Rin Murakami here! It’s been a while.
Thank you for reading the fourth volume of Guide to the Perfect Otaku Girlfriend!
Reaching this point in the series took surprisingly little time, and I want to thank all my readers for their continued support that has allowed me to keep working on it in the first place.
Thank you so much!
Lately, I’ve been spending my days doing yoga, watching theater plays with my friends, and streaming Western movies—not exactly otaku hobbies. To make up for that, I religiously check Twitter to understand new trends and ask my otaku friends about them.
On top of that, I’ve been busy looking for a new home, since I plan on moving out of my parents’ place soon. I’d like to live in a fashionable city, but my bank account may not agree with that decision.
Just before I started writing this afterword, the place where I live was hit by a record-breaking typhoon. All the predictions had me terrified. I was ready at any time if push came to shove, but thankfully it went by with relatively little harm. All of my sympathy goes to those who were hit by the typhoon.
Let’s talk about this volume and its main topic: Comiket. I actually attended for the first time in a while to help refresh my memory... and it was harsh. I’m too old for that kind of thing. I met some friends, checked out the cosplayers, and barely had any time left for shopping. That being said, I’m happy I was able to experience the Comiket atmosphere after so long.
I’ve never been to Comiket as part of a circle myself—I’ve only done so at smaller events—but I once helped out with a friend’s circle. I based that part of the story on my own experiences. The circle ticket really was a godsend. Just like Kagetora and Kokoro, even though I was there to help sell doujinshi, I also wanted to pick up a few things myself, and not having to line up made all the difference.
Making a last-minute copybook despite already having a professionally printed volume was also something that I experienced personally back in the day. I remember how passionate I felt, how nervous I was about whether we’d be able to sell anything, and how overwhelmingly happy I was when we actually did, especially when customers bought something without even checking inside it because it was already on their wish list. With Kisaki’s help, I vicariously relived all those emotions. Oh, those were the days! Now I can’t even imagine being in love with a series to the point of trying to publish a derivative work.
Since this time around I have more space than usual to write this afterword, I’d like to talk a little bit about the characters.
First of all, there’s Kagetora, our protagonist. He’s probably the character who most closely resembles me, and I often think back to my own high school self when writing about him. The only problem is that with every passing day I get farther and farther away from being a high school student...
Then there’s Kokoro. When coming up with her, I got inspiration from a real fujoshi friend of mine. Oh, and she’s a gyaru because... I like gyaru, in case it wasn’t obvious from my other works. Otaku gyaru are actually more common than one would think.
Our second heroine is Elena. While working on a different light novel, I remember how the editor noticed that none of my characters were half-Japanese, so I’ve made it a point to include someone like that in all of my works since. (My debut novel also has a half-Japanese character show up in the latter half, by the way...)
I wanted each of the girls to have their own distinct personality and hobbies, and so, while Kokoro is a cosplayer, Elena is a voice actress.
And although she didn’t get much time in the spotlight in this volume, I can’t forget about Mashiro. I wanted her to be the most devious, attention-craving, two-faced otaku girl possible, and since I love that archetype, writing her lines now that she’s dropped her act is always a lot of fun.
Iroha and Mikoto appeared in this volume, but, being secondary characters, they never really get the chance to shine. Iroha has a lot of quirks I like: she’s caustic, she wears that flashy Harajuku style, and she sports twintails. This kind of character was a first for me, which made it all the more fun.
Mikoto was born because of a rumor I heard about slightly older heroines being all the rage. I also thought that the idea of a girl wanting to wear frilly dresses despite having reached an age where people wouldn’t approve of it was very cute. She isn’t the first older character to appear in one of my novels, but since I wanted to make her completely new, I gave her a slightly rougher personality. I may have accidentally made her a bit too obnoxious...
Seeing Mako Tatekawa’s illustrations for our two side characters really blew me away. Not only did they look exactly like what I’d had in mind, but the characters themselves and even their outfits were a lot more charming than anything I could have imagined!
Another heroine with very little to do in this volume is Yume. She’s based on the simple concept that a girl’s obsessive love is cute. Once again, Mako Tatekawa’s design for her was so cute that dating her started sounding like a good proposition despite her scary personality.
Finally, this volume saw the first appearance of Kisaki, Kagetora’s little sister. She’s my idea of the perfect little sister—cute with a side of impertinence. Needless to say, Tatekawa knocked it out of the park with her too, making her both adorable and fashionable. Being able to publish your work and having people enjoy it while you’re still in middle school is a huge accomplishment. I would know, since the stuff I used to write in middle school was terrible.
I get the feeling that the next volume will be a huge climax, and I hope you’ll stick around to see what happens to each of the characters.
Finally, I want to thank my editor for providing me with useful advice volume after volume—and apologize for all the trouble I give you!
At the risk of repeating myself, thank you Mako Tatekawa for the wonderful illustrations. The cover’s summer outfit is the cutest thing ever, and I absolutely love Kokoro’s cosplay illustration at the start of the volume.
Last but certainly not least, I want to thank you, the readers, for following Kagetora and his friends through yet another book.
See you in volume five!
Rin Murakami