The Adventures of Lord El-Melloi II volume 2 is out, so I'll give a spoiler-free talk about its writing. As I mentioned during the amount, this chapter is about Japan, a place frequently handled by Type-Moon, and Tokyo no less, so I put a lot of energy into this one.
First, let's talk about chronology. This is set after Kara no Kyoukai and a few years before Future Gospel. Both stories openly state their years, so I could set the timeframes in just one quick talk with Nasu. I wrote a simple chronological table and discussed any possible changes on that one office.
That means Ryougi Mana still has Future Gospel and her encounter with Kamekura Mitsuru waiting ahead of her... Writing her was like looking at the starry sky. I hope that the readers reencountering these characters will be convinced and satisfied to see that this Ryougi Mana who still hasn't met him and this very grown-up Ryougi (Kokutou) Mikiya are still the same Mana and Mikiya.
And to LEMII and Rin, this is a story of returning to somewhere important. Personally, one of the most memorable scenes of Fate/stay Night is Rin jumping around the night city with the red bowman. Their reds were searing into my mind and soaked my imagination multiple times during the writing process.
That scenery, that night continued inside me, so I wrote like they passed the baton to me, and some aftereffects can be seen... By that I mean it's a story where I wrote (am still writing, for volume 3) Type-Moon characters that mean a lot to me.
One scene, for example, has Waver, Rin, and Mikiya on the same room, and it's so unbelievable that I got the chance to write this that I'm getting nervous even tweeting about it. I REALLY hope you enjoy this.
Also, the Japanese magecraft, the continental Asia's Thought Magecraft, and titular Baldanders the Wandering Sea are all topics I discussed with Nasu one by one to get a more detailed outline for. The older stuff traces back from when I started Case Files, so the people of Type-Moon, especially Nasu, had to be very patient with me.
I can't talk about Gray, Ergo, or the new characters without going into spoilers, so I'll be here again later. May your encounter with this book be a happy one. I'll fight as I hard as I can for volume 3, too.