Maria-sama ga Miteru:Volume30 Postscript
Afterword[edit]
"Maria-sama ga Miteru" is a fantasy – or so I've been told.
It's also been called a lot of other things, such as "a school comedy," "a soft Yuri novel," "a mystery," etc.
Well, using genres to differentiate between novels certainly makes it easier when organizing or making a recommendation from a massive pile of books but it's never something that should be considered definitive. I'm fine with anyone who reads the book and labels it as 'Such-and-such kind of a novel,' provided it's not too far removed from reality.
So, back to the topic of 'fantasy.'
Occasionally I'm asked this by people trying to confirm their opinions, and I'd usually smile and respond with "Why do you think that?" or "It's just supposed to be about a normal high school girl's school life," but gradually I've started to think that, "Perhaps it is." Especially while writing some of the conversations for this volume.
Because. You know? It raised a very simple question.
– Why didn't the girls just call each other on their cell phones?
While typing away on my keyboard, I quipped to myself:
"Just when the heck would anyone have that kind of conversation?"
Hello, this is Konno.
Well, it's not set in the Edo or Shouwa periods. It's set in the Heisei period. You can tell because I've written that on page 8, line 15, "Even now, in Heisei." (It says that, right?)
So then, the time when Yumi and the others are attending (or attended) Lillian's Girls Academy can be roughly defined as 'some time during the Heisei period'. I don't know how long the Heisei period will continue for, but all of that is included in 'some time during the Heisei period.' Pinning it down further than that becomes difficult.
The hard to pin down part could be called fantasy. That's how I think about it.
Fantasy.
Consulting the large dictionary I have at hand, words like 'illusion' and 'visions' and 'dreams' are scattered around. There's no dragons or swords or magicians or people with wings, but if you think that, "This world is just slightly different to our own," then I guess it could be called a fantasy novel. Even though it's rude.
Okay. This book goes out for sale during the beginning of the 12th month of the 19th year of the Heisei period (although I think it will be dated as January 10, 2008). We're approaching the 20th year of the Heisei period and the world sure has changed a lot since the start of it.
To deal with the question that this story raised, it looks like Lillian's Girls Academy has instituted a rule prohibiting the use of cell phones on school grounds. And since they would have hardly any opportunity to use them, why bother having one? On an ordinary day they'd spend half their time at school, and you could add to that time spent commuting. They're a necessity if everyone else has one, but if under half the class had one then perhaps they'd be an inconvenience.
The current generation of teenaged girls might find this hard to believe, but when I went to school nobody had a mobile phone. That was normal, so we didn't think of it as inconvenient. If we wanted to meet, we'd use our home phones and organize a time and place and make sure we were there. There was no SMS to say "I'm running five minutes late." We'd run frantically. Ahh, that takes me back.
Incidentally, Kashiwagi Suguru has a cell phone. But he's the only one, so it's not much use to him.
Which reminds me, this is a carry over from last volume.
The true form of what Ms Tsukiyama Minako referred to as "Sachiko-san's eccentricities" was revealed. The proportion of people who guessed this correctly (via mail) was quite high.
I think a response of, "I knew it," is fine, but there were plenty of hints there. Cramming for the exam, a tutor at her house, Kashiwagi Suguru, her day off from school … I don't want any spoilers in the postscript, so I'll stop there.
Moving right along, the setting for this volume is an amusement park.
I like amusement parks. If pushed, I'd say that I enjoy the rides more than watching the parades and shows, and I'll happily ride on the regular roller-coasters (although I'd pass on the more extreme ones). I'm similar to a certain somebody in that I squeal really loudly. Stress relief, I guess. Although it can be a bit scary.
Speaking of scary, there's the haunted house.
I'm a scaredy-cat. Naturally, the haunted house is scary. I can somewhat enjoy a western-style haunted house, but a purely Japanese one is just too frightening for me. They make me want to close my eyes and move forward holding someone's hand (in that case don't go in, right?) The cemetery, the old water well, the tattered sliding doors in the abandoned temple, the execution grounds … geeze, just writing about it scares me. The young lady standing there in a white kimono is quite cute if she's supposed to be an apparition (if possible I'd like to avoid writing ghost). Aaaaargh.
I suppose that just means I'm Japanese. Foreigners would probably find their own cemeteries and horror films the most frightening.
Which brings me to the haunted house that Yumi and co went into. I imagined it as a Western style haunted house as I was writing it, but since I didn't depict any specific details feel free to imagine it as whatever style of haunted house you want.
Looking over the guidebooks to various amusements parks that I bought as reference for Yumi's trip there, I found myself wanting to visit one of them.
But I don't like the cold and I'm sensitive to cold, so I should probably wait until it gets a bit warmer.
Konno Oyuki.
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