Afterword

Totally irrelevant to you who don't give a damn. but I am very bad Tat remembering people's names, and no matter how many times I hear them I can easily forget. When you reach my level, using a roundabout expression like "bad at remembering names" is far less accurate than declaring aggressively that you are good at forgetting them. Additionally. I am very good at losing track of things. The pen I was using just a moment before. the shoes I was wearing just a minute ago, even the book I was reading a second ago just vanish into thin air. But this is just a matter of losing track of them, not actually losing them. and I can always find them again soon enough (in other words, I am just as good at finding things as I am at loing track of them), but unlike things, people's names. once forgotten. are not soon remembered. They say that all memories remain inside the brain even after you have forgotten them, but I am sure that is an outright lie. At the least. forgotten names have been completely erased. What do I do when I've forgotten a name? Nothing much. Frankly, when talking with an actual person, there aren't that many opportunities to address someone by name. Unlike in fiction, it is perfectly normal to hold a conversation with someone whose name you do not know, which can be said for occupations and labels as well as names. Whoever this guy is I have absolutely no idea, but it seems like we have apparently met several times before and he obviously knows me—l have had any number of conversations like that. and they usually go pretty smoothly. "Oh, but maybe he only half-remembers me and is just making conversation without really being sure who l am," l wonder, and the conversation ends. That said, l once did this with someone l had honestly never met before, which depressed me. "He must have thought I was such a nice guy! So wrong! l'm really painfully shy! Antisocial!" But it was too late. Why am I talking about this? Because I don't need a Death Note, but I wouldn't mind having the eyes of the shinigami.

This book is a spin-oFf of the massively successful Death Note man- ga by Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata. I wondered what a spin- of? novel would be like, and now I know. I am completely honored to have worked on something by people who have both dramatcally enriched my life. Personally I found this job to be extremely stimu- lating and very worthwhile. When I first started working on it the projected subtitle was Mad About L, but the tone of the piece was more serious than I had imagined. Instead, it became Death Note: Another Note: The Los Angeles BB Murder Cases. 

I wish you all sun, sea, and books. 

NISIOISIN