Tokyo Soft Rice King.

"Yes, yes! Please use the club funds! If that's not enough, I'll cover the rest myself! I also received royalties! After all, it was me who wanted to participate in CM..."

Seeing how eagerly they all wanted to pay the bill, Kuroba Akira couldn't help but laugh.

"Why are you all vying to contribute money? Actually, it doesn't matter who contributes. I mean, under normal circumstances, original comics don't sell well, but we're definitely not an ordinary case. Losing money is impossible; we have to sell out!"

Hearing Kuroba Akira's 'outrageous remarks,' everyone in the Literature and Art Department smiled with relief.

If someone else said this, they would think it was boasting, but when Kuroba Akira said it, it was as if things would definitely go smoothly. That's how much they trusted Kuroba Akira.

"But what's even more important is to obtain the qualification to participate in the exhibition as soon as possible..."

As mentioned before, the Winter CM is also held at the end of the year, but if you want to exhibit and set up a booth, you have to make a reservation one to two months in advance. It's already mid-November, and time is already very tight.

Moreover, not just anyone can set up a stall; they must prove to the organizers that they are creators and gain their approval.

However, now that Moe has the shining new title of light novel illustrator, it shouldn't be too difficult to participate in doujinshi conventions as long as you state your identity.

However, obtaining the qualification is only the beginning. After that, you have to worry about everything, big and small, such as the exhibition schedule, inventory, whether to hire cosplayers as mascots for the booth, and profit distribution, etc.

Kuroba Akira remembered that when she played games with Mirai before, Mirai mentioned that she had been to CM several times before, not only as a tourist, but also as a member of a doujin music circle and had released doujin music CDs, so she should know a lot about this kind of thing.

I'll ask her when I go to her house this weekend.

"Anyway, leave the arrangements for participating in CM to me. I'll take care of the other miscellaneous things. Moe, you just need to focus on drawing. It's the same process as before. You need to discuss the character design and storyboard with me. I'll finalize the name this week."

"Okay, okay...!"

A bright smile bloomed on Aiyuan Moe's face, her hands unconsciously clenching and unclenching, as if she couldn't contain her excitement.

Then she belatedly realized that Kuroba Akira had said he would help prepare for the CM competition, which meant...

"So, that means... cough... Kuroba-kun, you've agreed to let me participate in both sides?"

Kuroba Akira gave her a thumbs up and said that.

"Yeah! Although we'll probably be stuck in a deadline hell, since you, as the 'main character,' have decided to do both, we supporting characters have to keep up too! So let's give it our all and give it a try!"

"……Yes!"

Aiyuan Moe felt her whole body radiating a lightness, as if she might leap up at any moment. Joy overwhelmed her, making her feel incredibly fulfilled and happy.

Sure enough, as long as its owner is pulling on a rope, it's fine!

"Then we've decided to use the story the class president came up with to create an original doujinshi. But there's still a problem with the short comic... Moe, can you choose one of Shiori's ideas?"

Aizen Moe frowned, hesitated for a long time, looked at the outlines again and again, but in the end she couldn't choose one.

"Um...I...I really think everything is great..."

Kuroba Akira just said that if he gave all these ideas to Moe, she would definitely have a hard time choosing, and now it seems that's exactly what happened.

Moreover, judging from Aizono Moe's voluptuous figure, she must be an indoor type and probably doesn't know much about these sports. For her, all sports are pretty much the same, so she can't choose one at all.

It's already quite remarkable that she was able to make the decision to draw both erotic and shonen (mainstream) themes; asking her to further choose the story she most wanted to draw would be too much to ask.

Then Kuroba Akira said what Shirai Shiori had just interrupted him about.

"In that case, Shiori, you choose."

Shiori Shirai pointed at herself unexpectedly and asked in return.

"Can I choose it myself? Is that okay?"

"Well, whichever you choose, Moe and I will make it into a wonderful comic, so just pick the story you like best."

"My favorite..."

Shiori Shirai also reviewed her story outlines again. Without much hesitation, she quickly picked up one of them and handed it to Akira Kuroba, saying confidently.

"Let's go with this one. It's the one I like best among all these stories."

It's this one...

Kuroba Akira was quite surprised, but at the same time, like Aizono Moe, his fighting spirit was ignited.

Because this one is different from the others, while the other stories all have prototypes in Akira Kuroba's original world that he can refer to, this one is a completely new story that Akira Kuroba has never seen before, so he has no storyboards in his mind to refer to, and he has to rely entirely on himself to create Name.

But... isn't this quite interesting?

"Very good... So, the stories for both sides have been chosen. From now until the end of the year, our Literature and Art Department will be extremely busy! Let's do our best, everyone!"

"Oh!" x3

The second round of creative challenges has officially begun.

Chapter 309 Creating a One-Night Cycle in the Harem

Akira Kuroba suffered a difficult childbirth.

He had previously boasted to the members of the Literature and Art Club that he would finish the storyboards for the two comics as soon as possible, but he has now hit a roadblock.

This time, the storyboard was created with a written foundation. The story's development was already set, and all the characters' lines were included. Kuroba Akira's task was to 'select' the most suitable plot points and lines from the text to create the storyboard.

In other words, it's about subtraction and condensation.

Logically, this should be an easier job than creating a light novel from scratch, but Akira Kuroba suffered even more hardship in it than before.

Actually, Kuroba Akira wasn't completely clueless. He had already designed two versions of the storyboard on each side, for a total of four versions, but now they've all gone into the trash.

Either they felt the story's pacing wasn't good enough, or they felt the paneling wasn't expressive enough. They always felt that this level was several notches below the comics they had read before, so they didn't even bother to make any changes and just scrapped it and started over.

Unlike novels, which leave room for the reader's imagination, comics are an art form where what you see is what you get. Whether they can shock the reader depends entirely on the impact of the panel layout.

Furthermore, since this story wasn't written by Akira Kuroba himself, he had to thoroughly understand both stories before designing the storyboards.

At the same time, he also felt the pressure of bearing the expectations of many people.

Moreover, the reason he was dissatisfied was that the works he compared with were the super-long sports comics he had read in his previous life. Those works were all masterpieces that stood out from hundreds or even thousands of comics and were enough to leave their mark on the history of comic popularity.

Akira Kuroba also overlooked this point, failing to realize that his standards had become too high, which is why he relentlessly pursued higher quality storyboards.

After starting over four times, he began to reflect on his situation. If his reading background was not the problem, then where was the problem?

Is it because my drawing skills are insufficient? Is that why I can't express the images I want in my mind?

No, there are also manga artists like ONE whose drawing style is rough, but who can still draw wonderful stories. For example, when Takagi Akito was designing storyboards for Bakuman, he could only draw stick figures.

Storyboards do not require particularly advanced drawing skills.

Moreover, Kuroba Akira has improved quite a bit. When he was discussing and designing light novel illustration storyboards with Aizono Moe, he learned a lot and started to try drawing to show the angles he wanted, so his drawing skills have improved a lot.

While it's a pipe dream to have him lead the comic book art, he's certainly capable of handling some simple tasks as an assistant.

So the problem is... a lack of imagination!

It's not that I can't express the images in my mind, it's that there are no images in my mind at all!

The stories similar to Keijo Girls on the class president's side are alright, because most of them are fan service scenes. The stories themselves are not particularly complicated. It's just that Kuroba Akira wanted to give people a feeling of hot-blooded battles in addition to the borderline, since doujinshi can be drawn like hot-blooded manga with a lot of tension.

Kuroba Akira knew very well what was missing here: that feeling of 'leaping off the page'. Although the final effect would depend on Aizen Moe's meticulous processing, if Kuroba Akira didn't provide a clear division of panels and content from the very beginning, then no matter how superb Aizen Moe's drawing skills were, she wouldn't be able to bring about a qualitative change in the image.

Only if Kuroba Akira's lower limit is high enough can Aizen Moe's upper limit be raised even higher.

We may need more reference materials, such as watching videos of women wrestling, to get inspiration for storyboarding.

There's still a way to solve this problem, but the other side is much more complicated.

The one Shiori Shirai chose isn't particularly unusual in terms of its setting, and the story is quite typical. The sport she selected is baseball, the most popular sport in Japan.

The story begins by stating that legend has it that when two high-speed bullets collide, they 'merge' together, and at that moment, the souls of the two people are swapped. So, when two baseballs collide... will their souls also be swapped?

Well, of course it will happen, since the highlight of this story is the role reversal between the loser and the replacement partner.

The story revolves around a male protagonist with excellent pitching skills who is forced to become a catcher due to congenital physical deficiencies. He swaps bodies with a second male lead who is born with powerful pitching ability but lacks control over the ball. Both gain the missing weapons and then dominate the battlefield.

The most troublesome part of this story is that it requires creating two main characters at the same time.

In short comics with limited space, there will always be instances where one of the main characters shines too brightly.

Simply put, the distribution of screen time and highlights is uneven.

Another issue is that he is currently struggling to handle the changes in the two protagonists' mindsets after the switch. Although Shirai Shiori's novel describes this part in detail, it is impossible to cram all of that text into the manga.

The relationship between the two is also... childhood friends who grew up together. It's obvious that this is a story designed by Shiori Shirai based on her relationship with Moe Aizono.

However, Akira Kuroba felt that something was missing, or rather, the protagonist's mindset, who lacked physical talent, should be more than just that.

Speaking of soul swapping, it reminded Kuroba Akira of the twin sisters. One of them was talented, and the other was not, which perfectly matched the manga's setting. Isn't that a coincidence?

Perhaps seeing how their story ends will help us figure out how to handle the changes in the two main characters' mindsets.

"Does inspiration come from life...?"

Thinking about it like this isn't going to solve anything, so Kuroba Akira decided to put down his pen and go do some 'source gathering'.

……

November 15th, Friday.

After school, Kuroba Akira went straight to the next classroom to find Hikawa Makoto, as the two had previously agreed to go watch Saionji Makoto's match together.

However, the fact that Kuroba Akira sought out Hikawa Makoto still caused a small stir at school. After all, Hikawa Makoto was known for being aloof in her class and rarely paid attention to anyone, so everyone was quite surprised to see that she actually paid attention to Kuroba Akira and went with him.

Moreover, Kuroba Akira is now quite well-known at school. Although it's mainly because he won over one of the school's beauties, Anri Hitomi, and they show affection for each other every day, which is why everyone knows about this lucky guy, Kuroba Akira, people also know him because of some 'bad rumors' about him.

During the last cultural festival, many people saw Akira Kuroba with Hitomi Anri and another student from Shirayuri Girls' High School browsing the exhibition together. So there were rumors that Akira Kuroba was actually a two-timing scumbag. Some friends who cared about Hitomi Anri even told her about it, but Hitomi Anri just laughed it off.

After all, outsiders would never know the complicated relationship between them.

However, since Shion Murasaki was a student at another school, and students who knew her at Shirayuri Girls' High School also heard from their friends that Shirayuri Girls' High School didn't seem to have such a student, the rumors gradually died down, and everyone thought it was probably just a rumor.

After all, if it were true, Hitomi Anri wouldn't allow her boyfriend to be entangled with girls from other schools, right?

It's also possible that, somewhere no one knows, Anri Hitomi has already dealt with her love rival... No one knows the truth.

But this time, Kuroba Akira openly asked a girl from his own school out, and it just so happened to be Hikawa Makoto, who ignores everyone else. This reignited the scumbag trend that had just subsided.

After all, there's only so much going on at school. What students love to gossip about most is who's dating whom, who's broken up with whom, and if there's any fighting or jealousy over who gets the girl, they can talk about it for weeks.

The most ridiculous thing is that before leaving the school, Kuroba Akira went back to his class to tell Anri Hitomi, "Makoto and I are leaving now."

Then Anri Hitomi replied with a playful smile, "Yeah, but you guys better not go to places you shouldn't behind my back, okay?"

This surprised everyone around them, and Makoto Hikawa was especially displeased after hearing it.

Hitomi... she already knows about her casual sex relationship with Kuroba Akira?