Amagi Brilliant Park: Volume 3 (Premium)

by Shouji Gatou

  Prologue

  Pa-pop! With a bang, confetti and streamers went flying everywhere.

  A cheerful melody began to play. Dancers in extravagant costumes threw themselves onto the stage, their long tails tracing lovely arcs as they whirled.

  Welcome, welcome, welcome all! To wonderland! A fantasy! Worlds of dreams that span dimensions! Adventures and miracles! It’s Amagi Brilliant Park! It’s Amagi Brilliant Park! Let’s all sing and dance together! Let’s all smile and laugh and play! Call to them and they will come! Who’ll be first? It’s Macaron! Let’s all call to Macaron! Fairy of Music, Macaron!

  “Rooon!” One of the park’s headliner mascots, Macaron, the Fairy of Music, appeared, as if launched upwards from underneath the stage. He landed neatly, then immediately launched into a bagpipe solo. As his thrilling performance ended, more dancers took to the stage.

  Who’ll be next? It’s Tiramii! Let’s all call to Tiramii! Fairy of Flowers, Tiramii!

  “Miiii!” Tiramii, the Fairy of Flowers, appeared. Like Macaron, he flew up from beneath the stage, spun end-over-end, and landed neatly. He twirled his silk hat and performed some magic tricks, producing one beautiful bouquet after another. Then, as he swung his cape with a flourish, a flurry of fireworks burst in the background. Even more dancers took the stage.

  Sorcerer’s Hill is full of fun! Come and smile with everyone! Everybody join the gang! Rabbida! Nyathan! Wanipii! Bargen! They’ve all come here just for you!

  More and more mascots appeared and joined the line of dancers. The cheerful music reached its apex.

  Oh? Oh? Aren’t we missing something? That’s right! There’s no sweets at all! Let’s all call to Moffle, now! Fairy of Sweets... Moffle!

  “Moffu!” Moffle appeared on a tall pedestal at the back of the stage. He was silhouetted by a massive firework that burst into glints of shining light, which fizzed off in all directions. The dancers gasped in wonder. It was an entrance befitting the park’s headliner mascot.

  That was all well and good, except... one of the sparks had set Moffle’s chef’s whites ablaze.

  “Moffu, moffu!” Had he even noticed?

  Moffle took a running leap off the platform, bounded off a hidden trampoline and did a sharp flip in midair. It was all according to plan, but the rapid motion had only caused the fire on his costume to spread.

  “Mooooffu!” Ah, yes. He had noticed. He crashed to the stage, now trailing flames. The park’s headliner mascot had become a rampaging ball of fire, and all the while, the cheerful music continued to blare. The dancers stopped dancing and ran away in terror.

  Moffle knocked over giant “talking flower” props, then plowed into a speaker, which released a screech of feedback. The confetti and streamers scattered around the stage just added fuel to the growing inferno.

  “H-Hey, it’s hot! It’s hot!” Moffle squealed. “Someone! Someone!”

  “Don’t move!” someone in the ensemble shouted. “Hold still! Bring a blanket!”

  “Fire team! Fire team!” Wanipii yelled. “Where are you, pii?! Fire team!”

  The whimsical display of wonder was now a crucible of tragedy; the panicked staff rushed the stage with fire extinguishers, which they unleashed in force. Soon, the area was awash in foul-smelling white smoke.

  Five minutes after things were settled—

  “—which is why I told you, no fireworks!” Kanie Seiya yelled to the dejected-looking cast. He had joined in the fire-fighting efforts, so his acting manager’s uniform was bleached white with flame retardant. “At least it was only a rehearsal, but... what if it had been a real performance?! I’ve invited the media, you know! We’d have rubbernecker reports all over the Internet! Then they’d be deleted from YouTube, and we’d have the world laughing at us over LiveLeak instead!”

  “Hmm... that might be good advertising in its own way, ron...” Macaron, dressed in his own wrecked stage attire, whispered.

  “I’ve heard of videos catching fire on the Internet, but nothing like this, mii!” Tiramii, also dressed in a tattered stage costume, snickered.

  “This isn’t funny!” Seiya fumed. “The show is coming up, you know! If we screw this up, it’s going to have a huge impact on our visitor count for Golden Week and after. This is April’s do-or-die moment! Don’t you get that?!”

  The show—A (AmaBri) Fight Begins! The Moffle that Fell to Earth!—was to be Golden Week’s hottest event, conducted on the park’s large central stage. It was the centerpiece of their renovations for the new fiscal year.

  Amagi Brilliant Park (the AmaBri in question) had never held a show on a scale like this before. They had done routine song-and-dance numbers on the stage, but those were unambitious; they never lasted longer than ten minutes.

  This show would be a huge upscale from their prior performances. It would be a whole 50 minutes long, with almost all of the cast in attendance.

  They’d written a new script and new music, and prepared new costumes and props. Even before advertising expenses, the budget had been enormous, but Seiya hadn’t hesitated; he knew how important this live show was. It was the best way to get word out about the new AmaBri. “Look at us,” it would say. “This year’s park is like never before. Amagi Brilliant Park has been reborn!”

  But if that was going to happen, they had to genuinely wow the viewers. He couldn’t let them go home feeling ambivalent; guests had to get home from the park and immediately tell their friends and family: “It was awesome!” As in any age, word of mouth was crucial.

  So if that was the purpose of the live show, then—“We can’t have our headliner mascot setting the stage on fire!”

  “Look, I know... why you’re nervous, Seiya,” Moffle said. He seemed to have made it back from the infirmary. His patissier’s outfit was blackened and charred, while his fur was stained white from the (frankly alarming) amount of flame retardant that had been sprayed on him. He seemed to have trouble keeping his footing, perhaps due to the psychological trauma of the event. “But we need the fireworks, fumo. They’re a must-have for delighting an audience; always have been. They’re the portal from a humdrum daily life to a world of the wondrous and spectacular. You need them if you want to grab the guests’ attention and hold it.”

  “You said that at the meeting, too. But you saw what it’s led to.”

  “C-Come on, now...” Moffle protested. “I’ve been through bloodbaths worse than that before.”

  What kind of bloodbaths, exactly? Seiya wondered. You’re an amusement park mascot...

  “Besides, this was a learning experience,” the mascot continued. “Now we know that we need to make my costume and the surrounding props fireproof, fumo. That ought to be enough to prevent a repeat.”

  “Hmmm...” He couldn’t deny that Moffle had a point. But at the same time, Seiya was the acting manager. He was one making the decisions, and if forced to choose between artistry and safety, safety was going to win out every time. But... even so...

  “I agree with Moffle, ron. We need to go all-out on this,” Macaron added.

  “So do I, mii. Catching the problem in rehearsal was a lucky break, if you ask mii,” Tiramii added.

  “I agree too, mog. Don’t worry, we’ll work out all the dangerous parts in time for the big opening.”

  “Yeah, and you just can’t beat flashiness, nell.”

  “If the guests’ll enjoy it, we oughta try to make it happen, don’cha think?”

  Taramo, Dornell, and Wrenchy-kun—representatives of various backstage departments—weighed in respectively.

  “Hmm...” Seiya pondered. If they were that insistent about it, then maybe he should just trust them and take the risk? “...I
n that case, I want you to work out every possible risk and your proposed countermeasure. I expect a report from each department on my desk by 9:00 tomorrow morning. If I still have cold feet after that, we cut the dangerous elements. Can you do that?”

  “Of course,” they chorused. Before, Seiya thought, they all would have tried to avoid responsibility. But now the eyes of these strange, super-deformed creatures shone with determination.

  “Good,” he decided. “Then let’s tidy up and get back to rehearsal.”

  Seiya watched the resumed rehearsal from the audience seats. The cheerful music washed over him. There were no fireworks this time, so Moffle remained non-combusted, and he gave a hard-hitting performance befitting the star he was.

  “Kanie-kun.” Carrying a file case at her side, Sento Isuzu took a seat next to Seiya. “Wrenchy-kun told me what happened. It must have been awful.”

  “It very nearly ended in tragedy,” he admitted. “But I’m glad they’re enthusiastic, at least.”

  He had meant to sound nonchalant about it, but Isuzu stared into his face and responded: “Are you all right?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well... You haven’t told anyone about the new attendance number yet, have you?” She was referring to something that had happened during the sale of the second park. By selling the southern plot of land on the other side of the highway, the park had gained the funding it needed to keep running. But in the process of putting the contract together, the park’s “enemy,” Amagi Development, had forced them to swallow an even more difficult condition: the minimum number of people they had to bring to the park each year had skyrocketed to three million people. If they couldn’t get the three million they needed this year, the park would close.

  It was a truly absurd number. A first-rate park, like Urayasu, could get 20 million in a year, but that was an exception rather than a rule. Three million was a number that only a handful of Japan’s many theme parks could ever hope to reach. In other words, a park that usually barely broke the top 50 would now have to burst into the top five.

  Even so, he had to accept it. The alternative was going without paying their employees for a month.

  “It’s not time to tell them yet,” Seiya said. “First, we need to get things on track. Then... then I’ll tell them. Let’s build up their confidence first.”

  “...Do you think that they will?” Isuzu questioned. “Build up confidence, that is.”

  “If they don’t,” he told her grimly, “we’re finished.”

  Chujo Shiina Wants to Run Away

  1

  I know I’m not exactly attractive.

  I’m 1.4 meters tall and 35 kilograms (and not the kind of silly girl who says “my weight is a se~cret”). That’s average for a 5th grader... which means people usually assume I’m a kid.

  But! I, Chujo Shiina, am an honest-to-goodness high school girl: a “JK,” as we’re sometimes known.

  True, most of my clothes are things my mom buys me at Shimamura and Uniqlo, and I’ve been going to the same neighborhood barber all my life... Well, actually, there was one time I got up all my courage and took my New Year’s money to Shibuya to buy some more stylish clothes (C-C-Cecil McBee and stuff!) But not only did nothing there fit me, I also got lost on the way back and a police officer ended up escorting me home. So humiliating!

  Still, it’s just not in me to go around pretending to be a kid, acting all clingy and naive. No matter how I might look, inside, I’m still a high schooler—a JK, if I may (let me say it again). I have basic decency, for one thing, and I feel like going around invading other people’s personal space is really rude.

  But the most important factor, I guess, is that I’m really awkward around people.

  How long have I been this way? I don’t know! I just get so worried about what other people think of me that I end up freezing up, even for the most basic stuff. I just end up stuttering: “Um, um, um,” and “sorry, sorry, sorry.” Because of the way I look, most people end up looking down on me (both literally and figuratively) and acting a little too familiar. Then I don’t know what to say to that, and I end up panicking, and they eventually get bored and walk away.

  I spend most of my time on the verge of tears, saying I’m sorry and feeling pathetic. Well... not even the “verge of tears”; any time you see me, there’s a good chance that I’ll be crying.

  So when I got into Amagi High School, I decided I’d give myself a big makeover—what some people call a “high school debut.” I can’t do anything about my height, I thought, but I can change my behavior. Then I’ll make lots of friends and have a great school life.

  I changed my hair, learned all about accessories and jewelry, and rented comedy DVDs to learn how to banter. I even got my mother to teach me some basic makeup tips.

  But... on my very first day, it was already hopeless. I flubbed my way through my self-introduction. I had nothing in common with the girls sitting near me in terms of interests, conversation topics, or outlook on life. A girl who had taken the role of class leader did talk to me (probably out of pity), but everything I learned from those comedy DVDs just flew out of my mind, and after three days she stopped even saying hello to me. So humiliating!

  Actually, I did manage to make friends with another practically invisible girl in the same class, but she was in the biology club, and she ended up spending all her time there during lunch and after class, and before long our friendship regressed to just bare-bones acknowledgment. The next thing I knew, a week had passed.

  It was so bad. Time to panic.

  Well, if my comfort zone isn’t in class, I thought, maybe I’ll find refuge in extracurricular activities, like that girl in the biology club. I’d heard the biology club was a very comfortable place. Still, I knew I couldn’t spend every day in a room full of specimens in formaldehyde jars.

  Amagi High had night school, anyway, so it was very strict about when clubs let out. As a result, club activities weren’t very intense.

  If only there was a cozy, snuggly culture club like the kind you see in late night anime, I thought to myself many times. But you can’t just will those kinds of things into existence. “Just make your own!” you’re probably thinking, but... come on, there’s no way I’m assertive enough to go out recruiting people. And while I dilly-dallied over that, a second week had passed.

  It was so bad. Time to panic.

  At this rate, I thought, I’m going to end up completely alone. (Though actually, I was already completely alone.) I decided that at the very least, I could stop pecking at my lunch all alone in the classroom every afternoon.

  It was biologically impossible for me to eat lunch in a toilet stall, so I marched myself to a stairwell on the far end of the east building. The door to the roof above the fourth floor was sealed off, and the landing was used as a storage room. I had decided to eat my lunch there.

  But oh, what was this? Someone had gotten there before me!

  It was a second-year boy. He was munching on curry bread while he played with his smartphone, grumbling to himself. He seemed to be in a bad mood. I couldn’t fully make out what he was saying, but it sounded like “not enough funding...” and “have to sell the second park...”

  He was a very attractive man, with sleek black hair and facial lines that seemed to be drawn with a very fine pen. His elegant carriage told me at a glance that he was a man of great intelligence and powerful convictions. Why was someone so attractive sitting in a place like this, eating curry bread and muttering to himself? That’s like the least attractive thing you can do!

  “Hmm?” The handsome senpai noticed me and froze up. My presence must have shaken him; he probably didn’t like being seen eating all by himself. (It is pretty pathetic; I would have felt the same way.)

  “Um... Um...” ‘I’m terribly sorry to startle you,’ I tried to say, but as usual, all that came out of my mouth was stammering.

  But wait a minute, I thought. Is this a “meet cute?”

&
nbsp; Let’s take a moment to imagine it: a girl and boy, experiencing the same(?) solitude, meet by chance in a corner of an empty school building. We end up eating lunch together every afternoon, exchanging the most trivial of conversations...

  Oh no, oh no. I’m not ready for this! Soon, the emotional distance between us would close, and ah... I’d start bringing him homemade lunches! I’d burn the tamagoyaki a little, but he’d say, “It’s delicious, because you made it.” Then one thing would lead to another, and soon we’d... we’d...

  Just then, the senpai spoke. “This is my spot. Get lost.”

  .........Er?

  “Didn’t you hear me?” he demanded. “Get lost. ...Oh, I get it. You were struck by my breathtaking good looks, and now you’re daydreaming about us being friends.”

  How could he have gotten it so right? Was he an Esper? A Newtype?

  “I get that a lot, you see,” he explained. “But I’ll never be interested in someone like you, and also, I’m thinking about work right now. I have a mountain of PDFs I have to read through, so get lost.”

  “U-Um... but...” I stammered.

  “Do I need to say it a fourth time? Get! Lost! Right! Now!”

  “S-S-Seally rorry!!” I shouted, even managing to flub my apology. So humiliating! Unable to even argue my case, I turned around and sped away.

  I spent the rest of the day feeling depressed. At times like these, I needed some solo karaoke—that’s what I always do when I’m sad. On the way home from school, I belted out about 20 anime songs, and got myself feeling a little bit better.

  The employee at the karaoke shop, when he came around with the bill, looked at me and said earnestly, “You’re really good at singing.” It was all lip service, of course, but in reply I managed to stammer, “Ah, um... tha... (nk you very much).”

  All that aside, it was time to just admit it: my school situation was hopeless. Even the seat usually reserved for the loneliest of outcasts, the top of the stairs leading to the roof, had been claimed by a scary, aloof older boy. In that case, I realized, could I not pursue some fun escapism outside of school? Of course! A job! A fun workplace! Amiable colleagues! Cute uniforms!