Hello for the first time for those of you who don’t know me, and hello again for those who do! I’m the author, Dojyomaru. This is my first new series in several years. In this midword I’ll be discussing why I chose to write this novel, and various things I realized while writing it.
First, there were two questions I had that inspired me to write this.
1: What would a school romcom look like in a world where cool kids and loners were no longer pitted against each other?
2: Could I write a story without showing the female lead?
I’ll expand on that first question. A common theme in school romcoms used to pit popular kids against unpopular kids, in the vein of the phrase “Go away, normies!”
For example, in the manga No Matter How I Look at It, It’s You Guys’ Fault I’m Not Popular! the unpopular kids are jealous of the popular kids. The readers get secondhand embarrassment from watching them go around in circles and self-destruct, but at the same time it’s a funny story.
There are too many stories to mention where an unpopular guy meets a popular girl and falls in love with her. In these stories, the popular kids are the unpopular kids’ enemies, and the heroine is always an attractive girl who’s willing to come over to the unpopular kids’ side.
But in recent years, that’s all changed in the world of light novels. One might say it was the novels I Don’t Have Many Friends and My Youth Romantic Comedy Is Wrong, As I Expected that set the new trends. These books suggested the idea that it wasn’t necessary to become popular, but popular kids have their own problems, so it wasn’t necessary to pit the groups against each other anymore.
Now, society has embraced inclusiveness and diverse points of view, which make it harder to write stories where only one character drives the narrative with their own opinions and morals. Before, readers could only see the setting from the main character’s eyes, but when you give each character their own feelings, it’s necessary to consider the motivations behind each character’s actions.
And in the case of stories about popular versus unpopular kids, that means you have to show both perspectives, not just one. The popular characters have to be written in such a way that the readers can identify with them. You can’t accomplish that if you depict them as villains who do nothing but abuse the unpopular kids. And if they do treat the unpopular kids unfairly, you have to give them a good motive, such as peer pressure or the fear of being left out.
When you begin to show how popular kids suffer, it gets harder to have the unpopular kids oppose them. But when you show the two groups begin to understand each other, there’s no longer a reason for them to fight. So I began to think that the next generation of school romcoms might show a world after the resolution of the two groups’ opposition, and yet I haven’t seen any stories like that come up.
That was a very long explanation for the first reason I decided to write this story—“What would a school romcom look like in a world where cool kids and loners were no longer pitted against each other?”
There were no other stories like this, so I decided to write it myself. I wanted to write a story that showed the mutual understanding between popular and unpopular kids—a school romcom set in a world where the two groups had resolved their conflicts with each other.
And what I came up with was the story you just read. Once the two groups understand each other, it leads to mutual noninterference. That doesn’t mean they hate each other, they just respect each other and have decided not to interfere with each other’s lives, because that would be better than hurting or discriminating against each other. In the end, they build a definitive wall of consideration between the two groups.
Therefore, since they respect each other’s wishes, they can’t cross that line.
I discussed this conclusion with someone living in America and they said, “I totally understand that!” They went on to say, “As liberalism has progressed, the way of life between the two parties has drastically changed. There’s such a divide that they just ignore each other. It’s so separated that it feels very dystopian.”
That made me understand why a story like this hadn’t been published before. Anyway, these are all just my own personal conclusions, and certainly there are other solutions. As I said in the story, this isn’t necessarily the goal. I’d actually love to read a story written by someone who came to a different conclusion, and I’d love to have a discussion with them about it.
Now, that brings me to my second reason—“Could I write a story without showing the female lead?”
I tried to minimize her presence as much as possible in this story. How did I do? I’m sure there will be mixed feelings about it like, “If you’re not going to write about the female lead, then you shouldn’t show her at the end either.” But I thought that would be a good twist—to reveal her at the end. If you’d like to read a story where the heroine is never revealed, by all means go ahead and challenge yourself to write it. I’d like to see which version is better.
Well, I’ve said all I wanted to say about the main story now. After this is a series of short stories featuring Nue. She was a character which wasn’t written about much at all in the main story, but now you’ll be able to discover what she was thinking. When my editor read Nue’s stories, they were puzzled and said, “Is this some kind of mystery writing technique?”
Once you’ve read Nue’s stories, go ahead and read this book from the very beginning again if you feel like it; I think you’ll see things from a different perspective.
Finally, I’d like to thank the illustrator Kou Kusaka, as well as my editors and proofreaders. And of course, thank you for buying this book.