Afterword

This is my 39th book. Zounose here. I've been talking about it for a long time now, but here is the much awaited Udonge-Hatate book. Out at last...! is what I'd like to say, but right now it seems unclear whether the Shizuoka Reitaisai where I was planning to release this will go through because of the coronavirus. Too early to rejoice. Guess this book is just cursed that way!

Obviously I thought up this story a long time ago, so I don't really remember how I ended up drawing a connection between these two, but... watching Reisen in LoLK declare herself an Earth rabbit in I was all "So cool! That's like something a main character would say!" but also "Wonder if it's really that easy to leave your own past behind?" That mean-spirited question is one of the materials. Also, it seems like she always gets her punishment for being smug, so I figured that her getting to go wild in LoLK would also come back to bite her. As for Hatate, from her reference to the grand tengu in Double Spoiler and great interest in new things in AFiEU, I get the impression that she isn't held back by the stringent attitudes typical of most tengu. That was maybe even a bit exaggerated in this book.

It's already alluded to in the book, but whereas Aya is very conscious and proud of herself as a tengu even while acting unorthodox in other ways, Hatate doesn't really care so much and is more self-centered in the positive sense of the word... I figured. Double Spoiler also shows that she isn't at all scared of Satori's ability just because of her species, so she seems to me like a personality free of prejudices and fixed ideas. Though it probably wouldn't hurt to be a bit more careful around the self-proclaimed 11-point cheating detective.

And her thoughtography... in most fanworks it's roughly either "capture an instant copy of any already existing photo" or "capture whatever she wants as long as she has the keywords". I went for the latter in this case. The title refers to "uto" (crow and rabbit), a name for the weak spot located between the eyes, which just so happened to be a perfect fit for this team-up... yeah, I'm just trying to be fancy. It's actually a reference to a Saga Frontier 2 technique of that name!

I kinda fear for this year's events because of the aforementioned coronavirus. But I still intend to keep making books like any other year, so every time an event is canceled that's just more books for the next one, yeah! (in theory) If it ends up happening (and I get a spot...) the next book should be at Comiket. But, well then. I hope we can meet again.