Thank you, as always. I’m Mai Mochizuki.
This series has already reached its twentieth volume! It couldn’t have continued for so long without your support. Thank you all so much.
With this being the twentieth volume, I wanted to give my readers an even more enjoyable experience! I always put a lot of effort into my work, but doubly so for this book.
In this volume, there were three characters modeled after real people. First, Aoi’s fellow interns, Eri Kimura and Koki Segawa: These two won the right to appear in the book as a raffle prize for participating in the stamp rally held by Kyoto’s Kita-ku ward. They were asked for their names, appearance, and hobbies (Kimura’s was drawing, while Segawa’s was communicating with aliens). Everything about the characters was written based on their survey responses except for their ages, the universities they attended, and Segawa’s family business. Thank you so much, Eri Kimura and Koki Segawa.
The other person was KNM deputy director Yuki Kurishiro. She was modeled after Yuji Kurihara, who was deputy director of the Kyoto National Museum until the spring of 2023. He is currently the deputy director of Tokyo’s National Museum of Nature and Science. Kurihara is actually a man, but I received his permission to make him a woman in the book.
I first met Kurihara two years ago when he contacted me saying that—much to my surprise—he was reading this series. He even made a wonderful proposal: “We’d love to have Aoi intern at KNM!” However, at the time, Aoi was still in her first two years of university. It was too soon for her to have an internship. So I replied, “Please let her intern at your museum when she becomes a third-year.” After two years, Aoi was finally old enough to go.
Kurihara was so kind as to create the internship program for me and allow full cooperation with KNM for the research involved in composing this book. Still, it is a national museum, so there were quite a few restrictions. “We can’t have any crimes happening at the museum,” he said. “Ghosts might be okay, but that would be a repeat of volume 19.”
Well, if I can’t have any incidents at KNM, then I’ll just have to have them elsewhere! That was the thought that led to combining Aoi’s intern arc with this installment of Ensho’s journey, which were originally separate stories. Thank you so much to Kurihara and everyone at the Kyoto National Museum.
This volume had the Shiga story I’d been meaning to write for a long time, Akihito’s stage play at Minamiza Theater that was postponed from the previous volume, Aoi’s internship at KNM, and Ensho’s story. I was able to pack everything in and write it all in one go. When I finished, I was filled with a sense of accomplishment. Now, I just pray that those who pick up this book will enjoy it.
Finally, let me thank all of you once again. It’s because of your support that I was able to publish twenty volumes of Holmes of Kyoto—twenty-two if you include the extras!
I’m grateful for all of the connections surrounding this series. Thank you all so much.
Mai Mochizuki