Chapter 41

TRANSLATOR’S AFTERWORD Hello everyone. I’m Andrew Prowse, the translator for the A Certain Magical Index novels. With the so-called Old Testament arc complete at last, I managed to talk the good folks at Yen Press into letting me write an additional afterword as a little bonus for the readers! It isn’t much, but please enjoy this brief pulling back of the curtain before I return to my perch behind the scenes. Despite having done hobby translation for a while in the past, this series was my first-ever professional translation project, and boy, was it a rude awakening. The first few volumes were a trial by fire for me, but thanks to the help of several kind, helpful editors, I managed to pull through. Part of me never thought I’d keep going for six years, and I’m glad I did. I feel like I’ve grown as a translator so much since then—both in my understanding of the Japanese language and in my personal writing skills. Before starting on this project, I had only very cursory knowledge of A Certain Magical Index and its spin-off series, but the stars aligned: After reading some of it, I realized I enjoyed it quite a bit. And that enjoyment only grew the further into the series we progressed. I can only pray I’ve done it justice for all the Western fans out there, because I now count myself among your number! There is so much I could talk about when it comes to my translation decisions for this series, including regarding terminology choices—and specifically, the names of the religions. While I don’t have much room to talk about them here, I’d like to note that the author’s terms for these religions are not what the real-world ones are called in Japan, but shorter, custom-made ones, presumably made to be more readable to a Japanese audience. (This may be why it sounds a bit strange to Western readers.) And don’t even get me started on the kami-jo bit. Talk about impossible translations! I think the way that I rendered it worked out, but—just wow. That level of pun on the main character’s name coming so late in the series was an absolute shocker… I could talk about translation forever, but time is short and space is at a premium, so I’d like to use the rest to give a few shout-outs. First, to the various Internet resources out there dedicated to cataloging everything there is to know about the Index-verse. Without that extensive information being readily available, certain references may have gone straight over my head, so I wanted to make sure to thank the entire Index community, both in Japan and in the Western world. (I’d also like to shout out a Russian friend of mine for helping me with the spellings of a few minor character names in the World War III arc. Thanks, Arknarok!) I’d like to thank my editors for giving me a shot at such a monumental project. I think, ultimately, we succeeded in bringing this light novel behemoth to the English-speaking world in a way that did it justice. It’s hard to believe this long project is at an end, but for the time being, I will still be working on the official manga adaptation! Finally, I want to thank the original creator, Kazuma Kamachi. This series has done far more for me than just pay the bills. It’s helped me grow as a reader, a translator, and a person. It’s given me enjoyment on long car rides trying to explain the lore of the Index world to my friends; it’s given me something to look forward to between projects; it’s given me a chance to improve my craft. Most of all, though, it’s given me something to be proud of. With that, I lay down my own pen… …or close my laptop, as it were. Not quite the same ring to it, eh? See you again next time, Andrew Prowse