Afterword

Hello, hello. Your humble author, Sakaki, here.

Presenting Bluesteel Blasphemer, Volume 2!

Happily, a certain number of readers bought Volume 1, and I was able to go on to do this continuation. So the first people I want to thank are my returning readers from the first outing.

Now then. About Volume 2.

Initially, the concept of Bluesteel Blasphemer was “other-world cheat harem with guns.” This was really more at the instigation of my dear editor than it was my own idea. I’m a gun nut, and that was pretty much precisely the reason we started in the rather odd direction of including guns in the story; there was a certain sense—call it self-preservation, maybe—that had more or less prevented me from suggesting any “gun action” plots myself.

Nonetheless, my editor, K-shi, was in favor of an “other-world cheat harem + gun action” story. Here, a problem arose.

“Look, but if it’s the gun that makes this guy special—well, any character with the same weapon could be just as special as him. That’s not much of a cheat, is it? It wouldn’t be the main character who was strong, it would be the gun. Plus, guns break a lot, and then you need the parts to repair them. Having just one gun wouldn’t do you much good in this ‘other world.’”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right about that.”

“Are you sure we shouldn’t consider some other angle for the main character’s cheat?”

“Hmm. You know what there’s not many of? Other-world Kamen R*ders.”

“Oh, there aren’t?”

“You don’t see it too often—a series were the main character is transported to another world and then ‘altered.’”

“Being altered kind of defeats the point of being transported to another world in the first place.”

“You may be right.”

This went on for a while. But the point is, eventually we decided to just give the Kamen R*der thing a whirl, so Yukinari would be altered (or rather, his body would be re-created, so I guess that makes him more of a Cassh*rn?), and then fight against the people who made him that way.

“So, what with the Kamen Rid*r connection, in Volume 2 I decided to have a motorcycle [even though it actually has four wheels].”

“...That’s going to be rough on Akai-san [because motorcycles are notoriously difficult to design and draw].”

“True... I suppose it will.”

“...We’ll just have to ask him to grin and bear it.”

“I guess we will.”

And boy, did he ever bear it.

Incidentally, there is an actual vehicle that has four wheels but is motorcycle-ish. It looks nothing like what Akai-san ended up drawing for us, though. It’s a concept vehicle called the Yamaha Tesseract.

However!

Concerning the additional heroine we gain in this volume.

I’m not sure how to say this, but I didn’t exactly think super hard about the outline of this volume before I started writing. I just had these vague ideas that “the winner would become humanity’s greatest enemy” and “Yasuko Sawaguchi’s face will appear in the sky.” You know, the kinds of things an obsessive fan of tokusatsu shows would think.

“Sakaki-san. The designs from Akai-san are in.”

“Ooh. Let me see... A young girl, huh?”

“Uh-huh, a young girl.”

“And in a very Japanese style, huh?”

“Uh-huh, practically a shrine maiden.”

“Suppose that’s okay?”

“I suppose that’s okay.”

“...Well, there you have it.”

“...Okay. Sure.”

As a result of these detailed discussions with my editor, K-shi, I revised my draft of the book to reflect an inhuman young girl who talks like an old person and is otherwise kind of the lolicon type, but also has a certain sense of justice. So, all my readers, what did you think? I hope you enjoyed the book.

2015/8/5

.........But [looking at the cover illustration], considering the design of the covers for Volumes 1 and 2, does this mean I’ll have to introduce a new heroine in every volume? [Spoken as if there were anyone to answer that question but me.]