Afterword
HELLO EVERYONE, Yoshino Origuchi here.
Thank you so much for reading the final volume of this series. I really, really am sorry for making you wait this long—a year and a month since Volume 9. There are many reasons why it took this long, of course, but every time I try to put them into words, they just sound like excuses. I had a plan for what I wanted to happen in the final volume, but in the end, I just didn’t mark off enough time to get it done. I’m really sorry!
So Glenn died, in the end.
To be honest, I’ve covered all the main themes of this story over the course of eleven volumes. Glenn and Sapphee’s love finally bore fruit in Volume 9, and after that, all they could do was get married. So I had to think of something else to write about. I’d written about everything that could happen while they were alive, so all that remained was to write about what happened after death.
The idea of a doctor visiting the Underworld has been around since ancient Greece, so I went with a Hades theme. The Lord of the Underworld is a unique and familiar character, but I think I did a good job with Elle. Then there was the first-generation Molly. She’s a Dullahan, of course. She’s holding her own head! It’s awesome. I think a girl having scales or a head that she can take off and put back on just makes her even more attractive.
Resolving foreshadowing is also important to a story. I had a lot of previous foreshadowing to resolve in this final volume of Monster Girl Doctor, tying up all the threads I recklessly threw out during the series. That’s how foreshadowing works, anyway. If you don’t tie up all those loose ends, people start throwing stones at you.
So what did you think? Was everything tied up? I hope you’re thinking, “Yeah, you did a pretty good job.” That’ll give me some confidence to carry into my next work.
Now there are some people I need to thank.
My editor, Hibiu-san. Thank you for working with me for all these years. With such a long working relationship, I feel like we’re more friends than author and manager. Congratulations on your wedding and the birth of your child.
The illustrator, Z-ton-sensei. There are so many characters and so many weird scenes. This must be a really difficult project to work on, so thank you so much for drawing such attractive characters all the way to the final volume. About 80 percent of the popularity of this series can be attributed to Z-ton.
Comicalize’s Thomas Kanemaki-sensei. Also, Mitsuhiro Kimura-sensei from Zero Comicalize. You have both taken such good care of me. Thank you for all your hard work.
I also want to thank all the authors who hang out with me, and the manga artists and illustrators who talk to me on Twitter. Thank you to S-BOW from Jingyi Only and their entire staff. Thank you to all the bookstores. Thank you to the reps at Comic Ryu and the editorial staff. Thank you to the reps at Zero Comicalize. Thank you to my family, who have stayed with me all the way to the final volume. And thank you to the proofreaders who fixed all my small mistakes.
Most of all, thank you to everyone who has read this. I am eternally grateful. Thank you so much for reading about Glenn, Sapphee, and the Monster Girls for so long.
There is one thing that an author who finishes a series must say, of course…
I’ll do my best on the next series too!
Yoshino Origuchi