Afterword

This is my 44th book. Zounose here. I finally managed to put out that god-themed book I've been falsely advertising in my circle cut for a long time now. And what a lot of work it was! Lots of pages! Lots of action!! All those panels with the eighty gods!!! A really hellish manga to finish. Add the fact that this February and March have been maybe the second, third busiest I've ever been at work! I mean, truth be told, at the time of writing this, it's still far from over.

I've drawn a fair few books about my thoughts or silly ideas regarding Suwako, but here is finally some stuff I've been cooking about Kanako. I mean, with the way I threw everything in there, it might feel like it doesn't really explain things properly... but I couldn't exactly make the book any longer than this... Explaining (excusing?) it here in the afterword seems a bit improper, but I'm gonna do so regardless. The official works state that Kanako is a "divine spirit", a spirit that acquired divinity, but even leave it unclear whether she was born from an individual or actually a group of people. Based on her backstory, she might be based on the gods Takeminakata and/or Yasakatome.

From that, we get the idea that she could represent the collective consciousness of the army that invaded Suwa from the west (the original basis for Takeminakata), or maybe their deified leader. From there, in order to pacify Suwa, she was syncretized with other gods like Yasakatome, creating the Kanako we know... or something like that. In that case, you could say she's relatively young compared to the likes of born amatsukami Omoikane (Eirin), the pinnacle of stone gods whose faith goes back to prehistory (Suwako), and the White Hare of Inaba (Tewi) who appears in stories before the descent of the divine grandson.

Meanwhile, I personally have the image that the post-descent gods like her were created as a result of systematizing power and religion, which ties into the depiction of "younger gods who exist to fulfill prayers" in this book. Basically, they're gods born for the explicit purpose of granting blessings to people who pay homage to their shrines. There's a lot of details omitted and a lot else to poke at, but that general idea was the basis for this book. Next time, let's try to fit all that into the story itself, shall we!?

I really love Eirin and Tewi's relationship and have a lot to say on it, but on that side, I'm pretty satisfied with how I fit it into the story. Still, I wanna draw more of it some other time. As for my next book... who knows? Golden Week's Comiket ended up being postponed... but there's probably going to be an online event in its place, so maybe something there? My mind and body are in tatters from this book and my recent work schedule, though, so if I do release a book, it'll probably be something pretty light. Maybe if I manage to draw a Sakuya or Sanae book to go with Unconnected Marketeers' release... (Can't wait!!) But, well then. I hope we can meet again.