by Tsutomu Sato
But occasionally, in the course of someone’s life, some unexpectedly nice things will happen. After a normal greeting and a bit of small talk, someone from the Dengeki Bunko editing division who happened to see my work (it may not be necessary to hide their name, but following custom (?), I’ll refer to them as M) asked me if I was Mr. XXXX who had written XXXX, and this deeply surprised me. The work I had submitted to the Dengeki Novel Award had the same settings as that one, but it leaned in a different direction as a sci-fi novel, and my pen name was an English name written in Japanese with phonetically similar kanji characters. M happened to have remembered my rejected work, so when they chanced across this work, which was on the Internet, their antennae perked up—hadn’t they seen settings like this before? And that was apparently why he’d gotten in touch with me.
M seemed to have hesitations at making something that was free into something that was paid, and when I first met him, he was quite worried about what the Internet readers would think. I had thought about the same thing in the past, too. But the long economic recession and the downturn of companies resulted in limitations on overtime hours and an adverse wind blowing through the salaryman world. I felt that I’d need to find a side job if things kept on this way, or I’d have it tough. But if I did that, I wouldn’t have any time to write novels. I can’t say I hadn’t been hoping to continue this work.
The world really isn’t that easy, but occasionally something that is—a stroke of luck—is waiting for you. And of course, this luck is thanks to M, who got in touch with me to make this happen, as well as the admins of the “Let’s Be a Novelist” website, who helped me in all sorts of ways even after it was decided—and above all, it’s thanks to everyone who supported this work. I’d like to borrow this space to extend my deepest gratitude to you.
I’d also like to thank Mr. Kawahara, who gave more words of recommendation on my behalf than I deserved; Ms. Ishida, the illustrator, who gave this work much-needed added value; Mr. Stone, who did the mechanical designs; Ms. Suenaga, who did the color coordination; and all the staff who were involved with this book.
And above all, a deep, heartfelt thanks goes to the fortune that allowed me to deliver this book into your hands. I will work my hardest to ensure that this fortune doesn’t end here, and that I can continue to deliver this work to you in future volumes.
Tsutomu Sato
THE LATECOMER FAVORITE
Reki Kawahara
When M, the editor in chief, started talking to me about writing a letter of recommendation for *that* The Irregular at Magic High School, I was overcome with excitement. “I’ll write it! I’ll write it. I’ll write twenty thousand of them!” I answered immediately, though actually saying that to the editor may have been rather rude, or egotistical, or something… I’m not good enough to write recommendations or commentaries, so please enjoy reading something like a column instead.
Forgive me for prefacing this with a few personal matters, but my—Reki Kawahara’s, that is—first book was published by Dengeki Bunko in February 2009. At the time, there were very few examples of novels released as amateur works on the web to be commercially released (at least, at the young-adult level), but in the past two years there has been an abundance of these “web-released” works that have been published by various companies, so I feel that the existence of online novels has been clearly acknowledged. And recently, the much-awaited publication from Dengeki Bunko is The Irregular at Magic High School, which I will refer to as Magic High School from now on.
All of you readers may already know, but Magic High School was serialized on the novel submission site “Let’s Become an Author” starting in October 2008, and finished in March 2011—a very long work. It had sole occupation of the number one spot in the popularity rankings, and the page view counter showed an insane number exceeding 30,000,000 (!).
There aren’t enough pages for me to even start detailing the appeal of Magic High School, which has garnered so much support. To try to sum it all up, I think this work beautifully and effectively employs a certain deviation that you can only expect from online novels.
Magic High School may have been written as a draft for a newcomer’s prize application, but with its magical theory, constructed so finely it borders on tenacity, and its colorful cast of characters, who appear one after the other in the beginning, needing to cut it down to the required page count was probably inevitable. But in online novels, the only restriction is the author’s limits. No matter how voluminous the settings may be, and no matter how many characters there may be, and no matter how deliberately and carefully the story develops, the writer can write to his or her heart’s content.
Of course, this also deviates heavily from the theory in commercial business. Changing this deviation into appeal—and this is just my own opinion—relies entirely on the volume, or the amount of text in the work. Before I spoke of the author’s limits, but the larger-scale a work becomes, the more difficult it is to continue it for very long. After all, the opinions of the readers are the only things giving the authors of online novels motivation (and in the beginning, you won’t even have that…). A work will have shining charm precisely because the creator uses his or her passion toward the work as an energy source, and to take one step after another outside the realm of established theory.
Magic High School is one of those rare works that has flown high above those limits. The amount of text written by its author, Mr. Tsutomu Sato, exceeded the production pace of most occupational writers. For all of you who have been able to enter the Magic High School world via Dengeki Bunko, I very much hope you will continue to anticipate the infinitely expanding world beyond this book.
I’ve written a lot of formal sentences, but I’m pretty sure the best things about Magic High School’s deviating charm are the extreme love Miyuki has for her brother and Tatsuya’s boundless invincibility!
I can’t help but wait in anticipation for the continuation whenever I think of Ms. Kana Ishida’s beautiful illustrations—whether she’s making Tatsuya seem even more excellent and brilliant, or showing us ever more extreme behavior out of Miyuki.
The latecomer favorite from the world of online novels—that is The Irregular at Magic High School.