Volume 3, Afterword

Volume 3, Afterword

Hello everyone, Mikawa Ghost here. This time’s ‘Tomodachi no Imouto ga Ore ni Dake Uzai’ aka ‘Imoza’ turned into quite the horror ordeal, contrary to the promised beach episode, didn’t it?

As all of you people reading must know, Imoza is a rom-com revolving around modern high school students; a story about them spending their youth creatively. A lot of work flows into portraying the JKs’ appearances well. And with this being my first work that actually implements said JKs, it has to be a mix between enough fictional aspects to make it interesting, as well as to keep the reality and acting patterns of a JK in her prime—Meaning that in order to fulfill these criteria, there was some data I had to collect at all costs this time around.

Naturally, as you all must have guessed…It’s tapioca.

Yes, the time being mid-October, in the year 2019, tapioca milk tea is at the height of its prosperity. So in order to realistically portray the daily life of a JK, I couldn’t miss out on putting in tapioca. And so, I took my editor with me to a certain store in Roppongi (I never checked with him so I don’t know if the expenses from back then really counted as necessary for the novel, but it’s not like that really matters) to drink bubble milk tea with me.

For my impressions, I found it to be delicious enough to understand the reason behind its popularity. It’s just as the saying goes, ‘trying it out once is better than hearing about it 100 times’. And rather than listening to the instagram popularity, seeing it for myself with how cute it was arranged, and how sweet and delicious it was, I could completely agree to its popularity. See? After gathering this valuable experience, I made my way home to work on the manuscript, and tried writing down a title just for fun.

[Chapter 2: My Homeroom Teacher is Only Bubbly Towards Me]

Ohhhh…feels pretty heavy. It makes it sound like I heard this term only on Twitter, not having actually experienced this phenomenon for myself. Feeling like I truly learned something important from my data collecting that I received through actually going there, I felt a fire burn up inside of me, and I started working on the real chapter. And thus, the manuscript was completed.

“I will now show you a true modern JK, inside a true modern romcom.”

With these words, I threw the finished manuscript at my editor, who just gazed at me blankly, not grasping what I was trying to say. And then, a few days later, there was this revise that he commented on.

“Wouldn’t it actually be ‘to tapioca’ here instead of ‘to drink tapioca?”

“……”

“Eh, could it be that you’re actually adamant on your knowledge about JK language, even though it’s completely wrong? Aren’t you just forcing yourself to use some sort of JK language in there?! I see, even with collecting data while drinking bubble tea, you still won’t be able to replicate true JK communication, huh? Kekeke!”

“Hey, don’t just talk to me like that in Iroha’s type of voice you shitty editor! Iroha’s annoyingness is also her cuteness so she’s allowed to do that, but you’re not cute at all, you hear me?!”

(*Some expressions are a bit more extreme in this replicated dialogue. To be precise, Mikawa’s phrasing had been a lot more polite and formal. I think that Editor-san’s phrases were also a bit different, but not too much from I could tell)

Anyway, after making that painful mistake, my face was burning up with the heat of a thousand flames, and although it might just be a story I laugh about now, it still makes me cringe to no limits, so much so that I would roll around on the floor that my dear Rumba-kun just cleaned.

Anyway, onwards to the thanks.

Tomari-sensei, who was responsible for the illustrations. Really, I cannot believe how amazing these illustrations are every single volume! Between me and my editor, we have even began calling Sensei with a nickname called ‘Gottma’. (Gottma = Tomari-sensei, because he delivers godly illustrations. A short version for God Tomari) Please continue to support me with these wonderful illustrations from now on.

My editor Nuru-san. Everyone from GA Publishing’s editorial department. Everyone related from the business department. Every single shop employee that put out my novel in their shelves. On top of that, every wonderful person that has helped in releasing this novel, thank you very much!

Naturally, let us not forget all of you people that bought the book, and read this far. Thank you so so much!

The 4th volume even releases with a drama CD, so I can really feel Imoza getting more and more popular, so please continue to support me from now on as well!

—This has been Mikawa Ghost.