Violet Evergarden - Chapter 19.1 Gaiden Afterword
Translator – Dennou Translations
Dear you, have things been well? Spring, summer, fall, winter – in which season are you reading this letter?
It remains here, as unshakable as trees. It is waiting for you. I will be happiest if this story manages to turn into one of that kind.
It has been a while since we last saw each other, so this is a little embarrassing. I end up shying away.
I had several stories before I was able to form Violet’s, so I integrated the stories that I had not been able to publish no matter what due to certain circumstances and told them in this volume. Thank you very much to the people who said they wanted to read the continuation. Just like a single drop of water falling onto the surface of a lake and causing ripples to spread out, those voices of yours became the trigger for me to earn this opportunity. In the very sense of the word, it is a work that both you and I have made.
The things called books are like living creatures. The writers themselves are living creatures as well, and the ones who nurture both parties are the readers.
I feel like my mind has matured quite a lot in comparison to when I started writing words for the first time. I conveyed in the afterword of the first volume that I had begun writing due to thinking about living on my own, but the truth is that there was one more reason for it.
I was very battered when I decided to aim for novelist, but I did not want to lose. I began wishing ardently that I wanted a weapon to fight against my fate. If I could draw, I might have gone for art. If I were good at singing, for music. Anything was fine as long as it was something I could do well. I was extremely empty back then, so I wanted to create something by myself and show it to people anyhow. I wanted them to praise me. This evaluation is unlike my current self, but I thought it would become the only and last writing challenge against life that someone as helpless as me could take on.
And so, while I was struggling desperately, Kyoto Animation-sama picked me up. Upon finishing all sorts of things, I have even more of a real feeling that it sure is wonderful how companies possess the media to continue the work after you conclude writing. I am truly glad that I could send Violet out into the world. I hope this story, which was made by the hands of several people, will be loved as if it were a girl.
I want to be with you longer… but it is about time for us to depart.
You might somewhat think that I am about to cut into an extremely lonesome way of saying goodbye, but there will be no end to this. I will surely be writing somewhere, and you will be reading from somewhere else.
We have liking books as a point in common. Therefore, someday, there shall definitely come a day when we will meet again. Violet, too, will appear in any part of any country at any given time as long as her customer is there, after all.
Lastly, I offer my utmost gratitude. To Kyoto Animation-san, the people who work in it, the professionals whom I have met everywhere through the process of making the anime, the bookstores, my friends and family, and you. You. Thank you very much for sticking with me until the end.
Please be well. I am cheering for you. Do not forget that I am cheering you on. I will do my best too. Because you exist.
Well, then, may a wonderful moment come about to all those who were linked by fate.