Afterword

Hello. I’m Kimoto Masahiko, the writer of “Life Reset Button”.

This work comes from one of the songs produced by KEMU VOXX.

As you know, KEMU VOXX’s songs do not mention specific characters. The protagonist is introduced as a “young man,” and the identity of that young man is up to the audience. People have told me that when they heard the song “Life Reset Button”, it gave them the feeling that a great journey was about to begin in his life. In this book, I have merely attempting to put that feeling to prose.

As this song series is riddled with mysteries, one may be tempted to view this work as depicting the official setting and establishing the canon. However, that is not the case. In fact, the information that I have received from KEMU VOXX is scarcely any more than what has been divulged to the fans publicly. Every character in the book, aside from Maki-chan, is a character of my own devising. Therefore, please think of them as only one of many possible representations of KEMU VOXX’s works.

Of course, everything from the basic plot points to the final draft has been looked over by the KEMU VOXX team, so rest assured that my vision does not stray too far from what they have intended to portray. I hope that this may assuage any fears you may have about the accuracy of this work.

Now, many of you will probably recall a day very similar to mine, one summer day last year (2012), where, thinking, “I wonder what sort of Vocaloid songs have been uploaded lately?” you checked Nico Nico Douga and found that a unit called KEMU VOXX had uploaded a video of some sort, right?

I, who tended not to listen to lyrics even in songs with human vocals, simply listened to the song as nothing more than sound. Yet, combined with the impact of the melody, the song spoke to me, in a way. That was how strongly it impacted me.

Shortly thereafter, I received an invitation to write a novelization of the series, and instantly agreed.

Yes, the works of KEMU VOXX were that fascinating to me.

In my opinion, the novelization of this series was quite different from similar endeavors with other Vocaloid series. For one, the Vocaloids themselves were not characters. There did not even exist established characters (with the exception of Maki-chan). There was clearly a storyline, but it was presented in hints.

This process of creating both characters and story from nearly nothing was, I believe, quite different from the usual process of novelization. It was like deciphering, excavating, and creating a new work from scratch, all at the same time. And because there were hints in the lyrics, I could not allow myself to deviate from those hints. It was a very mysterious yet exhilarating process.

And so, although it took much longer than I had anticipated at first, my novelization of “Life Reset Button” has at last reached your hands, dear reader.

I hope you enjoy my depiction of what it would be like to have a reset button.

My thanks to everyone at PHP Kenkyuusho, especially Miyakawa-sama, for giving me lots of advice. Also I would like to thank my wife, who had to deal with me coming home from work and subsequently working at home. Finally, I would like to thank my son, who has healed me many a time with his smile.

Kimoto Masahiko

Comments
(These come with illustrations of Maki-chan and Natsuki respectively, which I have not included).

hatsuko: (next to Maki-chan) Kay, I’m gonna go reset a life, seeya! Peace! Thank you very much!

kemu: Congratulations on finishing! I’m amazed that my lyrics became a book.

Suzumu: I told you already, I dont wanna!! I’m going home, bye (death flag)

ke-sanβ: I want to mash the life reset button like I’m playing a rhythm game, but one hasn’t appeared in front of me yet.

Takamura Fumi:

Hello. I was in charge of the illustration for this book. I had a hard time deciding who to draw for the comments, but I realized that I had drawn a lot of Yuutos for the book, so here’s Natsuki!

Natsuki and Shuu went through a lot, so I like to think they were a happy couple in the end. I feel bad for Yuuto, though…

The story and character designs made the illustrations very fun to draw! Thank you very much!

[end]

Дата добавления: 2015-10-13