About the Author
Sō Sagara: Born in 1986, living in Tokyo. He has written The “Hentai” Prince and the Stony Cat, Is it a Crime to be Threatened by my Student?, Loli-feratu The Loner, as well as worked as original creator and scriptwriter for Qualidea Code.
Foreword
The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya debuted in 2003.
At that time, I was a second-year student in high school. I would be embarrassed to be called impressionable, and I was absolutely naïve; it was just an extremely weird age. I came into contact with the genre of light novels in the summer of my third year of middle school, and I was still splashing about in the shallow areas of the pool of light novels. It was a normal high school life anyone could have.
Without the foolish, shallow desire of becoming a special writer, I wrote some compositions on my interests, only to give up on them, and I only consumed whatever was given to me whenever I opened my mouth. It was pleasurable to live however I wanted during the moratorium before becoming a fine salaryman.
At that point in time, I received the news that a novel had won the Sneaker Award’s Grand Prize for the first time in five years. Slightly curious about what kind of novel it was like, I dipped my ankle lightly in the water, and in the next moment, I ended up submerged all the way to the scruff of my neck.
It was, of course, The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, a revolutionary novel.
I have much to say about the truly shocking impact that it brought upon society, but this margin is too small to contain. All of you also probably know about it already, so I shall omit it with great reluctance.
Light novel readers of that time period would definitely get sunk by the impact of Haruhi. After asking light novel writers of my generation, I was 150% certain that they had all gone through the same initiation. 100% of them had been caught by an eagle grip on the chest after reading, and 50% still hadn’t broken free from that spell.
I am still in the depths of that lake. Just upon hearing three sounds from Haruhi, my tongue will tremble unconditionally, my shoulder will shiver, and my heart will be unable to quell its palpitations, all signs that the illness flying around during my time as a high school student has not been cured.
By some karma, I somehow became a light novel writer making money by the day, and just when I thought that the situation would finally ameliorate, an editor I was acquainted with said that he was going to play mah-jong with Tanigawa-sensei and asked if I wanted to come along.
At that moment, my tongue trembled, my shoulder shivered, and my heartbeat stopped. Before I knew it, I was licking the editor’s boots and pledging my undying loyalty. That was a second impact, comparable to sharing a table with a boss of unparalleled greatness. I even thought that it brought about some sort of reformation to my profession. It was like a complementary scheme for a light novel writer.
I had a mountain of questions regarding Haruhi, and even had the over-optimistic intention of asking for an autograph. In the week leading up to the planned date, I devoted time for image training and practicing the action of handing over my autograph book, to the point that I was neglecting my own script.
I remember playing three or four rounds on the day itself, but I don’t remember if I won or lost. I also can’t recall what I talked about, since I was so nervous. I asked about it later, and found that I had apparently talked about Shadowverse, and for some reason, specifically about the 123 Alice1. What a fool I made of myself!
In any case, I still want to go back to reading Haruhi after 15 years. I don’t have the self-confidence to say that it has affected my writing style, but as a reader, the literary style of the series has left me with a deep impression.
So, I hope you can understand my feelings when I was asked by the aforementioned editor to write for the upcoming Haruhi anthology, to which I responded by wagging my tail not once, not twice, but thirty thousand times without asking for any details.
I was simply, simply so happy.
After calming down a little after that copious amount of ecstasy had spread through my heart, I realized that there were a few slight problems, like not being able to find my other anthology manuscripts, as well as the chance of being scorned for generations like a pilloried criminal by having my work appearing after the original creator’s work.
If I suffer from a heart attack in the near future, I would like to be buried in “The Sneaker LEGEND”.