『Akira』: "Not good, Miss Shimizu, I was warned by Mr. Sasaki today!"
『Rin』: "What happened? What's wrong?"
『Akira』: "He thinks my manga drawing speed is a bit over the top and warned me not to draw so fast in the future."
『Rin』: "?"
"I'm going to sleep."
...
『Rin』: "I'm really going to sleep this time, goodnight."
...
Looking at the final conversation with Rin from last night, Akira couldn't help but curl his lips slightly.
It had already been three days since he first met and started working with his three assistants.
Just as Daisuke had predicted, the artwork for Chapter 4 was completed yesterday, and the finished manuscript had already been handed over to Hisashi.
Not only that, although Hisashi said there was no rush for the storyboard of Chapter 5 for the time being, he had still sent over the completed storyboard the night before last.
After it was reviewed and confirmed that no parts needed modification, he finished drawing the line art for Chapter 5 yesterday.
Therefore, this morning, Daisuke's trio began working on the remaining parts of Chapter 5.
It took one day to create the storyboard, one day to draw the line art, and two days for the assistants to complete the rest—the entire process took four days.
In reality, during the two days the assistants were working on the previous chapter, he could complete the storyboard and line art for the next chapter, forming a perfect cycle.
Under these circumstances, he and his studio actually only needed two days to finish a single chapter of manga!
This was the speed at which he and his studio created manga—a full 3.5 times more efficient than a normal manga studio in the industry!
And this was achieved while the studio was operating on a 9-to-6 workday schedule.
If they ran at full efficiency like other studios, this time could be further compressed.
Terrifying, absolutely terrifying.
Then, just as he told Rin, he was warned.
Every issue of Weekly Shonen Jump contains a card called the Reader Survey Questionnaire, where readers are asked to fill in their three favorite works from that issue and mail them back to the editorial department.
By the way, to encourage readers to send back the questionnaires, they would also hold small lucky draws, such as an autograph from a certain manga artist.
After collecting all the mailed cards, the editorial department would randomly select one thousand cards to compile statistics, thereby deriving a popularity ranking of the works.
This ranking is called the shōsei ranking, which is entirely based on reader votes. It is calculated in real-time, not disclosed to the public, and is internal data used by Shonen Jump.
The famous Table of Contents Ranking is actually the final public ranking after the editorial department adjusts the shōsei ranking based on various commercial considerations.
For example:
The shōsei ranking usually determines the order of works in Weekly Shonen Jump.
If a work's shōsei ranking is 15th, then in the next issue, it will appear at the 15th position when flipping through Weekly Shonen Jump in order.
However, for newly serialized works, even if the shōsei ranking is not ideal, they are generally given a higher sequence for commercial reasons, placing them as close to the front as possible.
This is Shonen Jump's 'newcomer protection period' for new works, which generally lasts for eight weeks.
If the new work's shōsei ranking remains low after that, it enters a critical observation phase to determine if it needs to be scrapped.
Now that the shōsei ranking has been introduced, we can finally return to the main topic—
Because the shōsei ranking is so important and can directly determine the survival of a work, it is the data that both editors and authors value most.
After the weekly ranking data comes out, whether the ranking rises or falls, the editor and author will discuss and analyze it.
Especially in cases of abnormal drops or rises in ranking, efforts must be made to find the reasons and adjust or modify the original design as needed.
It was precisely for this reason that Hisashi did not want him to draw too many chapters at once.
If they encountered a part that needed modification, wouldn't all the subsequent content be rendered useless?
Therefore, it was best to follow the manga's serialization cycle—drawing one chapter per week.
He readily accepted this; after all, for him, it just meant things became easier.
However, this raised a new question—
After finishing one chapter of manga, how should he arrange the remaining free time in the week?
"Mochizuki-sensei, it's time to eat!"
Suddenly, Hayato's call pulled him back to reality.
"Okay, coming."
He responded while walking out of the bedroom into the living room; Hayato and Shota had brought back food.
Except for the first day, these past two days, the two of them had taken the initiative to handle the task of buying food and bringing it back from outside.
Although he could cook, he only knew how to make some Italian and Little bit of Chinese food.
In addition, after spending several days together, the four of them had become much more familiar, and Akira had gained a general understanding of the three's personalities—
Hayato had a more extroverted and enthusiastic personality, appearing somewhat careless, but he was actually the type who was meticulous in his work—a bit of a contrast.
But it made sense; if one's drawing was also careless, it would probably be very difficult to debut, right?
Shota was the type whose personality and work style were both delicate; he didn't speak often when they were together and was someone who preferred listening.
And Daisuke was a reliable adult male; not only was his professional ability top-notch, but whenever Hayato or Shota consulted him with questions, he would answer them patiently.
Back to the topic.
The four of them sat in front of the coffee table, eating while listening to the midday news.
The news mentioned that singer Utada Hikaru's album 'First Love' had surpassed 6 million copies in sales, becoming the highest-selling musical work in the history of Japan's Oricon Charts.
As of now, these sales were still continuously rising.
And from a sensory perspective, 'First Love' was being played everywhere on the streets of Tokyo; it was indeed incredibly popular.
More importantly, this singer named Utada Hikaru was only 16 years old this year.
"16 years old?!"
Hayato clicked his tongue exaggeratedly:
"Doesn't that make her even younger than Mochizuki-sensei?! How scary—!"
"Have even geniuses started appearing in piles recently?"
Daisuke smiled and said:
"I think it's probably because geniuses are more conspicuous, and the media is more willing to report on this kind of subject..."
Listening to their conversation, Akira scratched his cheek and didn't join in.
Utada Hikaru was indeed a true genius, but he probably didn't count.
After all, he was using cheats.
Speaking of which, six million album sales...
How much money would that make?
Speaking of money, he couldn't help but sigh.
Reasonably speaking, he wasn't such a greedy person, but he also hadn't expected that after becoming a manga artist, he would become so poor!
Mainly, the manuscript fees wouldn't be paid until the end of the month. Right now, he was still living off the remaining 2 million and a bit of his own savings, and now he had to pay the salaries of three people. Just thinking about it gave him a headache.
As expected, he still needed to make money!
...Right.
Speaking of which, since he had already become a serialized manga artist, it seemed he could proceed with the next step of his plan.