Mitou Shoukan://Blood-Sign

Volume 1, Afterword

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Afterword

(Postscript Open ??/?? ??:??)

A new series!!

This is Kamachi Kazuma.

The theme this time was summoning! When you look into magic and sorcery from any part of the world, once things pass a certain line, it starts being about contacting and borrowing the power of a higher intelligent being. (And ultimately either becoming one with them or going to “the other side” as a new member of their group. …All the talk about UFOs isn’t all that different when you get down to it, is it?) But this time I put even more focus on that.

If you’re interested, it might be fun to look into the rose and sigil at the basis of the Blood-Sign style of summoning ceremony. This is also true of magic weapons like wands, cups, swords, and pentacles, but (setting aside the psychological work of sanctifying them) you can make the actual tool from magnets and cellophane and it looks something like a craft made for a school project. (Yes, it looks more like a craft than artwork.) It’s interesting because it demonstrates the idea of things close at hand summoning things that are out of reach.

Due to the summoning theme, I focused this entire novel around (a mistaken usage of) the idea of being reliant on others. The protagonist of Shiroyama Kyousuke is a legendary sort of person, yet he can’t display his true power without a partner, he uses a product of Quad Motors which belonged to the enemy, and his catch phrase was to repeat back what the other person had said earlier.

I think the key to this novel’s summoning theme was to see how cool I could make it look to be reliant on others.

Personally, I think summoning isn’t just about a great power that no human could hope to match; it also emphasizes twisted relationships (e.g. being bound by a contract on parchment or working for the person you accept as your master), so I put a lot of that in the novel too. Everyone was referring to each other like they were family (e.g. Onii-chan, brother, my sister), but if you think about it, the only actual blood relationship was the pair from the flashback. That’s also why the final boss was the way she was.

The protagonist has mastered being a summoner and become somewhat Material-like as a result.

The final boss has mastered being a Material and brought her human-like thoughts to the forefront as a result.

I had those two interact because I wanted to express something about the relationship between the summoner and the summoned. For example, without that amazing skill, he wouldn’t have had to see all that. And it isn’t just the human that’s affected (goes insane?) when they catch a glimpse of a monster. Can’t the opposite happen as well? For this, I referenced a lot of myths about crossing between worlds such as Orpheus traveling from earth to the underworld or Samyaza traveling from heaven to earth. My personal impression was that it ends up being too much of a good thing.

As for the Repliglass solders who played the role of the grunts in full-body tights, I added them into the settings because I thought they weren’t much different from summoners in that they used human intelligence and technology to efficiently make use of other plants’ and animals’ structures. That was an experiment to approach the novel’s theme from multiple angles, but what did you think?

Now for some internal information. An experimental theme for this novel was to have the series’ final boss do a lot from the very beginning and to always be by the protagonist’s side. Rather than a plotting rival who is equal to the protagonist, this is a final boss whose power is hopelessly greater than the protagonist’s. I wanted to take a protagonist who has a composed look during any battle and show off his adorable human side by having him tremble in fear whenever the ultimate (…or worst?) ex-girlfriend shows up.

In this volume, the final boss’s own power was used to defeat her, but can Shiroyama Kyousuke ultimately grow enough to outdo her even though he already seems to have reached his limit spec-wise (since he already ranks near the top). I hope you will stick around to see.

I give my thanks to my illustrator Ikawa Waki-san and my editors Miki-san, Onodera-san, and Anan-san. With the creature-esque Materials, the mecha-like Repliglass soldiers, and the great difference in size between the humans and creatures, this has to have been a pain of a novel to illustrate. Sorry for all the trouble. I hope you will stick with me.

And I give my thanks to the readers. I’ve started a new series, but did you enjoy it? I hope you can relax and stick around for a while.

And I will end this here.

…I wrote an extra dictionary for all the original summoning terminology, you know?

-Kamachi Kazuma

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