Chapter Two: Proposal and the Cherry Blossom Weekly
A professional manga artist, and a part-time High School Student!
Xia Jing's expression was odd as he looked at Su Qingxiao's outstretched hand, but since she didn't mind, he certainly didn't either. He gently took her hand and said, "Xia Jing."
"But Su Qingxiao, you said you're a professional manga artist… Does that mean…" Xia Jing began.
"You've already published manga serialized in a magazine?"
"Oh, very perceptive," Su Qingxiao finally waited for Xia Jing to understand this point, a modest smile, long prepared, appearing on her face.
"I started serializing manga in Sakura Color Weekly when I was thirteen. To date, I've published two short manga series and one medium-length manga series. The third most popular manga currently serialized in Sakura Color Weekly, 'sorrowful tale,' is my work…"
sorrowful tale?
Xia Jing's expression was blank. That name.
Xia Jing muttered to himself.
"You're not Nisio Isin Time travel, coming here to draw a sequel, are you?"
But he knew about Sakura Color Journal.
Broadly speaking, there are currently six major manga magazine publishers in the Xia Kingdom's manga industry.
Each of these six major manga magazine publishers has a magazine that sells over ten million copies weekly in the Xia Kingdom and surrounding countries.
However, in the vast manga market of the Xia Kingdom, with its over a billion people, besides these six behemoths and their large-scale journals whose distribution channels span the entire country and even abroad, there are also a large number of second, third, and fourth-tier manga magazines with sales ranging from tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, to over a million.
Sakura Color Weekly is a manga magazine popular in the areas and provinces surrounding Modu.
It belongs to the Huanmeng Group, just like Fantasy Dream Comic, one of the six major journals.
Of course, it is not a manga journal of the same magnitude as Fantasy Dream Comic. It is a third-tier journal for manga artists who have signed with the Huanmeng Group but whose works do not meet the quality standards for Fantasy Dream Comic.
It sounds quite ordinary.
But in reality, for a person's work to be signed and published, even in a third or fourth-tier journal, is equivalent to being a top-tier existence among ordinary manga enthusiasts.
It's like the national football team; although everyone criticizes them for being bad and wonders if they even reach fourth-tier professional standards globally, in reality, if Xia Jing were to play, he would most likely still lose to them.
Especially given Su Qingxiao's age… fifteen, and with three works published and serialized, she can already be called a manga genius.
Oda and Kishimoto, the great gods of his previous life, were still amateurs at that age.
"Oh… that's impressive," Xia Jing complimented.
Su Qingxiao's eyes narrowed.
She could tell that Xia Jing actually had no idea about her work, sorrowful tale; he had only heard of Sakura Color Journal.
After all, it was just a "niche" manga magazine with a weekly circulation of a few hundred thousand, and most of the serialized works were emotional, shoujo-oriented. It was perfectly normal for a boy like Xia Jing not to have read it.
It was just… she couldn't help but feel a little disappointed.
Su Qingxiao's identity as a manga artist was unknown at school because she couldn't really connect with ordinary readers who knew nothing about manga creation and would only mindlessly complain about poor artwork and plot. Today, she deliberately revealed her hidden secret to Xia Jing, a manga youth who also had exquisite drawing skills and was clearly not just a passing fancy, simply because she had a lot of creative expression about manga that she wanted to confide in someone… yet he didn't even know her work.
Pushing down the negative emotions in her heart, an interesting thought suddenly flashed through Su Qingxiao's mind.
Hmm… Although I've only seen a few pages of five centimeters per second, it should be an emotional romance manga, right?
How about… "Xia Jing, your manga seems to have quite a few pages drawn already," Su Qingxiao looked at Xia Jing.
"Yes, I've already drawn over a hundred pages. At this rate, I should be able to finish this work in the next two or three days," Xia Jing said.
"Then have you ever thought about publishing it?" Su Qingxiao asked, a smile playing on her lips as she looked at Xia Jing.
"Of course I've thought about that," Xia Yan said.
"I'm not thinking about the six major journals for now; it's basically impossible for them to accept submissions from New Manga Artists. But other journals… sigh… I don't know how to choose," Xia Jing sighed.
Don't be fooled by what you hear about New Manga Artists constantly appearing in Shonen Jump and similar weeklies in his previous life; that's all nonsense.
In reality, they might have debuted years ago under a different pen name, won awards in New Manga Artist competitions, and serialized some unknown works in obscure journals, accumulating industry connections and editorial resources, before finally having the opportunity to change their pen name and serialize manga in Jump.
Including Oda, although he only started serializing One Piece at 22, he won second place in the Tezuka Award at 17. The five years in between were all spent in accumulation, and he also published some short works and won awards. How could a masterpiece like One Piece suddenly appear?
It's the same in the Xia Kingdom.
No matter how good Xia Jing's submitted manga is, it's not that a submission from a pure amateur is impossible, but editors are largely too lazy to look at it. Even if they do, the editorial department will directly reject it at the serialization meeting.
If he wants to serialize manga on such platforms in the future, he must first serialize works in some second, third, or even fourth-tier manga magazines to accumulate experience and fame, plus establish some connections, only then will he have a slim chance of successfully submitting to the six major manga journals.
So, if the six major journals are out of the question, Xia Jing is left with the hundreds of second, third, and fourth-tier manga journals on the market.
Firstly, he had no connections to the editorial staff of these manga journals. Secondly, he was still a student, so submitting in person was very troublesome, and the time cost of waiting for rejections was huge. To be honest, he had been struggling with choice paralysis for the past few days.
"Then how about this…" Su Qingxiao's face broke into a gentle smile upon hearing this.
"Would you like to submit your work to my manga editor and see if you can be serialized in Sakura Color Weekly like me?"
"Eh? Sakura Color Weekly, isn't that a shoujo manga magazine?" Xia Jing's expression froze.
"That's a stereotype, you know. Who told you Sakura Color Weekly is a shoujo manga weekly? To be precise, it's more like an emotional manga weekly. There are many youth emotional manga in it too…" Su Qingxiao laughed.
"Although I don't know the general plot of your five centimeters per second, judging from the art style and some of the plot I've seen, it is indeed an emotional work, isn't it?"
"Yes, that's right…" Xia Jing paused and nodded.
"The male lead is also drawn very handsomely, right? Especially the female lead… she's drawn quite cutely," Su Qingxiao said.
"Yes… that's right," Xia Jing nodded.
"Since that's the case, why can't you submit to Sakura Color Weekly?"
Uh… Xia Jing couldn't find a reason to refute.
"But most of what's popular in Sakura Color Weekly are beautiful, gentle, and joyful romance and emotional works, right? For five centimeters per second…" Xia Jing said with a strange expression.
"Did one of the male or female leads die in your five centimeters per second?" Su Qingxiao asked in surprise.
"No, it's just that the ending is quite regretful."
"Then it's not a tragedy. What are you afraid of? Romance and emotional works often have regrets. Can you find a purely joyful emotional work with absolutely no regrets?"
But I also can't find an emotional work that is full of regrets and completely joyless! Xia Jing frantically complained in his heart.
"Besides, it's just a try. It might not even get published, so you don't need to worry too much…" Su Qingxiao said.
Of course, her most direct purpose was simply that she thought it would be interesting to submit her schoolmate's work to Sakura Color Weekly.
Xia Jing, you don't know about my work, do you?
If your work is submitted to this journal and actually gets a serialization opportunity, you'll eventually pay attention to Sakura Color Weekly, right? Then you'll also pay attention to my work… And then, every week, when you find your popularity ranking is below my sorrowful tale, you'll definitely understand how amazing I am, right?
Of course, if the submission doesn't pass, then you'll understand my strength as a manga artist of the same age even more.
Circling around like this, Su Qingxiao actually had a tiny bit of a manga artist's vanity at play in front of Xia Jing, who was her age.
Xia Jing looked at Su Qingxiao's clear, bright eyes filled with anticipation, thought for a while, and then nodded with a slight hesitation.
Indeed, this would cause him no loss.
Although this newly met schoolmate's sudden willingness to help him made him quite uncomfortable, Xia Jing wouldn't harbor any malicious suspicions towards a High School Student.
Perhaps she was just happy to find someone at school who also loved drawing manga?
"Well, alright then. Please, Su Qingxiao, help me put in a good word with your manga editor…"
"Naturally, you're my schoolmate, after all~ I'll definitely help you," Su Qingxiao's eyes immediately filled with a smile, curving like crescent moons.
"Then you'll have to speed up your drawing progress. From what I know, in the next two weeks, several serialized short manga in Sakura Color Weekly will conclude, and several serialization slots will open up. Keep up the good work!" Su Qingxiao said to Xia Jing with a smile, raising her fist.
"Oh… oh!" Xia Jing quickly made the same gesture in response.
At this moment, the afternoon's preparatory bell rang, and Su Qingxiao quickly packed her bag and headed towards the classroom.
"Then it's settled. I'll call my editor tonight and tell her!"
Xia Yan stood for a moment, pondered for a long time, then put away his things and prepared to return to the classroom.
He had decision paralysis, so since Su Qingxiao had helped him make a choice, he wouldn't dwell on it anymore.
"Sakura Color Weekly, huh…" Xia Jing murmured softly.
The afternoon quickly turned into dismissal time. Xia Jing returned home alone. Creating during lunch break was merely a way to save time; the real manga drawing had to happen at night.
That night, Xia Jing felt incredibly clear-headed, his concentration extremely focused.
And when he was drawing the final plot of five centimeters per second, it was even more of a smooth, continuous flow.
When he came to his senses, he only saw before him a scene of a man, a faint smile seemingly on his lips, turning around with a sense of relief, vividly appearing on the paper.
The lines were not complex, but the character's emotions seemed to emanate from his smile and eyes.
At least, when Xia Jing saw it, his heart ached again; the visual storytelling was too powerful.
"I drew this?" Xia Jing was stunned.
This drawing skill and emotional depth, it was a huge leap compared to his previous life as a struggling manga artist.
Moreover, the time it took to draw this page was at least twice as fast as usual.
Drawing quickly was understandable, but the expressive power of the plot and visuals was something else; that was a matter of talent.
Could it be that the soul fusion also brought an enhancement in this aspect of talent?
...