Besides the manga mentioned above, if he didn't mind the trouble, he could completely expand beyond the manga field. He could also cast his gaze towards works in the fields of anime, light novels, and visual novels, and adapt these works into manga.
Compared to manga, which can be copied entirely, the troublesome part of choosing these works is that he would need to design the storyboards himself, but it would still be much easier than being completely original.
Anyway, the problem of drawing is the least of his concerns. As for storyboard design, as the saying goes, "Great writers copy, great poets steal," he could just gather the strengths of many masters.
Hmm...
Because there were so many works to choose from, he couldn't make up his mind for a moment. While brainstorming, his gaze unconsciously scanned back and forth across the desktop, as if looking for some inspiration.
Just then, his gaze accidentally fixed on a piece of drawing paper, and he froze slightly.
On the paper, a blonde girl in armor stood with her hands resting on a sword, her gaze directed straight ahead with a stern expression; it was the classic character he had drawn himself this morning—Artoria Pendragon.
"?!"
At this moment, he suddenly shuddered, and a bold idea emerged in his mind—how about drawing the Type-Moon Series?
He immediately sat up straight, sank into deep thought again, and began to seriously examine this idea.
To be precise, Type-Moon is not a single work, but an abbreviation for a series of works under the "Type-Moon Worldview" created by the writer Nasu Kinoko.
This mainly includes Witch on the Holy Night, Tsukihime, the garden of sinners, Fate/stay night, and a series of their follow-up and derivative works.
Among them, the most widely known, most popular, and most profitable is undoubtedly the series of works starting and originating from Fate/stay night, which is the fate series.
The Artoria he drew is one of the heroines in Fate/stay night, as well as the most widely known and super popular character in the entire Type-Moon Series.
And the work that flashed through his mind just now that he wanted to draw was none other than Fate/stay night.
Fate/stay night, abbreviated as FSN, is a visual novel game that landed on the PC platform on January 30, 2004, with the two core figures of the Type-Moon world—Nasu Kinoko in charge of the script and Takeuchi Takashi in charge of character design.
The game revolves around the Holy Grail War, where seven pairs of Mages (Master) and heroic Servants engage in a struggle through contracts. The player takes on the role of the protagonist Emiya Shirou, who accidentally forms a contract with a Servant of the Saber class and participates in the battle.
The plot includes three main routes: Fate, Unlimited Blade Works (abbreviated as UBW), and Heaven's Feel (abbreviated as HF). Each main route has a heroine: Fate route - Artoria; UBW route - Tohsaka Rin; HF route - Matou Sakura.
In 2006, the 24-episode TV anime Fate/stay night, adapted by DEEN based mainly on the game's Fate route and incorporating parts of the UBW and HF routes, was broadcast. It was one of the hit anime of that year, and the image of King Arthur, Artoria, also began to deeply imprint itself in people's hearts at that time.
However, for current audiences, what is more widely known might be the TV anime Fate/stay night [Unlimited Blade Works], produced by ufotable and aired in October 2014, which is adapted from the UBW route in the game, also abbreviated as UBW.
Back to the main topic.
As a classic IP that has been popular for over twenty years in the future and remains enduring, the Type-Moon Series, although its commercial value cannot compare to that small handful of top-tier IPs, can still be considered a quite top-tier and long-running series IP.
Especially the fate series, which stands out in popularity, has had endless spin-offs over the past twenty years, making money until their hands went numb, not to mention the release of that super killer app, Fate/Grand Order, in 2015.
Fate/Grand Order, abbreviated as FGO, relying on its high-quality (and uneven) plot, tense and exciting (hypnotic) card battles, and the support of countless Tsukihime Fan, has remained at the forefront of mobile game sales rankings for ten years, and can even reach the top of the list from time to time; it can be said to be the most profitable episode.
In short, commercially speaking, at least there's no need to worry about the question of "whether drawing Fate can make money."
However—
"This isn't going to be easy to draw."
Mochizuki Akira tapped his forehead lightly with his pencil.
If he were to really draw FSN, the most troublesome part would be how to adapt it from a visual novel game into a manga.
As everyone knows, because the stories between each route in a visual novel game are different parallel lines, it is very difficult to adapt. Whether it is an adapted manga or anime, it is almost impossible to fully restore all the plots of the original.
Therefore, when adapting a visual novel game, two methods are generally adopted.
First, try to adapt and merge all the routes of the original work into one story line; second, only adapt one of the story lines from the original work.
The former is the anime, and the latter is the '14 UBW.
So, if he were to adapt the original FSN into a manga and serialize it on Shonen Jump, what should he do?
In fact, in this case, rather than focusing on adapting FSN, it would be easier to give up this spur-of-the-moment plan and choose other manga works.
But Mochizuki Akira didn't think of giving up or choosing something else at first; instead, he felt somewhat excited and began to think about further questions.
Alright, he's coming clean.
As an anti-Type-Moon critic who has long been lurking among the Tsukihime Fan community, unable to stand the various terrible works produced by a certain mushroom, he had actually wanted to do this for a long time!