The History of "How NOT to Summon a Demon Lord"
[Written April 26th, 2021]
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"How NOT to Summon a Demon Lord" is a light novel series written by Yukiya Murasaki, featuring illustrations by Takahiro Tsurusaki. The first volume was published on December 2nd 2014 by Kodansha Light Novel Bunko. Murasaki had already been a novelist for a few years, debuting in 2010 as the winner of GA Bunko's new writer contest, making his writing debut with "Yuurei Nanka Mienai" which lasted for 7 volumes. In 2012, he was hired by Famitsu Bunko and started his second series "Altina the Sword Princess", a "war record"-styled fantasy series which is still ongoing today, just like Demon Lord. He also began writing smaller series' at other publishers, including "Silver Bullet of Gunswordia" at MF Bunko J, where he first worked with Takahiro Tsurusaki. In 2013, his first series Yuurei and his other smaller stories all released their final volumes, so his schedule was freed up to begin a new series to write alongside Altina, and having gotten along well with Tsurusaki, he wanted to work with him again. The genesis for the "How NOT to Summon a Demon Lord" project all comes from a conversation Murasaki had with Tsurusaki about how the light novel scene at the time seemed to contain relatively few demi-human heroines, and that isekai stories never really took off unless they were based on web-novels. It was 2014 after all, an era where the online "Narou" scene was really blowing up, especially with popular "Narou" isekai titles like Mushoku Tensei getting its professional publication that same year, and web novel pioneer Sword Art Online at the height of its popularity with anime adaptations airing on TV. Not wanting to lose to popular titles coming from these rising internet authors, it was around this time that the two of them settled on the core premise of Demon Lord together, and tried to find a publisher to pick it up. After being turned down by several publishers, eventually someone at Kodansha Light Novel Bunko thought the idea sounded cool, and set them up to publish the first volume. Tsurusaki in particular had always wanted a cute elf he'd drawn to be featured on the cover of a light novel, and was so happy to see Shera grace the first volume's cover. To the surprise of both of them and Kodansha, the first volume of Demon Lord was a huge success for the publishing label, and they were given the greenlight to continue on with the next volume. On top of that, a manga adaptation was quickly decided. The manga adaptation would be illustrated by Naoto Fukuda, and serialized on the Wednesday Sirius online manga brand. From there the series continued on, and then in January 2018, just before the release of Volume 9, it was announced that "How NOT to Summon a Demon Lord" would be receiving an anime adaptation. The anime premiered that same summer and adapted the first 3 volumes of the light novel. It would be directed by Yuta Murano at the famous studio Ajiado, with character designs by Shizue Kaneko, who was also doing the character designs for the "Pokemon the Movie: The Power of Us" film that released the same summer. The TV anime aired at a strangely early timeslot for a late-night anime at 10 PM on Tokyo MX, and gained a surprising amount of popularity. Murasaki and Tsurusaki loved the anime, and really enjoyed seeing the characters they wrote/drew moving on-screen. Murasaki had always wanted to see something he wrote get adapted into an anime, and 8 years after his debut he finally got his wish. As for illustrator Tsurusaki, he felt very attached to all of the characters in this series, since he was very intimately involved in their creation from the start (as opposed to other light novels, where an illustrator is often hired after the story is already decided), so seeing Shera, Rem, and the rest come to life on-screen was a wonderful experience for him as well. Two years later in 2020, a surprising announcement was made: "How NOT to Summon a Demon Lord" would be receiving a second season! This was a big deal because of how rare it was for light novels published by Kodansha Light Novel Bunko to ever receive animated sequels, but it goes to show that Kodansha had a lot of faith in the title. There was a shift in production, as the animation would move to Tezuka Productions & Okuruto Noboru, with their veteran in-house director Satoshi Kuwabara helming the project. But character designer Shizue Kaneko and screenplay writer Kazuyuki Fudeyasu returned to their roles from season 1, maintaining a common aesthetic with the first series. The second season premiered in Spring 2021 as "How NOT to Summon a Demon Lord Omega", adapting the "Vs. The Church" Arc (vols. 4-6), and is airing now. Murasaki tweeted after the first episode of the sequel that he was very happy with it, and is glad to see that the quality is still as good as the original anime. The series debuted in Japan on TBS, who also headed the general funding & production, alongside a committee including Crunchyroll, suggesting that popularity overseas also had a strong influence on the decision to create the animated sequel. As of today, the story of "How NOT to Summon a Demon Lord" is still on-going, with volume 14 set to release in Japan in June 2021. Murasaki is diligently writing the series alongside his two other main on-going works, the previously mentioned "Altina the Sword Princess" and his recent slice-of-life comedy "The Illustrator & the 14-Year-Old" at MF Bunko J. Naoto Fukuda's manga adaptation has also been on-going for all these years as well, and is on-pace to conclude the Church Arc around the same time as the Omega anime's conclusion. The story of the development of "How NOT to Summon a Demon Lord" can be seen as a story of the growth and success of Yukiya Murasaki as an author. What started as a simple desire to bring cute demi-human characters to the forefront, as well as challenging the isekai genre which at the time was dominated by web-novel authors instead of traditional authors like him, lead to one of the most popular multimedia franchises ever produced by Kodansha Light Novel Bunko. Now then, let's continue the journey of Diablo, the Demon Lord from another world! [Back]
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