They’re all reborn, what’s wrong with being a little more almighty?

Chapter 224: Getting into the Trap at the First Chapter
"Monthly Shonen Magazine" is a very old manga magazine in Japan. It was founded in 1965, three years earlier than Shueisha's "Weekly Shonen Jump".

Moreover, there are several long series in the "In My Lifetime" series in Monthly Shonen Magazine, which also makes the magazine have a stable readership.

For example, "Ryurouten", which began serialization in 1993, can only be regarded as a work of the middle-aged level in "Monthly Shonen Magazine".

"Kamen Rider", which began serialization in 1971, "Kung Fu Kid", which began serialization in 1983, and "Slam Dunk", which began serialization in 1989, are all works that are still being serialized in "Monthly Shonen Magazine".

It is no exaggeration to say that I was still in elementary school when I first started following the series. As I continued to follow it, my son started going to elementary school, but the work was still not finished. As I continued to follow it, my grandson started going to elementary school, but the work was still not finished.

It is also for this reason that the readership of Monthly Shonen Magazine is not limited to teenagers, but also includes many middle-aged people, and they are all die-hard fans who have been following the series for decades.

Of course, in addition to this lifetime series, Monthly Shonen Magazine will also have many new works, otherwise it will not be able to attract new readers.

The competition among cartoonists in Japan is very fierce. After a work is serialized, if it does not receive good response, it will be cut short by the editor and replaced with other new works to test the waters.

With the publication of the new issue of "Monthly Shonen Magazine", "ChiChi's Giant" also ushered in its first trial run.

……

In a comic book shop that has been open for more than 20 years, the middle-aged owner walked with heavy steps as he moved the newly arrived magazines into the store.

After working for more than half an hour, the boss finished the work at hand and sat in front of the counter, breathing heavily and pounding his waist with his hands.

"I've only moved a few things, but my back has started to hurt. I'm really getting old. If it were twenty years ago, when I was young, I wouldn't have had any problem moving three times as many things, let alone this amount!"

The middle-aged boss lamented that time is unforgiving, then picked up a copy of "Monthly Shonen Magazine", which was the magazine he had just moved.

Monthly magazines have much more content than weekly ones. For example, one issue of Monthly Shonen Magazine has more than 689 pages, or more than sheets of paper, which is as thick as half of the Xinhua Dictionary. The latest revision of the Xinhua Dictionary is only sheets of paper.

The 800-plus pages, excluding advertisements, can accommodate about 16 or 17 comics, one or two of which will be new series.

The comic shop owner opened a copy of "Monthly Shonen Magazine", first looked at the table of contents, and then went straight to the new episodes.

In his opinion, those old anime that he has been following for many years require him to calm down and take the time to savor them carefully.

On the contrary, for new anime, you can watch them quickly first to kill time.

Many people like to save the most delicious dishes for last.

"'Chicken at Giant' is this month's new anime. I don't know what genre it is. Let's take a look first!" The comic shop owner turned directly to the first page of Attack on Titan.

"The drawing is too abstract! How can such a bad drawing be serialized in a magazine?" The comic book shop owner couldn't help but complain, but still patiently continued reading.

Although the painting is poor, it is not so bad that it is unbearable to watch. Besides, this is not a book, and no one goes to see it for the painting. The main purpose is to watch the plot.

Soon, the comic book store owner was attracted by the plot of Attack on Titan.

The first episode of Attack on Titan did not throw out too many settings. Instead, through the compact plot, it brought more doubts to the audience. In other words, it set traps and aroused readers' expectations.

And on the last page of the first episode, the scene where the Colossal Titan’s head suddenly appears and stares into the city wall arouses readers’ expectations to the maximum.

This sense of anticipation is not only about the direction of the plot, but also about the world background of the story. This is also the advantage of this narrative structure. First, a different world is presented to the readers, which arouses their interest in exploration. Then, the background of the story is introduced, and the readers will have a sense of sudden enlightenment.

The first chapter was fifty pages long, and the comic shop owner finished reading it very quickly. The feeling of wanting more kept rolling in his mind.

Subconsciously, the comic shop owner went back to the first page and started reading from the beginning.

This time, he did not rush through it, but read every painting and every line of dialogue carefully.

The door opened and a guest walked in. He was a high school student.

"Welcome!" The comic book shop owner looked up and found that it was a regular customer, so he ignored him and continued reading the Attack on Titan comics.

The high school student was rather curious, for he had been buying comics in this store since he was in elementary school and had known the store owner for nearly ten years. It was rare for him to see a store owner so devoted to one comic.

"Mr. Yamanaka, what are you reading? Are you so engrossed in it?" The high school student came over and looked down at the comic in the comic shop owner's hand.

It's hard to describe the painting skills. I feel like my paintings are better than this.

"The new anime in Monthly Shonen Magazine this month is called 'Chichi no Titan'," the comic shop owner replied.

"New anime? Is it good? You seem to be fascinated by it from the first episode." The high school student asked.

"Well...it's just the first chapter, so it's hard for me to comment on it!" said the comic book store owner.

"Since you can read such a bad painting, it must be pretty good!" The high school student paused and continued, "Then give me this issue of Monthly Shonen Magazine!"

On the way home, the high school student couldn't help but start reading Attack on Titan. After a few minutes, he was attracted by the content of the comics.

When he walked to the door of his house, he happened to see the last page, the scene where the Colossal Titan appeared.

"It's gone, it's gone just like that!" The high school student suddenly felt empty in his heart, as if he had missed something important.

The next second, the high school student realized that this was not the first time he had this feeling. When he was watching "Naruto" before, he had the same feeling when he saw Uzumaki Naruto summon Gamabunta for the first time.

Based on this feeling, I must continue watching this movie "The Giant Who Fell on Earth"!

This is only the first episode, and I’m already hooked!

……

Kodansha, Comics Department, since the release of the new issue of "Monthly Shonen Magazine", the section chief has also been paying attention to the reputation of Attack on Titan.

After reading the first ten episodes, the section chief had high hopes for the work "Attack on Titan". He had a hunch that this work might have a chance to compete with Shueisha's Big Three.

Moreover, Kodansha has been suppressed by Shueisha for several years. Now Kodansha urgently needs to sound the clarion call for a counterattack and win a comeback.

The section chief regarded "The Giant Who Chirps" as the first shot of his counterattack. In order to get the giant on the cover of "Monthly Shonen Magazine", he even cut short a serialized work just to make room for the giant.

Now, with the release of the latest issue of "Monthly Shonen Magazine", it is finally time to test the results.

Shintaro Kawakubo rushed into the section chief's office with an excited look on his face: "Section Chief, they're all sold out, all sold out!"

"What's sold out?"

"The latest issue of Monthly Shonen Magazine is sold out!" "Really? Sold out?" The section chief was stunned for more than ten seconds, then showed an ecstatic expression.

The sales of monthly comic magazines in Japan are far lower than those of weekly ones. The sales of the three major comic weekly magazines are all over one million copies, and if the corresponding monthly magazine can achieve half of the weekly sales, it is considered a very high sales volume.

Of course, the sales of a magazine are mainly related to the content. For example, the sales of Monthly Shonen GANGAN magazine are usually only a few hundred thousand copies. When Fullmetal Alchemist was serialized, the sales reached 450,000 copies. After the end of Fullmetal Alchemist, the sales dropped back to the original hundreds of thousands of copies.

As a long-established monthly magazine, Monthly Shonen Magazine has a group of loyal readers, and its sales of each issue are more than 500,000.

Since the publication period of a monthly magazine is as long as one month, extra copies are usually printed to ensure that the magazine can be found on the market until the new issue comes out next month.

After all, as long as the magazine is placed on the bookshelf, it is a kind of advertising effect. As long as it can make readers familiar with it, readers will always buy it and read it.

For a magazine with a sales volume of 500,000 copies, at least 5,000 to 10,000 more copies must be printed every month to cope with some unexpected situations.

Now the latest issue of "Monthly Shonen Magazine" has sold out, which means that even the extra prints have been sold out.

More importantly, it’s only ten days away from the release of the new issue of Monthly Shonen Magazine!
In just ten days, the sales volume reached a normal month's sales volume. This issue of the magazine was obviously a huge success.

The readership of those old anime is already fixed. If new readers want to get into the series, they have to start from the beginning and finish reading the first few hundred chapters before they can follow the latest updates. Therefore, the threshold for readers to get into the series is relatively high.

Relying on a top-notch old anime, the sales of a magazine can be steadily increased, but it is impossible to suddenly have a sales surge.

Therefore, this surge in sales must be brought about by new anime. Some readers think that a new anime is good and decide to get into it, so they buy the magazine.

In this issue of "Monthly Shonen Magazine", the only new anime is "Attack on Titan".

There is no doubt that the surge in magazine sales this month was caused by Giant.

This time, the section chief is no longer worried about the reputation of "Jiji's Giant". Magazine sales represent everything. With such sales, how could the reputation be bad?
"Section Chief, the sales department asked if we want to print more copies?" Shintaro Kawakubo asked.

"We need to print more copies, of course! It's only been ten days since this issue of the monthly magazine went on sale, and there are still twenty days left! Print another 100,000 copies immediately!" the section chief said without hesitation.

……

In Shueisha's comics department, editor Onishi Tsunehei was holding a copy of Monthly Shonen Magazine with a slightly serious expression.

A young editor with long hair came over and said with a smile, "Hengping, why are you so serious? Are you reading a mystery comic?"

"Koji, have you read the latest issue of Monthly Shonen Magazine?" asked Onishi Tsunehei.

"Monthly Shonen Magazine? That's something my father's generation only read." The long-haired young man said cynically.

"Take a look at this! This is a new anime in the latest issue of Monthly Shonen Magazine. I'm a little unsure about this work!"

"You're not sure? Then I have to see what kind of work it is!" The long-haired young man took the magazine and took a look at the new anime.

"The Gibberish Giant? What kind of work is that?"

"It should be considered fantasy!"

"Fantasy! Then come to me." The long-haired young man laughed and then complained: "This painting is really bad! It's at the level of a junior high school student!"

"The painting skills are bad? I suggest you don't rush to judge. Look carefully, the character's expressions are handled very well, and the storyboards are well managed. It gives you a sense of déjà vu of a movie or TV series!" said Onishi Tsunehei.

This Onishi Tsunehei is Shueisha's ace manga editor. The reason he is ace is that Eiichiro Oda, Masashi Kishimoto, and Sorachi Hideaki are all cartoonists under his charge.

In other words, Onishi Tsunehira is the editor-in-chief of One Piece, Naruto, and Gintama. The value of these three works needs no introduction, and the author of Gintama, Sorachi Hideaki, was discovered by Onishi Tsunehira from among the newcomers.

The long-haired young man is named Yoshida Koji. He joined Shueisha in the same year as Onishi Tsunehei. As soon as he debuted, he became the editor-in-chief of Yoshihiro Togashi's "Hunter x Hunter". His other works include "Hikaru no Go", "Death Note", "Dark-Gray-man" and "Katekyo Hitman Reborn", which are also popular masterpieces.

It is worth mentioning that there is a character named Yoshida Koji in "Dream Eaters", who was designed by the author based on the image of Yoshida Koji.

All the works that Yoshida Koji is responsible for are fantasy, so he said, "I am the right person for fantasy."

“Although it’s the first episode, the rhythm is very well controlled, there’s not too much background introduction, and the plot is very compact. The painting is indeed not satisfactory, but it is precisely because of this painting that it reminds me of Ohba Tsugumi!

And the storyboard management you mentioned is really great, especially the last few pages, the scene where the giant is outside the city wall overlooking the city, it gives me a sense of oppression like a movie! This kind of storyboard processing is comparable to that of Yoshihiro Togashi. "

As the saying goes, every profession has its specialties. As an editor at Shueisha who specializes in fantasy works, Yoshida Koji does have a deeper understanding of works such as Attack on Titan.

The Tsugumi Ohba mentioned by Yoshida Koji is one of the authors of "Death Note".

Death Note has two authors, one is Tsugumi Ohba, who is responsible for the script, and the other is Takeshi Obata, who is responsible for the drawings. Simply put, one person comes up with the brain, and the other person does the work.

There are many excellent comic book authors who are not very good at drawing but have strong writing skills; similarly, there are many cartoonists who are excellent at drawing but have terrible writing skills.

If these two types of people work together to create a work, one is responsible for designing the plot and the other is responsible for painting, it is just right for them to complement each other's strengths and weaknesses.

"Death Note" is such a work, and it is thanks to the screenwriting ability of Tsugumi Ohba that such a wonderful plot is possible.

Another similar work is "One Punch Man".

ONE, the original author of One Punch Man, has terrible drawing skills, which are completely at the level of kindergarten graffiti, but his screenwriting and storyboarding are indeed top-notch. It’s just that his drawing skills are completely unable to bring out the full potential of storyboarding.

So there was "One Punch Man" redrawn by Yusuke Murata. Murata's painting skills are very good, and it is said that he came from picture books, so the images of the female characters in "One Punch Man" are so vivid!
Moreover, the storyboards that Murata re-drew based on ONE's original paintings are indeed magnificent, and the phrase "world famous paintings" in the anime industry also comes from this.

However, Yusuke Murata's screenwriting ability is really poor. In the remake of "One Punch Man", the parts created by Murata himself are always considered by readers to be plot collapse.

The author of "Hunter x Hunter", Yoshihiro Togashi, has a nickname "God of Storyboards". This nickname alone is enough to show how awesome Togashi's storyboards are.

As the editor-in-chief of Togashi, Koji Yoshida's evaluation of the storyboard of Attack on Titan is no less than that of Togashi, which is definitely the highest evaluation.

After watching the first episode of Attack on Titan, Yoshida Koji also had a solemn expression.

Both of them are Shueisha's ace editors, so they can naturally see the potential of this work.

After a moment's silence, Yoshida Koji said, "I don't know how far this work can go, but if the author really has the creative ability of Ohba Tsugumi and the storyboarding ability of Togashi Yoshihiro, then this work may be able to rival the three giants of our Shueisha."

Datian nodded in agreement, but still said with a lucky expression: "I think we should give it another look! Maybe it's just a good beginning, but the rest of the story will fall apart!"

……

At the end of 2005, the only work that could compete with the three major migrant workers comics appeared ahead of schedule!
(End of this chapter)