Curiosities of Lotus Asia: Afterword

Return to Curiosities of Lotus Asia.

---

後書き	Afterword
初めまして、ＺＵＮです。	Nice to meet you, ZUN here.
連載雑誌が何度か休刊になったり、形態が雑誌からＷｅｂに変更になったり、出版社が変更になったりしても何故か連載が続いた不思議な小説、『東方香霖堂』がようやく一つの本になりました。中には同人誌に寄稿した物も含まれています。この『香霖堂』が初めての小説です。	Suspended from several serial publications, changed into an internet serialization, and somehow continuing through the jumps from publisher to publisher, the mysterious short story collection "Curiosities of Lotus Asia" has finally reached book format. It even includes the story I contributed to a doujinshi. This is Kourindo's first novel.
ゲーム本編と同時進行でストーリーが進行していたので、連載当時じゃ無いと理解しにくい部分もあるかも知れませんが、それも想像しながら楽しんで頂けると幸いです。	I wrote this story to progress with the main plot of the games, but that might have been parts that were difficult to understand while it was being serialized. Even if it never crossed the readers' minds, I greatly enjoyed writing this story.
今、読み直してみると『香霖堂』が初出の設定やネタが多いことに気付きます。自分が細かいアイデアを整理するのに丁度良い小説だったのかも知れませんね。	While re-reading CoLA's first story, I noticed I set up a lot of ideas. I guess it's best for me to deal with the finer details of the world through short stories.
特にそれぞれの話を通した大きなストーリーという物は無く、特に最終話でも終了した感じになっていません。香霖堂を中心とした幻想郷の人間達のやりとりは、今も同じように続いています。気が向いたら続きを書ける形になっていますので、機械があればまた書いてみたいですね。	Each story doesn't particularly feel like it's part of one big, overarching plot, and the final chapter doesn't particularly have a feeling of closure. At the heart of CoLA is how the humans of Gensokyo handle their surroundings, and it could continue even now just the same. It's written like it could continue at any time, and it seems like I would if given the chance.
戦闘（体を動かすの）が苦手で家から出るのが億劫、大勢が集まっているところに顔を出すのが面倒。理屈っぽくて人を馬鹿にする態度を取る。そんな嫌われやすいが、人によっては親近感を得るような霖之助の一人称で進むこの小説は、書くのが非常に楽しかったです。何というか、霖之助の性格は他人とは思えないんですよね。	The fact is that having a character who is bad at (physical) combat is annoying, and having a great number of characters in the same place is troublesome. It begins to be like making fun of argumentative people. It's hard to like that kind of story, but people can relate to a character like Rinnosuke, so writing the stories becomes more enjoyable. This is because it's Rinnosuke's character not to think about other people.
第十七話「洛陽の紙価」の時から霖之助は本を書き始めています。丁度その頃に単行本の話が持ち上がり、第一巻として出る予定でした。勘の良い方は気付いたかも知れませんが、霖之助が書いている本と単行本と結びつけるつもりだったのです。しかし単行本が出る前に出版社が倒産してしまい、直後に今のアスキー・メディアワークスさんに拾われ、何とか連載継続という形になりました。その際に単行本の企画は完全にリセットして、一からやり直しとなってしまった為、ここまで発売が遅れてしまいました。まあ、ここまで雑誌が変更になっても連載が続いた事だけでも奇跡だというのに、何とか単行本を出す事が出来まして安心しました。	Rinnosuke started writing a book in the 17th chapter, "The Price of Paper in Luoyang." At the exact same time, talks about stand-alone book were looking favorable, and a first volume was planned. Those with keen senses might have picked up on hints of Rinnosuke's book being included with the first volume. However, just before it was released, the publisher went bankrupt, but Ascii Mediaworks picked up the series, and I was somehow able to continue on. But because of that, we were back to square one as far as a book went. This naturally delayed release quite a bit. Well, it was a miracle that I was able to continue the story anyway, so I fairly certain that a book would happen sooner or later.
ちなみに、霖之助が言っている薀蓄の殆どは彼の妄想です。真に受けないようにね。よく読むとメタ的な妄想も多いですけどそこはギャグだと思って。	By the way, Rinnosuke's supposed vast storage of knowledge comes almost entirely out of thin air. Indeed, he doesn't know nearly as much as he thinks he does. If you read closely, you'll notice a lot of wild, meta ideas, but I think that's supposed to be the joke.
上海アリス幻樂団　ＺＵＮ（香霖堂は何故か冬の描写が多い気がする）	Team Shanghai Alice ZUN (I get the feeling there are a lot of winter scenes in CoLA for some reason.)

---

• Return to Curiosities of Lotus Asia.