Jan 21, 2025
To:lolitroy
Thank you so much for reading this. Not gonna lie, the ending with Hana's parents is probably the weakest part of the story, and I knew it too. But I feel it was at least better than having them stay dead as that would really ruin things. Sure, it may be underwhelming, but just look at Makarov from Fairy Tail. And for full disclosure, I was disappointed that he survived when I first read the chapter, but now I get why the author did what he did. Sure, it may feel like it lessens the emotional impact, but others might feel different and glad things end happily.
I knew this moment would be the least favorite moment of many in the story, but there was little I could think of to get out of it. I didn't want to pull out a time machine, so what I did instead was leave subtle hints of Hana's parents actually being alive, in hopes of reducing the odds of readers feeling this all came out of the blue. The first was the subtle line of Delina complaining about upgrading smartphones, implying that Hana's was not the first, and the second one was the smartphone itself, Hana's mother's to be exact. The fact that it looked exactly the same as before, yet Hana's mother looked so old, didn't match up. There were also no years on the gravestones either. Not that all this completely fixes and justifies the scene, but I at least wanted to clarify it all.
As for Meredith, she felt as though she might have actually driven Hana to death, as back in that time, people didn't know if the amberstasis would work or not. That emotional weight can be quite heavy. The world also didn't feel like a one worth living in to her, so she decided to take a chance with the amberstasis, but first decided to try and reconcile with Hana's parents to get them on board as well.
The ending was intentionally meant to be more open-ended so a continuation could be possible, but if not, the ending was at least hopefully satisfying. While it may follow more of a formula, many series that end up getting animes, notably isekais, tend to. I've noticed a lot of entries in the contest were more on the philosophical side, which is fine, but sometimes, people just want a relaxing series that doesn't require too much thinking to enjoy. My mindset when writing this was make this something a publisher would look at and say, "This would work as a nice short series that people could sit down and relax with". That's why I played it safe so to say as if it follows a formula that works, then there's a higher chance it could be picked up, and possibly resonate more with a Japanese audience.
Going back to some of those aforementioned isekais, I feel the reason they work is because they tend to have a relaxed, not to serious feel at times, or at least the ones that fall into the "Animal Crossing type" as some might say. But one thing I felt when watching those shows was relaxed. Sure there were some zany out of the blue moments that made no sense, but it was overall a nice way to relax and unwind my mind from the real world. That's what I'm hoping this work will be; a nice relaxing work to enjoy and help people unwind from the stress of the real world.
Ironically enough, the original idea for this novel was an isekai, with Hana venturing around a fantasy world with her mother, vlogging it in hopes of the videos reaching her father who remained on earth. Irina was meant to be an eccentric baroness that would tag along, and there would be girls love elements present. But with the contest, I obviously had to revise things in order to fit the theme.
And finally, many have pointed out that there are dystopian undertones in the story. Though in many of the other novels I've read in the harmonic future category, many have featured concepts that seem dystopian. I will clarify that not everyone else really faces the problem Irina has. To them, life is perfect, and everything is fine. They're not oppressed by some secret evil AI or anything like that, they just have a different worldview. Since I mainly wanted to make this more of a relaxing work, I didn't want to make it to philosophical, so I refrained from delving too much into the inner workings of the world, relegating things like how the government works to just a sentence or two.
It's not a perfect work, heck no work can truly be considered perfect in a sense, but I hope it's good enough to at least convince someone it would make for a good manga/anime that people could read/watch to help soothe their souls and wind down and relax with.
Thank you for your insights and for reading this entire series. It really means a lot to me. I hope you enjoyed reading this story.
