Back then it didn't have a title yet, it was just called Untitled Erica Reis Mermaid Project. I pitched a 3 volume story arc, of "normal" manga size.

While I was working on the first volume, my editors approached me with this cool new idea. They were working on a new kid's line of manga, to help place the books on shelves where more kids would see them. And they wanted Azuri to be one of the debut books!

I eventually decided to go for it. Since the aim was to put Azuri on the shelves in the kid's section, they needed to be smaller. Luckily I didn't have to sacrifice any story. It turned out that my volume one sliced neatly in half.

It was going to have 8 chapters. Now instead it would be two books of 4 chapters each. I didn't have to modify a single word in the first half, it just worked out that way. And the best part is they each cost half the amount of a larger manga anyway, so you don't have to pay more! Cool huh?

Turns out the first kid's manga line had a false start and my book came out before it got on its feet. Now they've restarted the line successfully, called Manga Readers, and you can tell because the covers have triangle bits on the corners.

So that's why the covers of volume 1 and volume 2 don't match. ^_^;;



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