#but unfortunately couldn't work on them until recently ಥ_ಥ

[just-like-playing-tag]

Personal highlights from the fourth chapter of the fanbook!!! You can read the entire chapter translation here :)

Thank you so much @/1000sunnygo for the translation!!!!!!

According to Shirai, one of the reasons why Emma needed to be a girl is because of her so called "soft idealism" in not wanting to kill demons, which (somehow????) could come off as "uncool" or "naïve" to readers if coming from a guy (?????????????). However Shirai also says that “he wished Emma's words were acknowledged even if it came from a male protagonist instead of having the stereotypical expectations of what a man should be like”, which is nice in its own way.

The idea of a demon with no face under the mask, which was used both in chapter 103 and later in chapter 155 for Legravalima's transformation, was inspired by an old note Demizu left on a early draft where she commented on how it would be “creepy if a demon is actually faceless if you remove their mask”.

Sugita comments that Shirai often used to say "I wanna draw another jailbreak!", like dude same 😔😔

Shirai says that the escape from the bunker felt close enough to a new jailbreak, but the sadness of knowing that Yuugo and Lucas would have had to die “overshadowed the joy of being able to draw an escape again.” (╥﹏╥)

Sugita thinks that since most of the adults of the story are selfish and filled with hatred, it was nice having Yuugo and Lucas as adults who were loving and caring towards the kids. I never thought about it that way, but it's actually a very sweet fact. Yuugo, Lucas and grandpa Alex for the best adults awards!!!

Shirai speds time complimenting Sandy's good heart and ability with the younger kids which has me (◍•ᴗ•◍)

Shirai actually addresses the matter of Lucas not having recognized that Minerva's voice in chapter 110 was too young to belong to an adult: he says that there was too much noise for Lucas to suspect the difference.

While Sugita had repeatedly asked Shirai and Demizu to make the series darker, he jokingly says that Andrew's face was overdoing it- Shirai remembers Sugita saying “It's too scary! The children will cry!” pffttttt

Sugita actually had Andrew's face at the end of chapter 110 censored because the original illustration was too gorish (the mangled half of Andrew's face was blurred)

Andrew survived the explosion by doing the opposite of what Yugo and Lucas did: using his subordinates as a shield.

This is such a cool fact yet I feel like I didn't want to know ಥ_ಥ

The initial plan was to have one of the children shoot (and supposedly kill?) Andrew, but “it was more satisfying to let him be eaten after he called the children "food" ”; I actually really like this detail. Shirai also says that thanks to the stray demon, Ray didn't have to become a murderer. Thank goodness! For once Shirai chose the non-traumatic way for Ray XD

The wild demon saying “uh” after eating Andrew is indicative of it gaining human intelligence. Said demon was supposed to reappear in his human form, but that plotline was ~once again~ discarded.

Shirai regrets not having named Andrew Bernard or Bell had him been female, both references to Tinkerbell. I love this!! Wish you had thought about it sooner @Shirai ahah

Vincent calling Norman "James" instead of "boss" in chapter 112 was him just being playful

Hayato "looks as a protagonist", since his design was taken from a resistance leader from a discarded plotline. Shirai's initial intention was to make him cool and serious, but Sugita suggested to make him kind of a fanboy of Emma's group to reflect how amazing they had become.

Sugita (jokingly) says he “used his absolute authority as the editor to make Anna and Ray interact”, since he likes them as a couple

During the serialization, Shirai used to calculate the timing of information release of both the SJ serialization and volume release so that magazine and volume readers could enjoy similar revelation simultaneously. Following that logic, he synchronized Norman's riapparence in the manga and the volume 12 “merry Christmas Vincent” to happen around the same time, which was also when anime season 1 started airing.

THIS Q&A:

Q: Why do Peter’s men wear sunglasses?

A: Because Peter-sama is too dazzling.

Shirai says the symbol on the back of Norman's Minerva cape is the crest of the demons who lived at the hideout. Though I'm not completely sure it was intentional, the choice of having Norman wear the robes of a demon while planning the eradication of demons is... Peculiar, and also kinda ironic.

Peter and Andrew are related!! Andrew too was born from a branch of the Ratri family.

Okay this matter is tricky, but I think it was actually explained how there's demons like Musica and Sonju's horse and the demon pigeons that won't eat human meat. Apparently as of this panel of chapter 103 (which is also one of the few things included in the anime, ahah)-

There's five different species of demons, one of which - fourth column - may have gone extinct. Out of these five species, only one includes humanoid demons, who thus are the only ones who need to eat humans in order to maintain their form.

Also the Demizu note at the end of the chapter is such an highlight:

How he [Shirai] never gives up. Till the last minutes, he keeps adding corrections. I really admire his belief, “I'll surely bring a better result than the last time”. This “I'll bring something better than last time” mentality is a huge thing. Usually, when I make corrections, I feel like maybe it was better the last time. So I always used to think it's best not to mess with my arts too much. But I changed my mind after seeing Shirai sensei. There were times I'd be surprised to receive a text message at 4 am (laughs) It made me worry if he was resting properly.

You have my heart Demizu-san 🥺🥺🥺