Full-time cartoonist

"That's weird to say."

In the studio, Omori suddenly spoke.

Hibiki Higashino is reading a comic, "Detective Conan" by Gosho Aoyama. This work has been serialized since 1994. It is a unit type work, but there are also main lines interspersed in it.

I really don’t know what the author is thinking, there are so many murderous strategies?

He also felt strange.

Hearing Omori's sigh, Higashino raised his head and asked, "Please speak?"

Omori turned his chair and faced Hibiki Higashino. He asked very seriously: ""Shogi Spirit" was completed in 1996. Why hasn't it won the "Shogakukan Manga Award" yet? "

"The same goes for "Slam Dunk", which has been serialized for three years."

From its establishment in 1955 to the present, the Shogakukan Manga Award has gradually established an authoritative status and has always been an annual event in the Japanese comics industry. The prize money is 1 million yen, which is a great honor.

For cartoonists, it is a sign of recognition.

Higashino Hibiki, who is currently the most popular jumper, has never won the "Shogakukan Manga Award" for any of his works, which is really strange.

Higashikata Hibiki never cared about this, he always had the attitude of "if you have something, take it, if you don't have it, forget it."

When Omori mentioned this, he couldn't help but wonder.

"I don't know." Dong Yexiang shook his head.

"Hiss~ Is it suppression by the industry?" Omori took a breath.

Shogakukan is affiliated with "Weekly Shōnen Sunday", one of Japan's three major comics. Mitsuru Adachi and Rumiko Takahashi are both signed cartoonists of Sunday.

The era when "Baseball Heroes" and "Ranma 1/2" were serialized was the era of Sunday.

However, Sunday currently has the lowest sales volume among the three major comic magazines.

The circulation number counted on Sunday in 1998 was 1.7 million copies, which was far less than the 4.25 million copies of "Weekly Shōnen Magazine" and even less than the 5.12 million copies of "Weekly Shōnen Jump".

Dong Yexiang glanced at him and said, "Don't think so wildly."

Many of the outstanding works on Jump have won the "Shogakukan Manga Award", such as "Yu Yu Hakusho" by Yoshihiro Togashi.

There is no need for Shogakukan to cause trouble for Hibiki Higashino.

Maybe it has something to do with your age.

After all, I was still a student before, and winning the award would arouse public opinion and lead to bad effects.

"Let's get serious about drawing comics," Hibiki Higashino said to Omori.

"Yes." Damori nodded.

…

It has been three months since the "Slam Dunk" national competition was serialized.

The novelty of the national competition makes readers very excited, and the serialized content also contains many wonderful performances, which has always kept readers talking about it.

For example, Rukawa Kaede played despite being sick.

His left eye was swollen and unable to open due to an elbow hit by Toyotama's general Nanlie.

You can only play with one eye.

This affected him so much that he almost missed the ball.

Rukawa Kaede walked into trouble.

When Kaede Rukawa took a free throw, he trusted his experience of millions of pitching trainings, closed his eyes, and let his muscles work hard to hit the basket.

There was something sacred about this scene, and the sense of fate between Rukawa Kaede and basketball burst out. After that, Rukawa Kaede's popularity quickly surpassed Mito Yohei and rose to third place.

He has a cold and unobtrusive personality, and he only focuses on playing basketball. As a result, although he has written a lot and his wonderful shooting is one of the best in "Slam Dunk", his popularity has been hovering around fifth or sixth place.

The character development of Rukawa Kaede in the national competition is better.

He continues to demonstrate his strengths and make up for his shortcomings little by little.

Not only Rukawa Kaede, Sakuragi Hanamichi also scored a jump shot.

This is a very common technique in national competitions, but for a novice like Sakuragi Hanamichi, it can be said to be a miracle.

He continues to improve and become a real player.

There was a tacit cooperation between the electric Miyagi and the three-point shooter Hisashi Mitsui. Mitsui kept shooting three-pointers and the score kept getting closer.

Toyotama's scorer Nanyeol was confused and made repeated mistakes.

Seeing Rukawa Kaede, who was severely injured by him, still continuing to play, guilt engulfed his heart.

As a result, in the last five minutes of the game, the two sides were tied at 81:81.

…

Torishima Kazuhiko sat in the cafe with his head raised and waited. Not long after, someone walked into the cafe.

At this moment, Torishima Kazuhiko seemed to feel a sense of familiarity.

That was in 1993, when he made an appointment with Tori Akino.

He had a strong sense of foresight, and it seemed that the future jump era was about to begin with this person.

He will become the mainstay of Jump.

The future belongs to Tori Akino Mirai, to Oda Eiichiro, and to him.

For a comic magazine to be recognized by readers, a pillar is essential.

"Fist of the North Star" and "Dragon Ball" before jump, and now "Slam Dunk" and "One Piece" are all mainstays.

In the future, print magazines will face even more challenges. With an aging population and more and more entertainment options, Jump’s loneliness is right in front of Torishima Kazuhiko’s eyes.

Therefore, it is essential to discover masterpiece-level works. Jump has more and more newcomer comic awards, and there are grand awards every month, just for this.

In 1997, "One Piece" began to be serialized.

If it hadn't been for the emergence of "Slam Dunk", "One Piece" would have been the first pillar of jump, and Eiichiro Oda would have become the savior of jump.

The man in front of me is the same age as Oda and started serializing at about the same time. He is also considered a genius and has the same talents as Oda.

Torishima Kazuhiko has high hopes for him.

He is Mitsunen Shimabukuro, the author of "The Biography of the Leaders of the End of the Century".

Last year, Jump specially arranged for "One Piece", "Hunter" and "The Legend of the End of the Century" to be screened as spin-offs at "Jump Festa", which shows its recognition of Shimabukuro Lightyear.

He is a cartoonist who is as valued by Jump as Eiichiro Oda and Yoshihiro Togashi.

"Chief Editor Torishima, I'm sorry I'm late." Shimabukuro Lightyear lowered his head and then sat down. "I was working hard on drawing comics and forgot about the time."

He grinned and continued.

"It doesn't matter, I didn't wait too long." Torishima Kazuhiko said.

He was always tolerant of geniuses.

"The Biography of the Leader of the End of the Century" serialized by Shimabukuro Mitsunen is a comedy comic with a rough and powerful style of painting, which is known as "Tarzan Comics".

In short, his painting skills are much better than Oda's.

And he is only 24 years old now.

It would be difficult to do this if it weren't for the love of comics.

Today Torishima Kazuhiko made an appointment with Shimabukuro Mitsunen to discuss comic issues with him.

On Jump, comedy comics have limitations. It can be serialized for a long time, such as "Oolong Police Station", but it is impossible to get the first place.

The only thing that can stir up readers' emotions is Wangdao comics.

The gap between Shimabukuro Mitsunen and Oda is now due to the selection of materials for their works.

The talent of Shimabukuro Lightyear can be seen in "The Legend of the End of the Century Leader", and Torishima Kazuhiko decided to discuss this with him.

I hope that his next comic series can create works on the same level as "One Piece".

"Yeah, when I came here today, I heard a lot of people discussing "Slam Dunk". This is really a national-level comic. It's so awesome, Mr. Tori Akino."

Shimabukuro Lightyear was filled with emotion as soon as he recovered from the hot summer.

Although his grades are very good, there is still a big gap between him and Tori Akino's future.

"The national competition chapter is really good."

Torishima Kazuhiko nodded proudly when he heard what he said. This was the man who dug it himself.

Today, Jump’s circulation remains at 5.1 million, mostly due to “Slam Dunk”.

"The results were already very strong, but when it came to the national competition, the popularity was even higher, which I didn't expect," Torishima Kazuhiko said.

He originally thought that this was the limit, but he didn't expect that Tori Akino would make a move in the future and let him see the sky higher.

"Because the drawings are very interesting. Mr. Tori Akino's character creation is really amazing. I originally hated Nan Lie, but after watching the latest plot, I fell in love with Nan Lie's story."

The game between Shohoku and Toyotama is different from the past. Shohoku's story is not explored, and it mainly describes the Toyotama basketball team.

Nan Lie finally recalled his original intention in Rukawa Kaede who never retreated. He started playing basketball because he liked the sport.

But because in order to win, he planned to scare the opponent from the beginning, and now he is becoming more and more extreme in his evil tactics.

To win is more important than anything else.

Nanlie thought so.

Just like Mitsui met Coach Anzai, Nanlie, who began to reflect on himself, met Teacher Kitano again.

He was still the same as before, with a gentle smile on his lips.

Bei Ye did not rebuke Nan Lie.

Instead, he talked about how he was currently training for youth basketball and brought his children to watch basketball games.

only……

"The kids were watching the game and frowning..."

I heard that Toyotama was Kitano's former team, so the children came to see it, but what they saw was Toyotama's unscrupulous behavior.

He finally showed a reproachful expression and turned to leave.

"Teacher Kitano! Do elementary schools also use this run-and-gun tactic?" Nan Lie couldn't help but ask.

"It's still 80% offense and 20% defense, but it's no longer run and gun."

"All in all, it's enough to make them happy."

This sentence deeply shocked Nan Lie, and he was awakened.

"have a good time……"

When he was a teenager, he simply loved basketball, watching games and training just because he loved basketball.

His eyes became more and more penetrating.

Because of Nan Lie, Toyotama's players finally regained their original dream. In the last two minutes, they took off their shackles and focused 100% on the game.

In the end, they recovered 6 points and lost to Xiangbei with a gap of 4 points.

"In terms of character analysis, Tori Akino-sensei is the strongest cartoonist." Shimabukuro Lightyear lamented that his sudden flash of inspiration was a bit too weak in the face of such a plot.

Torishima Kazuhiko nodded, "The original intention of basketball is to get happiness from playing basketball because you like it. The team with poor quality at the beginning was finally baptized, and the work was sublimated. Tori Akino's painting is very good."

Another Mitsui Hisashi, the story of the prodigal son always makes people like it.

"At that time, "Slam Dunk" had gradually reached its peak because of Hisashi Mitsui, and now it has reached a new level because of Toyotama," Torishima Kazuhiko said: "This is the charm of passionate comics."

Funny cartoons can never be compared.

The plot that people talk about is always like this.

This is what he wants to tell Shimabukuro Lightyear.

"I understand." Shimabukuro Lightyear accepted the lesson with an open mind.

"I admire Oda very much. His talent is extraordinary. And he always thinks that Tori Akino is ten times more talented than him. I still have a lot to learn from Mr. Tori Akino."

"Before I serialized comics, I should have worked as an assistant to Tori Akino-sensei and studied for a while."

Eiichiro Oda once told him that when he was an assistant at Tori Akino Studio, he could learn as many things as a mountain and enrich himself every day.

He has never served as an assistant, which has become his current disadvantage.

Sometimes it's not good to be too talented.

Torishima Kazuhiko was very satisfied, which was one of the reasons why he came to see Shimabukuro Lightyear.

He secretly worked on a small project, hoping that Shimabukuro Lightyear could make up for his shortcomings.

…

Hibiki sneezed several times in a row, he was used to it.

I've been working too hard recently, and my body's immunity has declined, so I'm very likely to catch a cold.

Fortunately, Omori came, and his workload dropped a bit, and he was finally able to sleep four hours a day.

"The 16th single volume of "Slam Dunk" has started to be released."

Unconsciously, three and a half years have passed, and "Slam Dunk" has also been serialized to episode 178. Time flies too fast.

Akimiya Akemi said to him: "The first edition of the single volume of the first volume is probably 500,000 copies."

"That's right," Higashino Hibiki was deeply impressed by this. This is an honor that "Soul of the Game" cannot get.

Although "Soul of Chess" has achieved very good results, it is now close to reaching an average of one million copies. But the first edition of 500,000 is still too difficult.

"What is the first edition of Volume 16?" Akimiya Akemi was curious.

Omori also looked over, this number must be legendary.

"2.3 million copies," Hibiki Higashino held the phone, his mouth opening wider and wider.

The first edition of 2 million copies has already broken the record. I didn’t expect Jump to have the courage to sell the first edition to 2.3 million copies.

This is confident that the 16th volume of "Slam Dunk" can sell more than 2 million copies in a short period of time.

"Bravo……"

Omori exclaimed.

This number was unimaginable to him, it was simply a miracle. Only today's "Slam Dunk" can achieve this.

Impossible even in "Dragon Ball".

"Why is it so high?" Akimiya Akemi asked.

"Mr. Sasaki said," Hibiki Higashino said: "Jump wants to sell more than 4 million copies of each single volume of "Slam Dunk"..."

Currently, the sales volume of each single volume of "One Piece" is only over one million.

"Dragon Ball", which once ranked first, has sold an average of about 3.5 million copies per volume.

4 million copies is a figure that has never appeared before.

Because of the national competition chapter, the popularity of "Slam Dunk" has increased, and the average sales volume of a single volume has increased from 3.8 million to 3.88 million, but there is still a long way to go before it reaches 4 million.

Hibiki Higashino remembers that the single volume of "Slam Dunk" written by Takehiko Inoue did not reach four million copies in the end.

"I really dare to think about it." Dong Yexiang gasped.

"It's really possible," Akimiya Akemi nodded seriously, "Now is not the same as before."