Volume 3, Afterword
If you picked them up one at a time, welcome back. If you bought them all at once, welcome.
This is Kamachi Kazuma.
This one was about Academy City’s dark side. But I tried to make it different from before by adding in Anti-Skill’s viewpoint and some Christmas magic! Operation Handcuffs was first mentioned in GT1 and you can see how it turned out here. I hope you enjoyed the thrills and dark humor only possible on the dark side.
Instead of following the flow of the story, I think it would be easier to get the big picture by focusing on the people who created that flow. So let’s take a look back at the new villains who were introduced.
Vivana Oniguma.
A Japanese torture enthusiast who hides red tape bondage below a Meiji or Taisho hakama. She is the dark side’s conscience. Hamazura thought of an expert as someone who “earnestly faces what parts of science they wish to preserve” and that is exactly what she is. Her last name has no real meaning. I just thought it was neat how you could take the word “enigma” and only change it a little bit to get the very Japanese-sounding name of oni + guma (bear).
Since she chose nonlethal methods against bad people and was willing to sacrifice her life to save a child she had never meant, she may have shared Kihara Noukan’s enjoyment of the pointless things in life. But if Vivana were to talk about romance, I bet she would spell it using kanji.
Benizome Jellyfish.
A paparazzo who gets scoops by any means necessary. Her last name comes from the fact that she’s an unseen assassin who drifts through the late-night city like a jellyfish. Her focus on paper tabloids in an age of video sites and social media comes from her idea of justice.
The pen is mightier than the sword. Ironically, I think that saying only sounds beautiful in an age when the sword is in fact mightier. So maybe the meaning of the phrase would change in an age when the pen really is mightier. In that sense, I think Benizome was someone who was obsessed with the mightiness of the pen. Just like a villain who is so fascinated with the sharp edge of their sword that they continue to test it out on random passersby.
Hanatsuyu Kaai and Hanatsuyu Youen.
When creating a pair of twins, I think you have two options for their primary mentality: the two of them are an inseparable pair or they want to become their own independent people. So in this case, I gave the two sisters conflicting views. Kaia the Decomposer wanted independence enough to destroy herself in the process and Youen the Carrier wanted to be together forever even if it meant forever restricting her sister. They were both killers who took lives for no reason. Since they stayed true to the gruesome side of the dark side from beginning to end, I think you could say they were too pure in a certain sense of the word. Which is exactly why I showed no mercy in what happened to them. I think failing to die was the greatest punishment for both of them.
Ladybird.
An android created from scratch. Ladybird is another word for ladybug. I referenced the idea that their coloration was meant to make humans like them, but apparently that orange with black spots coloration is actually a warning color similar to a wasp’s stripes instead of protective colors meant to blend into their surroundings. They want to show off how violent they are to keep their enemies away and to say they would not be a tasty treat.
Strongest physically, purely science, a true Kihara brand, lives in a limited world with no interpersonal relationships, short with a flat chest, a racing swimsuit that shows off her figure, and an immature mentality. She was partially designed to contrast with Frillsand #G who will be discussed next.
You saw how she met her end, but I quite liked her casual interactions with the old Kihara. I think forming a connection unrelated to good and evil is a very dark side thing to do. But on the dark side, having a connection like that does not mean you can fully trust them.
Frillsand #G.
A childcare ghost and one willing to kill to that end. This is not the first time artificial ghosts have appeared in this series since there’s also Kazakiri Hyouka and Maya of the Kamisato Faction. Yes, and the G simply stands for ghost! There are many ways of explaining ghosts, including physical fireballs made of plasma, holograms, or brain malfunctions caused by ultrasonic waves, but I went with this one.
If you see a ghost, bad things will happen. If you take a ghost photo, you will be cursed. Those are the gold standards, but a newer cliché in ghost stories is your phone dying or your map and facial recognition apps getting buggy. I’m sure that’s just a way to isolate the people in the story, but I think it’s fascinating that ghosts get more abilities as technology advances. But that makes me wonder if you could convince someone there was a ghost around if you made a cyber attack on their phone while they were trembling in the darkness. Or maybe you could create a haunted room by sticking an illegal wireless router on the other side of an old apartment’s thin wall. Although I’m not sure why a landlord would do that since it would only drive down the value of the room. Or could you make a new kind of haunted house like that? There are plenty of devices that jam phone signals and you could probably design the patterns on the wallpaper to make the camera’s facial recognition malfunction.
Since Maya wore Japanese-style burial garb, I went for a Western doll look this time. And to create a gap from that appearance, I gave her a curvy figure. The concept of beautiful ghosts is so common that you just have to make your spirit of the dead sexy, right!? But instead of the Western evil spirits that can be driven out with the cross, she is more like the Japanese Mary-san who will follow you around no matter what you try to do.
Speaking of a doll like Mary-san, I’m more drawn to the compact scary stories or cursed items like the Kokkuri-san or Kotoribako than the one that hides under your bed or the powerful old lady that races down the highway. But if I had to choose one of the more monstrous types, I guess I would go with Hasshaku-sama. Maybe I just find it easier to imagine things with a clearly-defined ritual or tool.
I think the rampage and accidents by the nameless Anti-Skill officers will also stand out in this volume. If everything that went different from normal really was due to the Coins of Nicholas sending people down different routes, then all of that came from the coins given to Anti-Skill. Did those kind teachers have some unspeakable feelings lurking deep inside them, or did they phrase their wish poorly and end up with a result they never wanted? That is up to your imagination.
I give my thanks to my illustrators Haimura-san and Itou Tateki-san and to my editors Miki-san, Anan-san, Nakajima-san, and Hamamura-san. I doubt it was easy mixing a white coat, a gas mask, and a festival yukata into the same outfit. Thank you so much!!
And I give my thanks to the readers. How did you enjoy this GT dark side story where Christmas refused to end? I hope you enjoyed the mixture of science and magic and of light and dark. Thank you yet again!!
It is time to close the pages for now while praying that the pages of the next book will be opened.
And I lay my pen down for now.
He really does have bad luck with (little) girls, doesn’t he?
-Kamachi Kazuma
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