Hello everyone. How did you like this volume? With this, I have passed the official manga.
This is where I consider the story starts for real. Volume 1 was mostly to set up stuff and give everyone a basic introduction, but volume 2 is where the plot really starts. As well as the "plot".
This volume features my first attempts at writing lewd scenes with this first person narration. It's the first time I ever tried doing this, so I'll appreciate any reviews so I can make things better next volume and onwards.
Also, I feel it's a good time to mention this, this volume ended up coinciding in the number of chapters with the last one. This was a coincidence. Maybe everyone has already noticed it, but I'm not really trying to reach a word-count or a page-count or even a chapter-count.
Simply put, I have an objective with every chapter/volume. If that objective is reached with a small chapter/volume, then so it'll be. If it needs a big chapter/volume, so be it as well. Basically what I want to say is that future volumes are unlikely to reach this exact number of chapters.
For the next topic, I'd like to talk about the characters. Unlike volume 1, where I tried to keep things as close to the LN as possible, I took a lot more liberties here.
For Rebecca and Maki, they are characters that show up in volume 2 of the LN, however they're secondary characters at best. In the LN, they're just Miyabi's subordinates, but here I had them be longtime friends. Kuji just got rid of them, they don't even come back to say "thanks" to Yuuto. I decided to do a little more with them.
If not for Ibiza, they would have joined as Yuuto's Cards together with Miyabi. They may not have been able to do that, but they're still around and willing to support Yuuto. If nothing else, they're 2 more people to Yuuto's friends list.
Next up, let me talk about Miyako, and consequently Miyabi's father as well. In the LN, she's also a secondary character that shows up every now and again starting from volume 2. I guess Kuji planned to have some oyakodon scenes later on. Although it's a little strange to me, since Miyabi's father is still around there and seems like a nice enough guy.
As for how I did things, I changed some stuff around. For one, I used Miyako's backstory to give a little sneak peak of the previous Devil King War, there will be a few of those before I get to actually telling that story. I also changed it so that Miyabi's father isn't a nice guy here. I feel a lot better working on that oyakodon now.
BTW, in terms of appearance and powers, Miyako is basically Miyabi's evolution. One of the things I'm looking forward to the most is how Miyabi's going to work hard so her mother doesn't steal her place.
I'll make a small comment on Swordia, since I had her show up early when compared to the LN. She seems like an interesting character, being built up as Reina's rival, but she has like 5 lines of dialogue (if that) in the whole series, so I had to basically build her from nothing for this story.
There'll be more comments on her next volume, so let's move on to the star of this volume, Miyabi.
One of my favorite things in this volume was the chapter from Miyabi's perspective. I dunno if I was able to sell it well, but I liked the idea of showing how Miyabi felt with the whole Ibiza situation, and also in regards to Yuuto and the others. I figured I should make good use of the first-person narration and show what exactly is going on in that pretty head.
I had the idea for these kinds of chapters when I was working on the second part of the story, and I figured it would be nice to see all the heroines' POV in the volume that's focused on them. Of course, the majority of the story will be Yuuto's POV, with a third person narrator coming in every now and again, but the heroines will also show their POV when the time's right.
Of course, there's also a lot of other characters to talk about. Barbatos and his objective. Ruki's father, who I'm having be called Mike for now. As well as what exactly happened on that first day of the festival. What was the thing that absorbed Ibiza. But if I talk too much now I'm afraid I might spoil things for the future (that being said I think those who have the LN reasonably fresh in their minds might be able to make a pretty good guess).
I think that's about all I have to say for now. I'll see you guys in the next volume, when things start heating up.
