Tokyo: Earth Online Manga Artist.

But... that's what it's like to become a professional comic artist.

Apart from the specific deadlines like Fridays and the Wednesdays for submitting storyboards for review, everything else is pretty much the same.

No boss is watching you clock in, no colleagues are urging you to submit PPTs, and you have complete control over your time.

This kind of freedom requires more self-discipline than the artwork itself, and Eri Aragaki happens to be someone who is not particularly good at self-discipline.

Aragaki Eri, realizing she had exhausted herself from staying up all night, finally felt tired and yawned.

My eyelids started to droop, and I felt a dull, heavy feeling at the back of my head.

"Sister, you've stayed up late again. That's really bad for your health."

Erina peeked out of the bathroom while brushing her teeth, toothbrush still in her mouth, foam clinging to the corner of her lips, her expression disapproving.

"Staying up late isn't so bad..."

Eri Aragaki immediately laughed it off and said, "After all, I'm not staying up all night. I'll catch up on sleep during the day. I get enough sleep, Erina, don't worry."

Then she put the handle on the coffee table, stretched, and crumpled the blanket that had been covering her legs last night into a ball and pushed it into the corner of the sofa.

"Sister, you!"

Erina wanted to say something more, but in the end she had no choice but to rinse the foam out of her mouth and wipe the corners of her mouth with a towel.

She looked at Eri Aragaki, who was clearly exhausted but still stubbornly insisting on sleeping, and sighed. "Alright then, but you still need to eat breakfast, sister. I'll make breakfast in a bit, remember to eat it before you go to sleep."

"Okay, thank you so much, Erina."

Eri Aragaki thanked her with a smile, then clasped her hands together and waved them at Erina.

Then she thought for a moment and turned off the game.

The game screen on the TV suddenly went black, leaving only a power indicator light flashing red in the lower right corner.

She stood up from beside the coffee table, walked to the computer desk in the corner of the living room, sat down, and turned on the computer.

She browsed some comic-related forums again, clicking the mouse between several familiar sections, but the posts and comments were all the same as before.

Discussion threads about Bleach, Naruto, and One Piece are always at the top of the list and have the most participants.

Attack on Titan isn't very popular. Although the number of threads in the discussion thread has increased since the beginning of the series, it's still far behind the top threads.

After all, the plot doesn't progress that quickly. Before Attack on Titan was adapted into an anime, it didn't have much popularity, as evidenced by its recent popularity rankings.

Their ranking has been firmly stuck at ninth or tenth place.

The positions of the popular manga ahead of it are not shaken at all. This is even with Hunter x Hunter going on an endless hiatus after August, which freed up a top ten spot for the manga behind to squeeze up.

Otherwise, the Titan would fall out of the top ten again. That top ten seat originally belonged to the hunter, but the hunter wasn't home, so the Titan was just sitting there temporarily.

And that is the harsh reality.

Even though the anime adaptation of Titan reached the point where Levi's squad was wiped out, Annie's identity was exposed, and Reiner self-destructed, its popularity ranking only improved by one or two places at most.

The annihilation of Levi's entire squad might boost the discussion surrounding the plot, but that's only temporary; things will revert to normal after a month.

That means at most, they might rank sixth or seventh, and that's it; they absolutely cannot go any higher.

The top three positions are occupied by Naruto, Bleach, and One Piece, while established works like Gintama, Katekyo Hitman Reborn!, and Exorcist are ranked fourth through eighth. This pattern has been stable in JUMP for several years and cannot be broken by a new work that has not been adapted into an anime.

However... if Attack on Titan is adapted into an anime and aired, Eri Aragaki is even confident that she can compete with Naruto, Bleach, and One Piece, or even punch Naruto and kick One Piece, and see how she holds the number one spot.

In her past life, she had witnessed firsthand how Attack on Titan's popularity transformed from a mediocre manga into a global phenomenon after the anime adaptation aired. The increase wasn't linear; it was exponential.

However, Eri Aragaki is still quite well-behaved now.

Now all she can do is honestly search for Giants fans' praise for her in the corners of various forums.

Fortunately, although the total number of Attack on Titan fans is not large, their activity level is quite good. Every time a new volume is released, someone will write a long analysis of the plot in the discussion thread, giving her many opportunities to smile foolishly in front of the screen.

However, this proportion is not high; most replies are brief, such as "This week's episode is good" or "When will the next episode be released?"

One particularly active reader is nicknamed "Nagato is Me," whose presence can be seen under almost every post about Attack on Titan.

However, his remarks were somewhat overly enthusiastic—

"The Giants' ranking is too low! They should at least be in the top five!"

"The storyline that Teacher Pear arranged this week is so exciting. The real world is just that cruel."

"Just by looking at 'Wu Song,' you can see that Ms. Riko's drawing skills are no less than Takeshi Obata's!"

"Attacks are the best! Let's give our hearts to the Attacks and Riko-sensei!"

"I also want to become a manga artist like Riko-sensei."

……

This person's replies in every post are always in the same tone, and they are very long. Sometimes, one person can talk to himself for more than twenty times in a single discussion thread.

He also seems to be an aspiring comic artist, frequently posting fan art.

I must say... it's really quite impressive, you can tell it's done by someone with skill.

Well... even Eri Aragaki blushed when she saw his overly harsh comments, and quickly scrolled down the page to avoid reading this layer of replies.

In addition, the popularity of "Wu Song" has recently subsided, but it is clear that "Wu Song" is still very popular in Japan, having dominated the top of the discussion charts in the short story section for several weeks.

It even briefly sparked a wave of "Wu Song fever" and "Water Margin fever" within the circle.

Some readers have started to spontaneously popularize the stories of other heroes in "Water Margin" on the forum. Some people have made a long comparative analysis of Wu Song and Lin Chong, and others have started a thread to discuss the similarities and differences between the culture of outlaw heroes in China and Japan.

There's also a trend of it breaking into new circles, especially the color illustration of Wu Song wielding his sword, drawn by Eri Aragaki.

Many people took screenshots of it and used it as their profile picture, signature image, and some even printed it out and posted it on the exhibition boards of fan conventions, resulting in extremely high dissemination.

However, the popularity of short stories is always limited, and the Internet is not as developed as it was in Eri Aragaki's previous life.

Before the rise of social media, the main way video websites spread content was through forums and static web pages, which prevented them from achieving sustained popularity. The videos only remained popular for two or three weeks before their popularity gradually waned.

If you search for Wu Song now, the relevant posts are all from several weeks ago, and the latest replies are becoming less frequent.

Eri Aragaki was about to shut down the forum, wash up, and then come back for breakfast and a nap.