Editing City Series:Volume4a Afterword (section)

==Afterword==

“Hey, bro! I’ve got some good stuff from Taiwan for just 58 yen a bag!”

Have you ever gotten a dangerous-sounding wrong number like that?

I have.

And that’s why (okay, that’s not ''actually'' why) I had to move.

Also, I’ve started using the internet. (I feel like a ramen shop saying “We’ve started serving chilled noodles”.)

It makes for a decent environment.

However…

The phone line isn’t up yet.

Nor is the fax line.

I’m really not sure if my lifestyle has moved forward or back here.

Anyway, this was another long book and I was in a traffic accident, so my life’s been pretty exciting.

After all, I was driving safely along when a dump truck slammed into me from behind and my car was squished in like a Choro-Q.

The car was of course totaled.

As I stared at it while saying goodbye at the car dealership, I had to wonder if it would pop a wheelie if you stuck a manhole cover in by the license plate.

That was quite the experience.

(I may be joking around, but it was pretty amazing. It’s really wonderful that I wasn’t hurt, though.)

Anyway, it’s looking like the page number just keeps going up with each book I write. When Berlin through Hong Kong are lined up on the shelf at a bookstore, it’s funny how clearly you can see that each one is longer than the last.

Let’s all laugh together if Osaka’s second book ends up being even longer.

Now that I’ve talked about some completely unrelated stuff, let’s get to the traditional phone call.

This time it’s a conversation over email.

“Hey, so what do you think of the story this time?”

“Eh? You’re really asking me that without giving me the second half again? Die.”

“I haven’t written the second half yet, so could you find something to say at this point? In fact, just do it.”

“Ehh? Seriously? But I don’t want to say something stupid.”

“The best thing to do is to honestly say what’s in your heart. C’mon.”

“Hmm. I like Yuuki more than Takada. I like girls that get mad at me.”

“I’m not interested in speaking with a masochist, so this line will shut down in five seconds.”

“Wait, you bastard! I was being serious!”

What an annoying guy.

Oh, but I’ve been busy since Osaka is being made into a video game too. The game takes place in Osaka two years after the novel. The main character is from Tokyo and he investigates Osaka’s past and the connections between people there. It doesn’t overlap much with the novel characters, but since it has the same setting, I hope you’ll play it if you’re the wonderful sort of person who would like to live in this kind of world.

I also created a tentative website for myself. I’ll be posting unpublished novels, illustrations, and materials on the City Series.

The address is http://www.din.or.jp/~arm/

And the address for the company I work at (this will be for information on the Osaka game and on my current situation) is http://www.tenky.co.jp/

Now, then. I just read through Part A while listening to Orbital’s The Girl with the Sun in Her Head. (It’s Western techno. I think this might be what a Rhythm sounds like.)

“Whose question is the strongest?”

Well, I guess that mystery will be solved next time.


September 1998. Early morning on a workday.

-Kawakami Minoru

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