Hello, Rayos here.
How did you all like the first installment of Pickup A Live: All You Need is Love? How were the character portrayals? The erotic scenes? The out-of-pocket references? I need to know!
But no seriously, thank you very much for sticking with the story so far.
I started this thing way back in the June of 2020, about two months into quarantine. I managed to write 20,000 words in the first two weeks as I burned through the available anime seasons, and by the time I finished the light novels in November, the rough draft of Pickup A Live was sitting at a respectable 70,000 words. Then a bunch of stuff happened, life got in the way, but I eventually managed to finish the first chapter in 2022, and the rest is history.
So basically, this whole thing is just one big, extended version of those covid lockdown projects that were all the rage back then. Huh.
Anyway, how'd you like my interpretations of the characters? When I started out, Shidou was basically identical to the original, despite the romance obsession being planned from the start. But as I wrote out the rough draft, he became more of the stalwart stick-in-the-mud with a romantic core that he is here.
For Tohka, I really wanted to get across from the start just how much she does not know any human norms or customs. Someone walks in on you naked? Who cares! The guy I like is getting cozy with other girls? Guess they just see the same thing I see in him! I always find it silly when supposedly new-to-this-world beings, with no experience of human society at all, still have very culturally specific reactions to things. I also wanted to really push the drama of her situation, and kind of get across this idea that the carefree Tohka we all know and love is basically a decision that she makes to open herself up to the world, which is one of the major themes of this work.
Yoshino definitely threw me for a loop at first. Her basic concept was adult-woman-who-looks-young, and I knew I wanted to use the mean/kind motif for her pretty early on, but it wasn't until I was actually writing her arc that I came upon the misunderstanding motif which really pulled everything together. She's the archetypal "man of few words" who very much understands what she's about, but because of this she often takes drastic action without really letting others in on it, which I think is a fun little dynamic.
Kurumi… now here's one who has a lot going— only a small fraction of which has been revealed. I remember her being a character I had a very hard time pinning down, during the initial roughing phase while I was reading the light novels. Eventually, I figured her out during Kurumi Ragnarok or Refrain. But yeah, for her introductory arc, I went full in on the femme fatale angle, to really throw Shidou off his game right as he's starting to get comfortable. I made sure to sprinkle a little hints of her real personality in there as well, for the astute readers.
I saw a lot of speculation about Kotori's motives while writing, which I definitely appreciated. It turned out to more or less be the same as in canon, just with more emphasis placed on her guilt about the Nankou Area Fire— the useful motif is the symbol of that guilt. Otherwise, she was actually kinda hard to write. Tohka_Yatogami's rendition of her in Date A Love Lives really colored my understanding of the character for way longer than I care to admit. In the end though, I came up with something that I think is satisfying. And don't worry, she gets her ribbons back soon.
As for Origami, she's also a character that gave me some trouble, partly because of everything she gets up to later on when she becomes a spirit, but also just because she's a little bit of a one-trick pony when it comes to Shidou. I mean, her obsession with him does make for some hilarious moments, but writing her outside of that was always a little difficult. I think I did a good job, though, adding things like her restaurant critique hobby in chapter 11. Origami is essentially Shidou's foil, representing the opposing side in the save/kill spirits conflict at the heart of the story— she even has her own Kotori, in the form of Ryouko.
Anyway, I'll stop there in the interest of time. I'll be taking a break to focus on other projects, but the next installment will continue the romantic and sexual comedy that has become Shidou's life, now with more spirits, more naked dress designs, and even more sex scenes! It's called Love is More Than You Realize. Look forward to it!