BXBX NOVEL Volume 1B, Afterword
Volume 1B, Afterword
And that’s how 1-B ends. But it’s also how it all begins. While writing this series, I try not to forget what it was like just starting out, but I also want to do what I can with the more than a decade of experience I have in this line of work.
My goal was to write a first volume that felt like a final volume and I’m thinking of continuing that structure with this series. I hope you can continue on and enjoy it.
Now for the chat.
“Do you have any stories of violence during your school days?”
“It wasn’t exactly violent, but during art class in my last year of middle school, I was supposed to draw a CD jacket. It was part of teaching us how to copy something. Anyway, I completely forgot and was the only one who didn’t bring a CD that day.”
“How is that in any way related to violence? And you were in the art club then, weren’t you?”
“I borrowed a random CD sitting around the art supply room and it happened to be Matsuzaki Shigeru. When I started coloring it, the normal mix of colors didn’t match his skin color.”
“Tanimura Shinji would’ve been easier.”
“Yeah, I had no choice but to make a new color mix, but you know how skin color is known as ‘flesh’ in English? When I write the labels for storing the colors, I’ll put ‘man flesh’ for a man’s skin color.”
“That sounds like you’re just asking for trouble.”
“Anyway, following those rules, I labelled this one ‘Matsuzaki Shigeru Flesh’.”
“That would be the name.”
“I was working with that color, but when I stored it in the art supply room, everyone who went in there had to open it up and see what was inside my ‘Matsuzaki Shigeru Flesh’. By the class the following week, it had dried out and gotten all hard. I had to remake the color about three times because of that.”
“It doesn’t really matter, but do you really think any current students can relate to that?”
We can end that there. Everything feels like it’s started to move in this volume.
“Who will have the hardest time from now on?”
I’ll leave you with that. Oh, and my BGM was JOY by yuki. I think the main two are in a pretty good situation like this.
Next time will be about England as war with Tres Espa?a approaches. Wait just a bit longer.
August 2008. An extremely sunny morning that was supposed to have rain.
-Kawakami Minoru