#volume 20 extras

First, thanks for the nice messages, guys, as always. To the comment that thanked me for still translating with the fandom so slow nowadays, I am unworthy considering how I also spend a lot of time flirting with other fandoms right now >.>

In fact, I’ve only got the Afterword for this post…I’ll get to the rest by next week hopefully.

My First Egosurf

This space was originally to feature the preview for the next volume, but because the chapters in the magazine haven’t gone beyond this volume + 1 chapter, it doesn’t seem like there’s much that can be used for a preview, and so I will hastily write an afterwordish essay here.

Now then, egosurfing. Searching for things about yourself on the internet (probably). Ashihara’s mind is about as fragile as baked pudding, so Manager had strongly forbidden me from egosurfing. Up until now, I had lived in a dystopia-like censorship system where I just smirked at the funny impressions that Manager had found, but with the return of serialisation after 2 years I was slightly worried: ‘with a 2 year hiatus would they read this?’ I lost to my desire to see the impressions of the first chapter after the return in real time, and tried my hand at the forbidden egosurfing. The result was that it was very interesting.

Actually trying out egosurfing, the biggest problem I felt was that ‘egosurfing really takes up a lot of time’.

More than: you’ll get full of yourself from praise, or you’ll lose energy from scorn, what was really bad was that it ‘can use up time infinitely’.

This time what I egosurfed was internet impressions from Ch165~Ch169. I had saved up to Ch169 at the point of reserialization so I had the free time, but I thought egosurfing each chapter is a bit too much for Ashihara who is slow at all kinds of work (especially after, with the hospitalisation and the surgery, all the free time was gone). And so I think I will return to the censorship style from now on and listen to impressions through Manager.

By the way, it seems Manager does the fixes for the manga volumes by looking at the internet impressions on the day the magazine comes out, so if you notice anything please write your impressions.

That is to say, ‘the fans see more than we do’.

What surprised me was that, just from the fact that: ‘Taichi thought up Suzunari’s plan’, ‘the stage is Shopping Mall’, and ‘the setting is night’, quite a few people got right that it was a ‘mall blackout operation’. World Trigger readers are sharp. Ashihara is the kind of manga artist who doesn’t really get bothered when future developments are guessed right, so I got quite excited.

Besides that, what was interesting was that in regards to Murakami’s black Kogetsu there were people saying ‘has Lead Bullet’s effect been added to the Kogetsu?’ For some reason, the idea of Blade + Lead Bullet had never come to Ashihara, I thought ‘that’s really interesting!’ and was really moved. In the future, when they go on expeditions, I had thought it’d be pretty difficult to wave blades around enemies in human bodies, so a Lead Bullet blade seems like it’d be a good solution. If it does end up in the manga, people who advocated the Lead Bullet Kogetsu theory, please make a smug face that ‘it was my idea’.

Also, separate from the egosurfing, I received a lot of letters with impressions of the story or support after reserialization (and during the hiatus), and it really encouraged me.

As always, thank you very much.

Those who only follow the manga volumes might not know what I’m talking about, but in the first half of 2019 Ashihara had a series of problems with my physical condition and I couldn’t draw manga the way I wanted. Even now, I’m still not back to normal condition yet, so I intend to rally in the second half.

The plan is to have a preview in this space in the next volume, but if there doesn’t seem to be enough for the preview again I might write about the hospitalisation and surgery.

See you in volume 21.

- Ashihara Daisuke

I’m going to start off with the Q&A again this time, which has some very interesting implications seeded in the answers this time…

Question Corner 14

Q: Can Enedra’s ‘Vorvoros’ make things like just his hand from a distance?

A: It seems possible, but it seems he can’t make fine movements. But it’d likely be interesting if he could move it.

Q: Can Moira’s ‘Spiralskia’ sever an object if it is inserted into the hole? Or is the window unable to close?

A: I think it won’t be able to sever it, and spit out the object instead. If it had the ability to sever, it seems likely there would be several people who’re cut in half by accident.

Q: Can Hairoein’s ‘Alektor’ create bullets in the shape of humans?

A: It doesn’t seem like there are bullets of mammals that don’t reproduce through ‘eggs’, but he was using things that looked like jellyfish which goes planula larva -> polyp strobilation, so maybe he can.

Q: Can ‘Alektor’s’ ability to take in trion from surrounding cubes and heal the body be used on other people’s trion bodies?

A: It doesn’t seem like he healed Moira, so it seems it can’t.

Q: You had a character whose name means ‘pig’ in your last work (Schwein), and in this one Hus means ‘pig’ too. Is there some kind of meaning behind this?

A: There isn’t really any meaning, but since the author likes pork cutlets he might be subconsciously giving the title of ‘pig’ to capable characters.

Q: What are the criteria used to choose the commentator and colour commentators for rank wars?

A: It seems colour commentators are mostly those who have A rank experience, but sometimes B rank captains are called up too. Anyone can be a commentator as long as they can talk, and honestly it doesn’t have to be an operator but because you need to operate equipment a lot are operators. There have been times when the commentator was a combatant or an engineer.

Q: Kako-san doesn’t have a Gunner trigger on her main trigger side, so why is she a Shooter?

A: This comes from BBF. Thank you for reading. The positions are based on the equipped trigger with the most solo points (except All-rounders). Kako-san’s Hound (custom) that she equips in her sub has the highest solo points, and the Scorpion she equips in her main hasn’t reached 6000 points yet, so she’s a Shooter.

It looks like she wants to increase her Scorpion to over 6000 points and become an All-rounder.

In the Galopoula battle, it seems she equipped Hound (custom) in her main too in preparation for a firefight.

-

Question Corner 15

Q: Can the things on a trion body like the clothes you’re wearing or shoes be taken off?

A: You can set it to can be taken off or can’t be. The composition can be simpler if set to can’t be taken off, so that can save trion cost.

Border’s on-duty combat bodies are generally made so you can only take off the outerwear.

Q: Does Jin-san use his Side Effect in solo matches? If he does, then what is the cause when he loses?

A: It seems he uses it against A rank agents. He used it actively in his past matches with Tachikawa too. A common case of him losing has him getting absorbed in reading the future and neglecting the present as the main factor.

Q: Up to the Large Scale Invasion, Hound was written with the kanji for ‘guided bullet’, but from rank wars it’s written with the kanji for ‘pursuing bullet’; why is this?

A: ‘Detection guidance’ which chase trion responses is written ‘guided bullet’, and ‘visual guidance’ which locks on to the target with line of sight is written ‘pursuing bullet’, but there are quite a few mistakes here and there so don’t worry about it.

Q: Is there anyone of 18 and above who has a driver’s licence for a car or a bike?

A: Aside from Reiji who has already driven in the story, it seems Fuyushima-san, Azuma-san, Suwa, Tsutsumi, Kako-san, and Kakizaki have normal driver’s licences.

The top brass and Sawamura-san have licences too. Tachikawa doesn’t as you might expect.

Zoe has a motorbike licence, and Kage and Touma have motorised bicycle licences. It seems Arafune and Hokari want motorbike licences too.

Q: Konami-sempai is Attacker rank no.3, does this mean she shows up in the solo rank wars? And in that case what triggers does she use?

A: Studying came first for Konami up until the end of her middle school years so she didn’t do any solo rank wars then, and only participated in the period from her middle school graduation and part way through her first year of high school.

Back then, in that period, Jin had become a Black Trigger user and Tachikawa had kind of lost his motivation, so Konami sharpened her blades against those like Kazama-san to reach all the way to Attacker rank no.1. After that, along with Tamakoma’s separation, she took a step back from rank wars, but her solo points have only been surpassed by Tachikawa and Kazama-san so she’s still Attacker no.3.

Her triggers at the time were dual-wielded Kogetsu (fairly short).

-

Some thoughts:

First, is this proof that Hus does mean pig?? And does that anecdote about Kako mean that Osamu will soon be in the top 9 Shooters who participate in rank wars? Also, thank god you don’t have to worry about the kanji used for the two types of Hound because I have no idea how to maintain that difference in English without making it awkward.

Finally, and most importantly, Konami is only in her 2nd year of high school which means Tamakoma only separated a year ago!! Around the same time that Usami and Karasuma joined Tamakoma…dun dun dun…