"The Gardener of the Sleeping Forest" Bonus: Episodes I couldn't fit in, a summary of feedback received, etc.

Bonus Table of Contents

Behind the Scenes of "The Gardener of the Sleeping Forest"

On the matter of having to condense the final three chapters

"The Gardener of the Sleeping Forest" consists of a prologue and twelve chapters, but by the time I finished writing up to chapter ten, I had planned to write the remaining three chapters and the epilogue.
I had even finished my work ahead of schedule to make time and was ready to focus on writing the remaining stories in a short period, when, at that very moment, a tragedy occurred in my family.
To put it plainly, my mother passed away suddenly.
I'm sure this has made those of you reading this who are kind-hearted feel concerned, but there is no need to worry.
As for my mother, although it was a faster goodbye than I had expected, I had watched her struggle with an intractable disease for nearly twenty years, so I was able to send her off with the feeling that she had done her best until the very end.
That said, it required physical time, and along with the mental and physical fatigue, for some reason my home Wi-Fi started acting up, and to top it all off, I caught a summer cold the day after the funeral.
By the time the funeral was over, there were less than ten days left until the deadline for the Creative Awards. Since I spend weekends and holidays with my children (second-grade twin sisters), that effectively left me with less than seven days. And even though I had a fever, I still had to handle the bare minimum of housework and childcare. My partner in parenting, my husband, also had work piling up due to the sudden funeral.
God was telling me to give up on participating in the Creative Awards.
However, I am the type who surprisingly thrives in adversity. I took advantage of the fact that I couldn't go out for post-funeral errands while I had a fever to secure time, connected my computer to the internet via smartphone tethering, and chose to finish it at top speed while coughing.
But this was also a painful decision.
I judged that it was impossible to write the remaining three chapters plus the epilogue in this situation, so with tears in my eyes, I decided to squeeze them down and condense them into two chapters.
Because of this, there are messages that ended up being poorly digested, episodes that were shelved, foreshadowing that couldn't be resolved, and so on. Also, regardless of the condensation, there are episodes that I cut for reasons such as the flow of the story, so I will summarize those as "bonus" content.

The message I really wanted to write

"The Gardener of the Sleeping Forest" is a story that, unusually for me who has just been writing whatever I want to write, properly includes a message. Or rather, multiple messages. I don't know if it reached your hearts, but that was my intention when I wrote it.
However, by condensing the ending, it became half-baked, and there is a message that I couldn't write to the end.

In the end, it is that,life is about playing the hand you're dealt, which is that famous quote from Snoopy.
This is about trying to carve out your own path before lamenting your circumstances like Takatora, but at the same time, I wanted to convey thatit's fine to blame something, but you're wasting your life if you don't notice the cards you're holding. This is just from my perspective, which is poisoned by the internet, but I feel like since around the latter half of the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of people who use the current situation in Japan as a "tool for excuses to abandon the effort to make their own lives better" has increased rapidly.
The former landlady of the long-established inn who appeared in the first chapter said that young people today are lonely and suffering, but the background in which she was born and raised was, of course, a turbulent era, and if you go back to her parents' generation, their youth and families were all ruined by the war.
It is said that Japan has become a poor country, but before I gave birth to my daughters, I saw it with my own eyes. The beggar children in various places in Southeast Asia. In Cambodia, people without legs who were likely victims of landmines. In Vietnam, a mother with a curved spine, likely due to the effects of Agent Orange, and a boy selling goods at a street stall with his mother.
They, who should be much poorer than the average Japanese person, all had smiles that made me, who was watching, startle.
Of course, while they have experienced hardships that modern Japanese people do not know, I think we also experience hardships that they do not know. The quality and type of hardship vary, and I never mean to say that we Japanese are having it easy.
In the extreme, I think that living is a battle, and in a sense, it is always wartime. Whether you can find happiness in such a life depends on the person. If you're going to live anyway, isn't the one who spends it with a smile the winner?
Come on, let's stop complaining and spend our time smiling. Including self-admonition.

Unresolved foreshadowing Part 1: Smartphone robbery

In this scene in the third chapter, the part where the news is listed was actually like this at the time of publication.

This sentence was actually intended to be foreshadowing for an episode where "Takatora helps an old lady who had her smartphone stolen."
The confession scene in the park in the final chapter was originally supposed to go through this episode, where Hana would get angry at Takatora, who could have been seriously injured, but still say, "That's why I like you," and Takatora would laugh and say, "(I wanted to be the one to) make the confession."
It was supposed to flow like that, but it was content that would take a whole chapter, so I cut it with tears in my eyes, and I secretly corrected this foreshadowing in the third chapter as well.

Unresolved foreshadowing Part 2: Why Gin-chan was obsessed with Fujisaki-san = Why they argued over whether or not he could lift Hana = The point that Chihaya is the opposite sex, not an older or younger sister

Gin-chan, who loves ballet, is convinced that because Chihaya is the opposite sex rather than a sister of the same sex, "Hana wanted a partner for the ultimate pas de deux (dance for a male-female pair)."
Also, because Hana quit ballet, Gin-chan also harbors complex feelings in his own way, thinking that he, being seven years younger, could not have fulfilled that role.
Therefore, he kept holding onto a strange obsession that he wanted her to be happy with Fujisaki-san, a world-class ballet dancer who would have been the best pas de deux partner for Hana.
And this also connected to the part in Chapter 6 where he argued with Takatora about "whether or not he could lift Hana," and I had planned to resolve it in the aforementioned smartphone robbery scene, but I gave up on it.
By the way, I (as the author) hadn't really thought about the real reason why Chihaya is the opposite sex, but I think it's probably because if they were sisters of the same sex, they would become rivals in ballet, so that was the result of Hana seeking more peace of mind.

Unresolved Plot Point #3: Gin-chan's beauty comes in handy

In the aforementioned smartphone robbery scene, I intended to include an episode where Gin-chan's "beauty that captivates people's hearts" would play a role in leading to the culprit's arrest.
In the end, he just ended up as a beautiful young man who can't read the room, which is a bit of a shame.
As an author, I find Gin-chan easy to write and I like him. Azumi-chan and Yanagawa also moved well for me. I think it's probably because the "parts of these three that seem to have developmental difficulties" are similar to me.
Takatora was the exact opposite; he wouldn't move at all, and he was so difficult to write that I wanted to cry. He's a man who has worked hard, is grounded, and yet is an extroverted social butterfly—everything about him is the polar opposite of me. I relied solely on my imagination and managed to squeeze out the writing. The only thing we have in common is perhaps an educational background complex.
(I graduated from a vocational school after attending a not-so-great high school. My sisters are hardworking and highly intelligent, so I have a bit of a complex about it.)

Unresolved Plot Point #4: Azumi-chan's child

There are several ideas regarding the reason for Azumi-chan's divorce, and I haven't settled on one myself, but she is in a state of no contact with her child.
Near the end, I intended to include a scene where it becomes clear that "the child is the one who wants to see their mother (Azumi-chan)."

Other stories that couldn't be included

・A scene where Hana's tax return is nearing the deadline, and while Takatora is helping her, he thinks, "That's right, that guy is still around!!" and relies on Yanagawa, the tax accountant.
・An episode about Azumi-chan during her days as a beautiful girl. Why did she gain weight?
・Hana's mother appears. Following that, Takatora worries that their relationship might be opposed because of his educational background, but Hana asserts, "Please rest assured. To that person, there are only two types of people in the world: those who can dance and those who cannot."
・A route where her ex-boyfriend Akama truly becomes a stalker of Hana.

…and so on.

Summary of feedback received

Since the feedback replies received on X (formerly Twitter) tend to flow away one after another due to the nature of X, I have summarized them in screenshots with the permission of the individuals concerned.
Ideally, I would like to introduce all the feedback, but due to volume constraints, I have included only excerpts.
Also, the feedback received on note has been posted on the novel's article itself, but I will summarize it here once again.

Surprisingly, there was even a reader who
thought of voice actors for "The Gardener of the Sleeping Forest"

Click here for the review received on note

To everyone who sent feedback, and to everyone reading this, thank you so much!!
It is by having you all read it like this that my novel is completed.

A certain day in July 2025
Futagoya Umejintan

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