Afterword

This is my 35th book. Zounose here. As promised in last time's afterword, this was the story originally planned for Kohaku Komichi. If I'd went down that route, I never would've made it in time, huh!!! I mean, the huge crowds, the patterns on the yukata, the backgrounds etc. meant that this took about 1.5 times as much time as usual. Even though I'm doing doujin entirely for fun, I kinda wanted to whimper back there. Speaking of the main culprit, the festival scenes: The stalls we see in the likes of WaHH and Three Fairies look pretty modern, so I too made an effort to just forget about stuff like time period and setting details. Well, things like curry and tonkotsu ramen already exist in Gensokyo, so I guess we can assume that the variety of attractions and treats is pretty close to the Outside World after all.

This time's theme was the inseparability of Reimu and the shrine maiden, but judging from the party in SSiB and the bamboo hunting in WaHH for instance, I suppose she wears clothes other than her uniform every now and then. But the fact even in those moments off you still can't separate her from her role as a shrine maiden (gags or not, I even had such scenes in my own books I forgot about) is what kinda expanded into this story. IaMP also has this mention of "having heaven-granted genius to make up for her lack of knowledge", but what exactly is that "genius"...?

I was originally planning to use this set-up of a masquerade party in a Kokoro story. That story ended up being unusable and left hanging when Okina appeared, so I ended up recycling it here. I think it could've been interesting to see Okina in this story too, but truth be told, I still couldn't figure out how to place her into the Kokoro-Miko dynamic, or her relationship with Yukari. More canon appearances, pleeease!!

I was planning to have my first double release this Reitaisai, but my schedule this year has been crazy due to my sudden move and everything, so it seemed pretty impossible... until the huge amount of work I was expecting for April ended up getting delayed, so now I'm trying to make use of that free time and challenge again. At the time of writing this afterword, I might have just barely enough time left, so I can't say for sure, buuut... If that goes well, either my second book this Reitaisai or the one at Summer Comiket (if I get a spot) will be about Yuuka. But, well then. I hope we can meet again.