Making of Black Bird ▪Three▪ by Sakurakoji

"Around the time this manga became serialized, I went to *Shikoku and visited **Kompira Shrine. I climbed up 1,368 steps in order to reach the little Okusha shrine where masks of a tengu and karasu tengu are on display. It was exhausting. Please don't ask me about the trouble I had after that. (However, I did write about it in my manga essay.)

"Later, after saying a prayer at the Okusha shrine, I was about to leave, when a sudden gust of wind sent the leaves in the surrounding trees waving. It felt like a tengu had taken flight. It made me happy to think that the tengu would be watching over me as I worked."

The secret's out.

Kanoko Sakurakoji
(From the book.)

*Shikoku - Shikoku (四国) is smallest of Japan's Big 4 islands, it lies to the south of Honshu.

**Kompira Shrine - Located at 521m halfway to the top of Mount Zōzu, the shrine stands at the end of a long path, with 785 steps to the main shrine and a total of 1,368 steps to the inner shrine. On the way to the shrine is located a sake museum, various stores selling a variety of goods, and there are lots of stones in which are the names of donators to the shrine carved in kanji-characters.