Chapter 16 – Last Hurdle
571 0 16
X
Reading Options
Font Size
A- 15px A+
Width
Reset
X
Table of Contents
Loading... please wait.

It was 8 in the evening, there was an unknown Anime playing in the background, something about a man-dog with a samurai sword teaching kids about manners. Is this what passes for sesame street in Japan? His sister Yukari ate it all up. She's your typical nerdy otaku girl but still has a healthy social life in school. Perfectly normal.

Alex tried to observe and watch the anime for a few moments as his mother came in through the door and smiled at him, she then proceed to sit beside her daughter and hug her. the three of them spend some quality time watching junk anime television during dinner. There's only one thought that was going through his mind when he was watching that anime,

" It was utter trash, what in the? Does something like this pass for an anime in this world?"

Yukari simply looked up at her brother and said as she saw her brother terrible annoyed face while watching the anime,

"Something wrong Oni-chan?"

"The show is...terrible, how could you even stand watching such a thing?"

" But it's good! there's a lot of dogs and cute sounds"

Her mother simply laugh it off and pat her on her head, as she didn't mind the badly drawn cartoon and low-quality production and watched it with her daughter, but her son certainly does.

" It's alright, she's still a child"

"hmm...I'll definitely make an anime, a proper children's anime for my sister...just you wait"

Yukari roll out her tongue in protest

"Muumuu! I'm not a kid! you don't have to make a children's anime just for me, just make something...umm, pretty!"

Alex didn't pay much attention and kept observing the horrible anime, He wonder if there was anything similar to his childhood? Anpaman? Goraemon? Samurai XX? okay...Samurai XX isn't exactly a children's anime, but it's something he grew up with back in his old world.

Alex's mother Katherine could only smile wider at what she just said and simply nodded at him, and went back to watching the horrible anime with her little sister.

Alex could only shrug it off and went back into his studio/room. Back in the studio, sitting on a chair, He picked up the brush again to start drawing again, but instead, he looked around and find that the room was a mess.. Just when he was about to clean up the discarded drawing pieces of paper that were covered and littered around the room during the day and was about to throw them away when a piece of paper that was splintered with ink attracted Alex's attention.

This sketch was taken during the day, when I was taken into the system Mindscape to check out the new System mall, the G nib in my hand was not controlled properly, the ink bleed out of the nib, and the lines were distorted. However, the more he looked at it, the more that Alex feels something about this drawing. The rough jagged spill of the ink and the thick lines gives him a sense of heroic release.

Holding up the drawing in the air, Alex holds it up to the lamp! at very this moment! From this sketch, he felt a new way to break through his current rut and finally completed his technique!!

"Maybe it will work, I won't know till I try it!!" there was excitement in his heart.

Why was it so difficult for him to improve his style before? That's because Alex uses shoujo-style brushwork to draw everyday life and heroic lines to draw battles, thus the two are not in harmony with each other! There was dissonance in the artwork. There was no balance.

Painting like this that neither tow the balance of shoujo-Esque manga or Action Horror Edgy manga and just settling it in between, and in the end, even Alex was even confused about the two drawing methods!

Moreover, to have a sense of gap,! Alex only wanted to make daily slice life panels more delicate, and didn't even consider the style around those battle scenes, And now? Alex plans to change it! This time, not only did he have the right feeling, but he also found a direction on where to improve. In the evening, Alex had an extremely strong sense drive to test this out. Kyoto Ghoul's initial art style is about duality, from making to ghoul and vice versa. the essence of humanity in ghoul and the essence of ghoul within humanity, interchanging within the art style portrayed, switching on a whim.

It is okay to be wrong sometimes, but this time? He has a good feeling about this. For the scenes of the protagonist In his daily life between Gen and the other characters, Alex will use an alternate painting method, revealing a hint of impulse and hidden angst and edge hidden within the delicate art, but during the battle scene, Alex will directly let go of himself and go wild, but reserved in temperance subtlely, as there is elegance in battles as well in pure Carnage, in the original author's original In terms of the style of painting, He made several risky bursts of ink wild brush strokes and replaced the pen with a brush for sketching! And the pen gives a sense of unrestrainedness that other nibs do not have, but still retains the softness of that shoujo style,

It works! Look at your images, look at the final results!
 

....

Day by day, Alex's manga has not appeared on the JAMP portal, which makes Kameda's mood even better and better every day. In addition, his own works have been in the first place from the first day until now. The fluttering in his heart has made him lose his vigilance towards the kid and has started to celebrate for himself in advance. One day, Kameda-san, who had been in some sort of honeymoon period for a few days, returned to his house drunkenly.

Just as he was about to fall asleep, the phone rang.

"Kameda-sensei, congratulations! your "Green Sky" manga has amassed around 600,000 votes now, there are only two days left, and no one should be able to surpass you!"

Ishida, his editor-in-charge, sent a congratulatory message to Kameda-san. Although it isn't the last day of the competition, they have already started to celebrate their victory.

"Thank you Ishida for editing for me, although I won the first place, the final selection till the last day, Till the entry is closed who knows? someone else could be number one!"

"Of course, I am number one! Who else could it be other than me?."

Kameda was drunk and pretended to be modest, he's saying one thing but meaning another in his heart, even the manga industry has its own set of politics."Kameda-sensei!, don't worry! no one is going to trump over you this late! That first place is already yours!" That editor in charge of Kameda tried to flatter him even more than he's used to, no matter who listened to the hypocritical tone of these two scoundrels, if someone actually heard about it, they would feel that two shady men were talking about doing something that's up to no good.

"Thank you for your kind words, Ishida! What else can you tell me?"

Just when Kameda was bathed in this blatant flattery and was going to listen to more of his editor's praises, his assistant called, he's on the other line, and the blip keeps blaring red on the coms.

" oh wait, my assistant is calling, doesn't seem important so give me a second!"

Without thinking about it, Kameda hung up the phone of his assistant and wanted to continue to enjoy the praises of his editor, but after he hung up, that damn assistant quickly called again,

He hung it up.

he called again,

hung up, he called again

hung it up!

In the end, Kameda could only say goodbye to his editor. Right now he is full of anger wanting to take up the call and fire him immediately. After getting on the phone, Kameda-san, was extremely upset, he wanted to scold his assistant well then fire that guy! But before he could speak, he was startled by his assistant's contact barrage immediately,

"Kameda-sensei! It's bad!! bad! super not good!"

"Damn it you're fired!!"

he shouted drunkenly, and after this shout, he wanted to slam the phone shut but...

"No! Sensei wait!! A newly submitted entry suddenly jumped up to 21st place within 6 hours! It's like riding a rocket!"

"Newly submitted series? n six hours? How is this possible! Are you sure you read it right?!"

"Absolutely not!" The assistant's tone was very affirmative.

"What's the name of this comic! Send me the link to it! Also, who's the author of it?"

"The name of the series is " Kyoto Ghoul"! Its author is..." The assistant opened a report from the Sapporo Times Newspaper from a week ago from that " My World" project, subconsciously reciting the biggest title, "The rising star with the same Legendary name...Tochigi."

................

 

Lilian was watching the rankings as well together with her protege, that new entry popped and got her riled up really fast, she's been smirking the whole time, Kikite didn't like it, she didn't like it one bit. Who is this new kid on the block? why is her sensei soo preoccupied with his manga? Her ego was bruised. she didn't like it one bit.

Lady H(Haruka) Kikite, was born and raised by a Southern American Father and a Japanese Mother. She was a student at the University of Hokkaido in the engineering department, didn't like the semester and bailed out, took up Art instead so she went ahead and left the University and head towards Sapporo College of Animation, where she met her lecturer,

One of the greatest Shoujo manhua Mangaka that ever graced the streets of Japan, that person was Lilian Akamatsu. like all Hafu she tends to be interested in Japanese anime culture too. She took an interest in manga and anime at an early age, and the series she has always been reading was romance manga from Lilian Akamatsu.

She was elated when Lilian took her under her wing when she became her assistant, but she was still new in this industry, didn't know any other authors and mangaka either, there was one Mangaka that was often brought up in discussion within the anime circle around her sensei, and that's this guy " Tochigi" Raindrops. 

She read about it, It was brilliant. The soft art style and minimalist text that focus on artwork and portraying character through rain and emotion were breathtakingly unique. She could see a lot of her Sensei's earlier style was emulated from this manga book. But this book was published around 13 years ago, The author had died recently, So why is her sensei gushing on about this new fake " Tochigi" person? is he not a simple copycat? She looks down on others, especially plagiarizers, so Kikite thought this was another one of those people who wanted the Clout. but then she looked at the artwork of this guy.

She looked at the submission, from her phone.

"Kyoto Ghoul"

"That art style...what is this?"

Something started to beat in excitement inside of her heart, palpitating, she could feel it, But what is this feeling? That art feels somewhat familiar yet, strikingly new and bold as well. Something stirred, and Kikite doesn't know what to feel right now, is this jealousy? she felt envious of this guy? her? These aren't the musings of a copycat, this new "Tochigi" is trying to evolve the former art...just like what her teacher did.

"Who is this guy?!"

Rank 21 and is climbing higher and higher, the votes didn't stop as it kept pouring,

Six hours ago...during the Afternoon

  
"Where's Mr. Alex right now?"

As soon as she entered the studio he wasn't there in his seat. Aya saw Ueno with Alex sleeping on the floor as she sat next to him putting a blanket on his body. Ueno put her index finger between her lips, made a "quiet" gesture, and motioned towards the sofa with her eyes and fingers.

Following Ueno's gaze, Aya slowly carried the young man with Ueno and brought him to the sofa, although he's bulked up in a month, he was still relatively skinny and underweight, Aya was surprised at how light this man is when she carried him.

"Alex has been drawing for the past three consecutive days. During the day, I often come and visit to cook some lunch for her sister, I hardly see him take any breaks, he probably only slept a few hours and soldier on towards his work"

Ueno took out a document inside a tote bag.

"This is the manuscript that Alex asked me to hand to the editor when he finally fell asleep. Please take a look at it."

Taking over the manuscript, she hugged it tightly in her arms, this was the fruit of his labor for the past three days, He really did it.

"Have Miss Ueno read this manuscript?"

"Yes."

"Then can you give me a few of your thoughts before I review it?"

"You wanted to know my thoughts? well..."

Ueno thought about it seriously and contemplated what she saw earlier, a small grin came crawling towards her beautiful face, 

"If this artwork doesn't get the first place? then I think the first place can only be reserved by a series written by the gods"

Faced with such a high evaluation, Aya really didn't say much about it, she just nodded slightly, looked at Alex who was sleeping soundly on the sofa with some hidden complexity on her face, and took the manuscript, bowed slightly towards Ueno-san, and left. Time is of the essence right now.

She look back at Ueno and said

" Leave the last hurdle to me, I'll make sure he gets the first place!"

Ueno nodded with a glitter in her eyes, 

"Please don't let him down"

 

...........

Katherine came to work with a smoke machine from her home and installed it at the front of the cafe she worked, a cafe in the afternoon and evening, a Bar at night. The "Deluge" club and cafe she work for the past few months after her beloved passed away. Her boss gave it the go after she heard what Katherine proposed, if this could boost her sales for the cafe "Deluge Sapporo Cafe and Club" why not? Besides her, her only colleague Monica came to her help and helped her out.

"A smoke machine Katherine? why are you installing it into one of our glass advertising panels? And...what's with the paper cup?"

Katherine smiled and showed her a blueprint of what she was about to build, it looks rather simple since even someone who doesn't know how to install it would know how to do so with these simple to-do blueprints.

"My son thought of a way to boost our cafe and bar sales, it's something he calls Guerilla Marketing, it doesn't hurt to try"

it was a smoke machine hooked up to a glass panel with a simple cup in the middle and some obscure writing. When the smoke was not being produced, the writing couldn't be seen, but when the smoke was turned on, the vapor would reveal the writing within the glass panel

-Welcome to Anteiku-

https/jamp/KyotoGhoul

vote and get your coffee with 10% 

discount

 

her colleague asked her what the meaning of this word

"What is ...Anteiku?"

Katherine just smile and said

"My son's cafe, it's on one of his manga, you should read it"

The marketing work, people are intrigued by the smoky writing as they passed by and see a hidden message from within, their cafe opened with a full line after an hour of setting up the glass panel, it's bringing in a lot of crowds, take away mostly, but the effect was instantaneous. It was a resounding success.

-Mcdonald's guerilla marketing 2012

16