

I see... So that’s one of the meanings of fairy. Huh.

I’m still mulling over some things as regards volumes 11 onwards. I wonder how they’ll turn out. I’m thinking it’s about time for an Elvia-centric story (or more precisely, an Amatena- and Clara-centric one), but we haven’t seen Loek and Romilda in a while, either. Actually, there’s lots of side characters that I’d like to shine the spotlight on. An author’s life is never easy.

Maybe it’s about time for another short-story collection?

In any event, that’s Volume 10. Outbreak Company now occupies close to 4,000 sheets of manuscript paper. We’re approaching epic status here. Will it hit 10,000 sheets before it’s over? Or will it putter out at just 5,000? Only time will tell, but I hope you, dear reader, will stay with me till the end.

12 May 2014

Sakaki Ichiro