Chapter 20

Commentary Yozora Fuyuno While I am beyond humbled to be writing a commentary for—and I mean it in a good way—this absurd story, that is exactly why I will use this space to write candidly about it as a single reader (from the perspective of a novelist). After reading this story, the first thing I felt was despondency. That was followed by gratitude. Perhaps it may sound rather strange to be feeling gratitude, but from the standpoint of an author, that emotion naturally rose within me. To be brutally honest, at the end of the day, the medium of the novel is meant to be a form of entertainment, and selling well is the ultimate guiding principle. Because of that, writers tend to make various calculated decisions during the writing process—for instance, making the plot as captivating as possible, designing characters that are likely to gain fans, playing on readers’ sympathies, including fan service scenes to heighten expectations for the work, et cetera. These are all direct and effective approaches, and I get the impression that such decisions play a bigger role when it comes to light novels, which are more geared toward entertainment, especially those that are series. And the reality is that novels that make skilled use of one or more of those approaches indeed sell well. However, this series mercilessly does away with those calculated decisions—by quite literally doing away with its characters. There is generally no plot armor for anyone besides the protagonist, Yuki, and her sense of humanity offers little to empathize with. In this volume, we finally begin to sense connections between characters, but there is something cold to be found in them as well. While the series does compromise by offering minimal inclusion of “reader-oriented elements” like uniforms and swimsuits, in the grand scheme of things, they amount to no more than mere embellishments. So why do away with those calculated decisions that could otherwise be intentionally added in? The answer is simple: to write a story the author considers entertaining. Everything boils down to that point. Although that approach cannot be unequivocally deemed correct when viewing writing novels as a business, there exists no desire more wholesome or pure when treating novels as entertainment. Continuing along those lines, this series, which has been called “not right” and judged to be a monstrous work that divides readers, can be considered a result of the process of simply writing something entertaining. And so having encountered this work, which purely seeks to be entertaining, I am inspired and filled with gratitude as an author and a reader. Volume 1 introduces readers to the world of the series and covers past events, Volume 2 highlights players’ struggles and offers a glimpse into the work of the organizers, and Volume 3 follows a clash of seasoned players and reveals the contours of the overarching story. This series does not fit the mold of novels written for the purposes of selling well. In a sense, that makes this work unpredictable to readers—and perhaps to the author, too. And in another sense, it means this work has unlimited potential, far more than any other. What kinds of developments await in such a series? What form will this monstrous work transform into in the world of novels and light novels? I can’t wait to see what the future holds.