Afterword

This is my 41st book. Zounose here. When I signed up for this event, I said I was going for a more serious book about Rumia. But in the end, I got other ideas and felt like drawing some gags after all, so I had to make some last-minute changes. The end result is something of a not-quite-gag book, but anyway...

When I first decided to go for more gags, I was planning for Hijiri to have a larger role as she watched the slapstick show of Rumia and Shou trying to hunt some humans, supporting and cheering them on. But when I took a closer look at SoPM to double-check the backstory, the line "She likely couldn't even return to that (man-eating) form of the past." in Shou's article had a sad, somehow forlorn sound to it. I ended up making that the centerpiece of the story.

But of course, by being centered on Shou, the themes couldn't help but overlap with my own maiden work "Hungry Tiger". The self-contradiction of how she must deal with her opposing identities of "avatar" and "youkai" seems to fascinate me to this day. Truth be told, I can't help but feel like the book would've been more fun if I'd just gone with the original gag-based idea, but in the end... hitting people in the face with what you want to draw is the true thrill of doujin...!

By the way, about that anecdote on Asita's disciple: It's actually from Tezuka Osamu's manga "Buddha". It's not a real legend, just so you know...

I've mentioned a few times now that I want to make my lines thicker, but this time I didn't just think about it, I actually made some fundamental changes to my pen settings before starting to draw. Even I myself have no idea yet how it'll actually look in print, but here's hoping.

Even now as I write this afterword, no one can actually tell for sure if this event is going to happen. You really do wonder where this is all going. But that being said, I intend to maintain this pace, so I hope you'll keep picking up my books... in one form or another. Next I'm planning a very god-like story starring Kanako, Eirin, Tewi and Suwako. Although, it seems like it'll be another one high on the production costs so to speak, so I might change at the last minute once more... But, well then. I hope we can meet again.