Omae o Otaku ni Shiteyaru kara, Ore o Riajuu ni Shitekure!:Volume 1 Afterword
Afterword
Hello everyone, I'm Murakami Rin.
I'm sincerely grateful to you for getting this 『I'll Make You into an Otaku, so Make Me into a Riajuu!』.
The original form of this work got gold at "The Second Next Fantasia Award", and thus I could turn this into a published book.
It was really a dream to me, to be able to get such a wonderful award with this first full-length novel of mine, which I completed despite being weak in writing, while using a dictionary to look up Japanese words. And to be able to have it turned into a book despite this, I'm truly beyond grateful.
Around summer, several months after March of last year when I submitted this work, I was on my way home after a company drinking party, in my drunk state, and a number I did not know appeared on my cellphone. That was the first time I got a call from Fujimi Shobou, who informed me I had passed the last round of selection. I can still clearly remember rejoicing by myself at the platform of the station (LOL).
By the way, I was allowed to write a little about the author's profile; however, the failure episodes of 『Kashiwada Naoki』, the protagonist of this novel, were modeled after my own personal failure episodes while I was still a student.
During my school days, just like Kashiwada, I dyed my hair in the bathroom as a beginner in stylish grooming, and my hair ended up blond, of all things. Of course, I never wanted to have an entire head of golden hair, but just wanted to brighten up a portion, and when I used bleach for this purpose, the result became unthinkable...... My Mom who was passing by the bathroom swung open the door to the bathroom and said angrily, "This head, you are not my kid!", and immediately gave me the money to go to the beauty salon to dye my hair back; my little sister roared with laughter. Ah, now that I think about it, this whole chain of events has already been told in the novel, huh.
While Kashiwada is a closet Otaku in high school, I was a public Otaku in high school.
During self-studying, I would be happily, openly (it should be okay, since I sat in the last two rows and was also using a book jacket ~) reading light novels or manga (furthermore, they belonged to the sorts of genres that would cause a terrible commotion if seen by ordinary folk), and the nearby seated non-Otakus/Riajuus (of course the word Riaju didn't exist in those days, LOL) would suddenly grab my book, look at what was inside, and furthermore pass that manga to other friends, who would also read it, and though it was a self-study period, the teacher would be there, so I couldn't walk around freely, and while seated, "R-Return it to me! (Sweat)", I would cry out softly; I would have nightmares like this (LOL).
There was also another time, maybe I lost my mind then, during the holidays. I painted my nails with black polish (perhaps I was aiming for a Visual Kei look?), and on the next day at school, there was a uniform and hair inspection, and in haste, I shed my nail polish (I actually did that in school), but I couldn't get rid of it cleanly due to the hurry, and when my homeroom teacher saw the remaining black portions on my nails, "Aah, Murakami, you are drawing manga, huh", for some reason, he mistook my nail polish for manga ink and didn't get angry...... (rather, it might have been much preferable if he got angry at my nail polish perhaps...... how did my homeroom teacher know that I've been drawing manga......)
Anyway, it's no longer the same with Kashiwada, huh. My black history. I couldn't stop recalling it.
However, fortunately, there were many Otakus at the school I went to, the Gyarus and Riajuus were able to understand the Otakus, so even as an Otaku, I was able to happily enjoy my high school life. It's scary to think about what would have happened if I'd gone to a Riajuu-filled school like the one Kashiwada goes to.
When I think about how I will probably again make Kashiwada do the things I have personally experienced before, it will be nice if I can empathize with him and laugh at those things.
Which reminds me, in order to write this novel, I went to several places to do some research on the high school students of this era.
I went to the cultural festival, which had free entry, of a high school (actually my little sister's Alma Mater; and I actually kept it a secret from her), (later, my little sister found out and was creeped out though), and even at my adult age, for the sake of gathering data, I walked around the Takeshita Street in Harajuku which was filled with high school girls, endured the shame of buying 『Seventeen』 and 『Popteen』 at a bookstore, and wrote a spicy question like 『What's popular among high school students these days!?』 on a net question bulletin board...... even though I did all that, I couldn't use all of them in the novel (CRY).
If I'm allowed to published the next volume, then I want to use the data I collected then!
Finally, I really want to thank my editor-sama for working earnestly hard to make this novel, written by a newbie author who can't tell left from right, a good piece of work. I'll humbly be in your care again in the future.
To Anapon-sama who's drawing the wonderful illustrations for me, even though at this point in time, I've only seen the rough sketches and cover, when I first saw the rough sketches, I was blown away by the cuteness of Koigasaki and Hasegawa. I loved them so much that I immediately made them my PC desktop wallpaper. I'm so looking forward to the insert illustrations. Thank you very much.
And also, to Kojima Ajiko-sama who wrote the promotional wrapper slip. Really thank you for your words and impressions on the wrapper. Thanks to that, I was filled with even more motivation. To me, a reader of 801-chan, it's really like a dream.
And, to the readers of this book, thank you for reading this shoddy work. I plan to put in all my effort in writing something that's a notch more interesting in the future, so I look forward to your continued support.
| Back to Chapter 8 | Return to Main Page | Forward to Novel Illustrations |
