Baka to Test to Shoukanjuu‎

Volume 5, Author's Notes

I’m really grateful to all the readers who picked up this idiot work. I’m the author in charge of writing this series, Inoue Kenji. This work can be considered to be the sixth book in this series. What was a manuscript of 400 words ended up being more than 2000 pages. If we count 10 seconds to read one page, it’ll take 5 and a half hours to read finish this, and with Haga-san’s illustrations, I’ll have to spend 30 minutes to regain my intense emotions (except for page 225 of the third volume). So, it’ll take about 59 hours in all. I’m really grateful considering that the readers would spend so much time and effort to read this work. The warm voices of the readers and the feelings that are deeper than the seas really makes me ever so grateful.

Alright, I got more pages for this afterword , so I could talk about random stuff. If you’re willing, readers, please continue reading.

Actually, the previous volume, volume 4 was definitely a huge risk to me. If anyone asks me why, that’s because this is the first time I tried to create a romantic mood in this work full of idiotic situations. I was worried whether I would get criticism like ‘how boring’, ‘very disgusting’ or ‘Inoue Kenji’s not suited to write love drama at all’, so I was rather tentative when writing.

I was scared of reading the readers’ thoughts, and didn’t want to read statements humiliating me. However, I was still curious about everyone’s reaction.

In the end, I still couldn’t hold back. I read through the mail and emails that I would receive from the receivers, and even started moving to the imageboards I normally eschew.

Come on, come one…what will everyone write? I hope I won’t see ‘I’m so disappointed in the author’, ‘I can’t read on’, ‘I can’t hand Hideyoshi over to the author, must make him my bride’ and all sorts of messages…

With such throbbing anxiety, I read through all the mail, letters and comments on the internet.

Luckily, most of them I saw were positive, like ‘it’s interesting’. Thinking about how so many people read my books, wrote their thoughts about it, and all being so positive; to be honest, there’s nothing else that made me happier.

I was really too happy, so I was worried whether people will worry about whether I will be too proud and haughty, but I just want to use the afterword column to talk about some reader comments. These are some comments that were taken,

The afterwords’ interesting.

I started laughing when the molester was mentioned.

I was laughing myself out when I read about the recording report.

The afterwords were highly regarded.

It does feel that there’s a huge difference from what I expected, but I’m rather happy that everyone can praise me like that. It seemed that how I got touched on a place lower than the back of my waist was worth it, so it’s great that the readers are happy.

However, it seemed that a lot of people are mistaken, so I have to clarify here. Listen up! If you think that all male molesters are all handsome, it’s a big mistake. No, speaking of which, that guy might not be a molester, but a jeans specialist who was attracted by the texture of my jeans and couldn’t help but reach out to touch it. A lot of masters aren’t good with words, so he could only silently reach out for me, right? Such an amazing jeans master. This Inoue Kenji hopes to be a jeans master or skirts master for the rest of my life.

Alright, we’ll leave this aside for now.

Besides the afterwords, I’ve also received a lot of feedback. Like how my work met expectations, and even some readers giving me extremely good ratings that I really looked forward to, which made me tear with in salt water. Also, there’s also a response of ‘it’s really interesting. I’ll go completely naked to wait for your new work to come out on the market’. It’s been more than half a year since the last volume came out, and it’s now the season where the cold wave’s about to strike. I wonder if this reader has gotten a cold due to going completely naked? I couldn’t help but worry. I’ll definitely try to write faster and release the next volume earlier, so please hurry up and go back home and put on your clothes.

I’ve read through such affectionate replies or some slightly stern feedback criticizing me. Thank you, everyone. My writing still has lots of places to improve on, but I’ll definitely write better works, so everyone, please take care of me.

Oh yes, speaking of molester (I too feel that it’s weird to continue on using this line), the audio CD drama is slated to release a second volume. This is because of everyone’s support and encouragement, and also the hard work of the people involved. I took part in a seminar like the last volume and came out with some test questions for some part. Also, the second volume of the audio drama is about the second volume and two new unique stories, so the script was edited by the experts in this part. All sorts of outstanding seiyuus helped fill this feeling of being there with their voice acting. My inferior work really can’t ascend to the greats as compared to the audio CDs interesting parts. If you’re interested, readers, you might want to listen to the audio CD of this series.

Alright, that’s it for the introduction of the audio drama CDs. It’s about time for the readers to read about these trivial stuff I will normally say.

First, please look at this term.

Sou-uke

To the readers who never heard of such a time before, I really don’t want to cause emotional scars in you, so it’s better if you hurry and skip these few pages to enjoy Haga-san’s cute illustration. Don’t worry, it’s no shameful for you even if you don’t recognize this term. On the contrary, it might be a good thing if you don’t know. I love those readers who will answer ‘defend’ when I mention ‘attack’. So please promise me. Even if you don’t understand, you must not ask your parents what does this mean.

Alright, is everyone ready?

Actually, this Inoue Kenji works as a designer on top of writing this series called Baka Test. Because of this work as a designer, I got a chance to meet up with a lot of amazing people. This time, let’s talk about something unfortunate that happened in the meeting.

At that time, I faced a lot of amazing big shots who were older than me. I was really nervous, but I had to explain the contents of this meeting to them.

Inoue: “Based on the results of this report, the number of screws may be reduced from 10 to 8. In that case, the installation and the material costs will be about OO yen, and the area—”

Superior: “Please hold on. I have some doubts about what you just said.”

One of the big shots spoke and interrupted my explanation. It seemed that there’s something lacking in my words, so he intended to ask. If I can’t answer, there’ll be a lot of trouble in the manufacturing later on. Thus, I have to answer the doubt in his heart clearly.

I was becoming more and more nervous as I waited for the question.

…That’s right, this really was a tense moment for me.

Superior: “As for the number 4 screw that was taken out, when OO is used, it’s used to take the counterweight, right? Without it, which parts will bear these weights?”

Let me repeat this again. I was really, really tense back then.

Inoue: “Tha, that…that is…”

Superior: “Un.”

Inoue: “The screws here will all become sou-ukes!”

WHAT THE HELL DID I JUST SAY IN FRONT OF THE BIG SHOTS!

This was really a tragedy created by many unfortunate factors.

1.As I was busy with work, I was sleep deprived when I got home and had to write the novel, causing my thoughts to be slow.

2.While checking the reader thoughts in the first four volumes, I saw this term several times, and couldn’t help but check the definition of this term on the net, so my mind had a strong impression.

3.These are all famous big shots in the company I was facing back then, so I was really, really, really tense.

I should be able to avoid this tragedy if any one of these factors was missing. ESPECIALLY THE SECOND POINT! Since I can deduce the meaning of this term, I really didn’t need to specially check it on the net…!

Superior: “Fmm, is that so…”

Ignoring me, who was regretting over this term, the big shot who asked didn’t seem to notice what was wrong with this and continued to stare at the explanation information in his hands.

Oh my? Does this mean…I escaped?

Speaking of which, I’m in charge of explaining things to men more than 40 years old. They probably never had a chance to hear of such a term, so it’s likely that they already thought that this term would be ‘bear all the weight’. This is really great.

Inoue: “Then, as for the next point—”

I finally heaved a sigh of relief and got ready to continue the explanation.

This is great. This is great. I managed to protect my face then. Now I can relax.

Superior: “Ahh, hold on a moment.”

Inoue: “Yes?”

Superior: “As for the screws that are treated as the sou-ukes—”

THIS IS BAD! SUCH AN OLD BIG SHOT REMEMBERED SUCH AN INTOLERABLE TERM!

At this moment, I learnt a life lesson. If I know that there’s some tense situation I must face, I should have ample sleep and have a trial run and immediately get rid of any unnecessary terms in my mind. I, who sacrificed others to learn this lesson, was filled with guilt back then, but I believe that such great superiors will soon forget about what such a low-level employee said. Also, I am secretly praying here that the big shot doesn’t have a teenage daughter.

Now that I’ve mentioned this random trivial stuff, there’s not many pages left for the afterword. I’ll then change the topic and say the usual thanks.

Haga-san, who’s in charge of illustrations, that ever constant amazing wrist of yours scares me, especially ponytailed Mizuki! That can’t do. I’ll definitely be unable to focus on writing the novel after looking at so many cute illustrations. Ahh, but I don’t write the novel, I can’t ask you to help me draw more illustrations…! I’m really in a dilemma…!

Kagaya-san, who’s in charge of designing; I caused you so much trouble all the time and there’s a lot of designing to be done this time. I’m really, really sorry…

My editor, N-sama, I feel ever so bothered whenever I receive your emails during holidays. I’m really sorry for making you panic so much.

Of course, to all the readers too! I’m very grateful for your journey with me, and I’ve read through everything from the letters, the readers feedback or the emails sent to FBonline. I would sometimes be at a bottleneck, but the soothing voices of support and encouragement are the motivation for me to continue working hard. I’m very happy about everything you sent, whether it’s words of encouragement, careless words, lack of words, or even hand-made illustrations sent to me. I’ll continue working hard in the next volume.

Finally, the preview to the next volume.

In the next volume, I guess I’ll be writing about a story where the summoned beasts get involved in a conflict with the seniors since I didn’t let the summoned beasts appear in this volume. I think a scenario of a boy and girl going through a test of courage isn’t a bad idea…but in this case, what will happen to the direction of the story? However, it’s only the planning stage at this point. Please forgive me if I end up writing something completely different.

I don’t know whether it will be a main story or a short story on FBonline, but I hope I can meet with everyone on the stage of Baka Test