In the end, that the author was able to write this story well and is receiving recognition for it matters a lot more than (and, if I think about it, comes less as a surprise) than a bunch of random people on these forums.
These kinds of comments keep popping up in discussions here, you know the "yeah well, the author could not care less about your random negative opinions" and such, like it's the biggest gotcha ever.
Firstly, no duh, this is not a shocking revelation. Secondly, I really doubt they could give a rat's ass about glowing positive comments either coming from people who pirated their work anyway. It's so silly trying to bring the author into it as if they are your friend, or like a person you can tag in as an impenetrable shield. When was appeal to popularity ever a good argument anyway? This isn't even a slight on Takeshima Eku or anyone else, good for them for being popular, it's just such a vapid argument to start throwing any given work's success around when you don't like other people saying mean things about it (putting aside trollish drive-by posts anyway).
Anywho sorry for the meta commentary, how about that Shiho eh?