Tokyo: The Manga Begins with the Funeral of Frilian

The meeting room door opened.

The long table was filled with people on both sides.

Editor-in-Chief Tanaka was seated first on the left.

Opposite him were Yoshikawa Taro and three other directors.

The other editors weren't allowed to sit up and had to make do with sitting on folding chairs.

As soon as Yuma Kamiya walked in, everyone looked at him.

"It's him."

Yoshikawa Taro looked at the arrogant young man in front of him and said with a mocking tone.

"The author who won the highest prize in the Newcomer Award, Yuma Kamiya."

The director, whose hair was gray, pushed up his glasses.

She looked him up and down before speaking.

"Please sit down."

Kamiya Yuma took the opportunity to sit in the empty seat next to Editor-in-Chief Tanaka.

"Let's begin the meeting!" Editor-in-Chief Tanaka said directly as he sat down.

Ryota Onodera placed the file folder on the table. "The main content concerns whether Yuuma Kamiya's work can be serialized. Please give your opinions."

Yoshikawa slammed a huge stack of data tables on the table and began to speak.

"I had someone compile reader feedback from the first three chapters of all new Jump manga series over the past five years. The data is clear: the average satisfaction rate for the first chapter of an action manga is 72%. And for slice-of-life manga? 38%."

He distributed all the copied data to everyone.

  

"The data is almost half as bad. This is not my personal bias, it is the market's choice, and I disagree with this manga being serialized in Jump."

"Director Yoshikawa is right."

Another slightly overweight director nodded in agreement.

"Jump's readership is primarily elementary and middle school students. They buy magazines to see battles. If you ask them to read about an elf walking across a grassland, they'll flip through a few pages and then stop reading. Who will be responsible when sales drop?"

"I'll take responsibility."

Editor-in-Chief Tanaka tried to use the same threat, but it didn't work.

"You can't afford it."

Yoshikawa Taro looked at him coldly.

"Tanaka, you've been with Jump for sixteen years, and I respect your experience and judgment. But this time is different. A new author's serialization is no small matter." "If a slow-paced manga occupies a serialization slot and fails, how are you going to explain it to the board?"

"Don't threaten me with resignation. You should know how many people want this position."

Yoshikawa Taro turned to Kamiya Yuma.

"Young man, I'm not targeting you personally. Your drawing skills are very mature. But Jump isn't an artsy magazine. You can draw regrets and losses if you want. Once you have a readership, you can draw whatever you want. But your first serialization has to be solid."

He really seemed to be thinking about Yuma Kamiya's best interests.

"Director Yoshikawa's idea is to first draw a battle manga to prove yourself, and then draw whatever you want to draw."

The slightly overweight director added.

"This is for your own good."

Another director echoed this sentiment.

Amidst the persuasion, a sudden voice rang out.

I disagree.

Ryota Onodera spoke up.

"You keep saying that readers like battle manga. But how many of the new serializations in Jump in the last three years that were battle manga were ultimately canceled? There were six last year alone."

"That's because the drawing wasn't good; it doesn't mean readers don't like action anime..."

Yoshikawa Taro dismissed this claim outright, believing it to be merely an accident.

"No."

At this moment, Ryota Onodera didn't care what kind of director he was, and slammed his hand on the table, saying...

"It's because readers are tired of it. Every book is about a hero fighting a demon king. Readers flip through three magazines and see six identical stories. They don't buy it because there's nothing new."

"But novelty doesn't mean we have to risk changing our style."

The slightly overweight director wanted to seek change while maintaining stability. "We can try making changes to the storyline."

"But if you don't dare to take risks, there will never be anything new."

Editor-in-Chief Tanaka stared at the board members as he spoke.

"When Jump was founded, there were already Weekly Shonen Magazine and Weekly Shonen Sunday on the market. If the editor-in-chief at the time hadn't dared to take the risk, Jump simply wouldn't have survived."

"That was more than twenty years ago."

Yoshikawa Taro stood up, interrupting Tanaka's nonsensical argument.

"The truth doesn't change just because more than 20 years have passed."

Editor-in-Chief Tanaka refused to budge an inch.

The air in the meeting room grew increasingly tense.

Yuma Kamiya sat there, listening to the back-and-forth conversation between the two sides.

【Ding! 】

A transparent panel suddenly appeared before my eyes.

[A temporary choice is triggered in the face of the arrogance of the old era.]

[Option 1: Compromise with data, abandon "Frilian," and first draw a battle manga to build popularity. Reward: Start serialization immediately.]

[Option 2: Throw the original manuscript at someone's face. Reward: Emotional Influence Aura (limited to one hour in the meeting room).]

Looking at the two options, Kamiya Yuma couldn't help but smile.

compromise?

He drew for two days and two nights without closing his eyes, not to compromise and become a dog.

"I choose option two."

Kamiya Yuma silently recited in his heart.

A warm feeling emanated from within, and for a moment, Kamiya Yuma felt that his words could even change the world.

He stood up and spoke directly.

"Esteemed seniors, I'd like to say a few words." Seeing this, both sides paused their debate. Editor-in-Chief Tanaka had already started drinking water, preparing for the next round of verbal sparring with the assembled scholars.

Yuma Kamiya walked to the middle of the long table.

"You all have a point. Market data is important, reader feedback is important, and magazine sales are important."

He placed his hand on the file bag.

"But I think we should look at the original manuscript before discussing these things."

"I've already reviewed the storyboard outline."

Yoshikawa Taro frowned.

"It's not a storyboard."

Kamiya Yuma opened the file folder and said.

"This is the final draft of the first episode."

He placed the original manuscript on the table.

The first page.

Frilian stood before Simmel's grave, with the endless grassland stretching out behind her.

The wind blew her silver hair, and the sky was a mixture of cobalt blue and ultramarine.

The air in the conference room suddenly fell silent.

It's not because the visuals are beautiful.

It's because of that blue.

Like the sky at dusk, somewhere between melancholy and warmth.

It was cold, yet it warmed people's hearts.

It's clearly heartwarming, yet it makes you want to cry.

Yuma Kamiya spread out the manuscript page by page.

Frilian walked across the grassland with her apprentice.

Watching the sunrise at the beach.

Wine buried by Simmel fifty years ago was unearthed on a snow-capped mountain.

There was no fighting.

There are no enemies.

There were only two people on the road, talking at a leisurely pace.

Then there was the color page.

A sea of ​​flowers of the Crassula ovata.

Frilian reached out her hand, her fingertips pointing at Simmel's retreating figure.

Simmel turned around, her expression so gentle it was almost unbearable to look directly at her.

The two people were separated by a whole patch of blue flowers.

That blue was so deep, so deep that you knew you could never walk those few centimeters.

No one spoke in the meeting room.

The editors sitting against the wall put down their notebooks.

Yoshikawa Taro stared at the color page, motionless.

He suddenly remembered something from a long time ago.

He wasn't a director at that time.

He was still working as an editor at a small local publishing house.

There was a girl who lived in the next town.

He would ride his bike to see her every day after get off work, a 40-minute ride.

Later, when the publishing house was moving to Tokyo, the president said that if he went to Tokyo, he would be promoted to deputy editor-in-chief.

He went to Tokyo.

That girl later married someone else.

He married the president's daughter in Tokyo and rose through the ranks to become a director of Shueisha.

I haven't thought about this for thirty years.