"That's exactly why I'm here," Kai replied.
He'd drawn the Death Note one-shot instead of a long-running series specifically with the Tezuka Award in mind.
He needed to grow and push his art and storyboarding to the next level.
He also needed the prize money to improve his life and build a foundation for a serialization.
For a manga artist, a running serialization alone wasn't enough to make real money. Most of the manuscript fees went straight to paying assistants' wages.
Being able to save a few tens of thousands of yen a month was already impressive.
To actually make money, you had to rely on collected volume sales.
But even a successful serialization was still months away from its first volume release. Three or four months at minimum.
By then, it would be far too late.
...
Heishi kept looking over Death Note, liking it more with every page. He couldn't put it down.
It suddenly dawned on him that the young man sitting across from him might become his trump card.
Yu-Gi-Oh!, the series he'd poured his heart into managing, was pulling mediocre numbers with fluctuating popularity. As someone gunning for the Editorial Group Leader position, he desperately needed a hit manga under his belt.
Heishi stood up and asked in a noticeably gentler tone, "What would you like to drink? Coffee or orange juice?"
"Coffee, thank you."
The cold, all-business expression from before had vanished completely. The warmth that replaced it was so sudden it actually made Kai a little uncomfortable.
Heishi stepped out of the reception room and came back shortly with two cups of coffee. He placed one in front of Kai and leaned forward after sitting down, looking like a man settling in for a long conversation.
"Death Note is very interesting. It's a rare subject for Weekly Shonen Jump, but it has a wild, unconstrained imagination to it."
"The mystery plotting is also strong. The logic holds up all the way through. The art is clean and easy to follow without falling into the trap of being wordy or overly complicated."
"Placed against a sea of battle manga and school-life stories, it might just cut right through the competition."
Death Note wasn't a typical fit for Weekly Shonen Jump, true. But as long as a manga was interesting, that was enough.
When a manga was brilliant enough, the market had to bend around the work.
Ordinary manga artists studied the market and drew whatever would be popular with readers.
Genius manga artists just drew what they liked and succeeded anyway.
In Heishi's view, Kai Fujin was the latter.
"You're right." Kai didn't make much of the praise. He calmly picked up his coffee and took a sip.
Heishi was caught off guard and looked up at him.
'How arrogant... No, his work really is that good. It's not arrogance. It's confidence.'
He cleared his throat. "However..."
Kai set down his coffee and sat up straight. Everything before this was just pleasantries. Now came the part that mattered.
"Your art skills are fairly average. You have the basics down, but that's about it. You can't pull off the kind of visual impact that elevates a great plot. Instead, your art actually undercuts the atmosphere you've built."
"For example, here."
He flipped the Death Note storyboards to the scene where Ryuk first appears.
"Kagami Taro has been wound tight with tension for a while now, and right when he finally lets his guard down, the Shinigami appears behind him out of nowhere."
"Ryuk has bulging eyeballs and a face like a beast. The feeling you want to give the reader is horror and dread."
"But Fujin, the effect you've drawn is pretty weak."
"Ryuk's form is distorted, and the facial shadows are all in the wrong places. He looks more like a clown than a Shinigami."
He pulled out a pen and a notebook, flipped to a blank page, and wrote down a long list of titles.
Then he tore off the sheet and handed it to Kai.
"You can buy these reference books and study them. It'll make a difference. Especially this one, Japanese Paper Animation Techniques. It breaks down space and perspective really thoroughly."
"Thank you. I will."
Kai gave a slight bow and carefully tucked the paper away.
"Good." Heishi nodded. "Next is storyboarding. This part is critical. The narrative rhythm of a manga lives and dies in the storyboards."
"No matter how interesting the story is, if the storyboarding is a mess, the readers still won't stick around."
Japanese manga storyboards worked like movies, treating each panel as a shot and constructing the story by combining those shots to build scenes and convey emotion.
A handful of shots strung together could express an entire beat of the narrative.
When readers looked at a storyboard and a movie started playing naturally in their heads, that was what excellent storyboarding looked like.
"Your storyboarding needs a lot of work," Heishi said bluntly. "The panels are stiff and dull, and the sizes are all basically the same. That makes it impossible to highlight key moments or land any emotional weight."
"Your visual language is lacking too. You haven't learned to use different angles effectively, things like high-angle shots, long shots, close-ups, or low-angle shots."
Heishi lived up to his reputation as a veteran editor.
Even though he didn't draw manga himself, his understanding of the craft was sharp and detailed, and he picked apart every one of Kai's weaknesses without hesitation.
It only made Kai more satisfied with his choice of editor.
Heishi talked and Kai listened closely. Time slipped by, and neither of them was in any rush.
About an hour passed before their conversation finally wound down.
"Thank you, Heishi-san. I learned a lot today."
Kai thanked him sincerely.
After hearing everything Heishi had to say, it all clicked into place. His understanding of manga had sharpened dramatically.
It was like the clouds breaking apart to let the sunlight through. A moment of genuine clarity.
"It's my job." Heishi nodded calmly. Then he asked, "Fujin, what's your goal here? Getting selected? Landing a serialization? Or..."
"Number one in the rankings," Kai answered without hesitation. "I want to become the number one ranked manga artist in Weekly Shonen Jump, surpassing Masanori Morita-sensei and Nobuhiro Watsuki-sensei."
Heishi didn't think he was being arrogant. If anything, he nodded with satisfaction.
"A manga artist signing with Weekly Shonen Jump needs to have that kind of conviction."
He held out a business card. "My phone number is on here. You can reach me anytime."
Kai gave him his landline number in return.
"Let's leave it there for today, then."
Heishi stood up. "The results for the Tezuka Award will be out on April 18th. I'll contact you that day."
In the newcomer awards for manga submissions, there was a hurdle called the Finalist stage.
What Heishi meant was that Death Note would definitely make it through to the finals and compete for the prize.
He was fully confident in Death Note.
"I'll be in your care."
Kai shook his hand and walked out of the reception room.
Heishi stayed behind, narrowing his eyes as he watched Kai's figure recede down the hallway.
"A dazzling rough diamond. It's already shining before it's even been polished."
"I got lucky meeting Fujin today."
He glanced up at the clock and stretched his arms.
"Well, looks like I'm working overtime tonight."
...
Furuta was still standing guard in the lobby.
When he spotted Kai, his eyes went wide.
"Your... your manuscript?"
Kai pointed back toward the reception room. "It's with Editor Heishi."
"That means..." Furuta looked stunned. "You got the editor's approval?!"
"You could say that." Kai gave a small nod. "I got lucky, really."
Furuta's expression twisted with conflicting emotions, too many feelings tangling together inside him at once.
His old classmate, who had looked so beaten down just a little while ago, suddenly had a bright future opening up in front of him. The quiet sense of superiority Furuta had been carrying around evaporated on the spot.
The security uniform on his back started to feel heavy.
"E-even with an editor's approval, there's... there's still only a one-in-ten chance of actually getting serialized, you know."
"I know. Thanks." Kai waved his hand. "See you around, Furuta."
He didn't seem bothered at all and left at an easy pace.
Just then, the front doors of Shueisha swung open and someone walked in. A young man with a small, round face.
Kai made eye contact with him as they passed each other.
At that moment, someone called out from behind:
"Oda! Hurry it up!"
"Yeah, yeah, coming!"
Kai turned his head, and his eyes went wide with shock.
"He's... Eiichiro Oda?!"
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