"Mochizuki-sensei received the 『Selected』 for the Tezuka Award?!"
Really?!
Looking at the Tezuka Award winners list published in this week's issue of Shonen Jump, Masashi Kishimoto was stunned.
Although he knew that Akira was a complete newcomer before serializing Fsn, he hadn't expected that while submitting Fsn directly, he had also submitted a one-shot manga to the Tezuka Award.
More importantly, this one-shot manga even won the top prize of the Tezuka Award!
You know, his own debut one-shot manga, "Robot," was only submitted to the Shonen Jump monthly award.
And "robot" was his second entry; the first was a one-shot manga called "Samurai Arrives," which sank without a trace after submission.
In contrast, Akira, as a complete newcomer, created two manga: one won the Tezuka Award's top prize, and the other passed the serialization meeting directly!
—What terrifying strength and talent.
He is truly the genius Manga Artist recognized by all of Shonen Jump.
More importantly, he remembered that the other party seemed to be only 18 years old, right?
Thinking of this, Masashi Kishimoto couldn't help but reveal a bitter smile; to say he wasn't envious would be a lie.
But soon, his gaze became firm again.
With his average talent, if he wanted to compete on the same stage with such a monster, he had to work even harder!
Fortunately, the shōsei results for the manga this week had improved, indicating that his current drawing style was fine; he just needed to keep at it.
But having said that—
He looked back at the published list of Tezuka Award winners. The one-shot manga created by Mochizuki-sensei was called "Emiya Kiritsugu," which shared the same name as the adoptive father of Shirou in FSN.
Could they be the same person?
What kind of story would Mochizuki-sensei's award-winning one-shot tell?
He was itching with curiosity and wished he could see this one-shot manga immediately.
Unfortunately, it wouldn't be published until early December.
Sigh.
He sighed and said, "Let's just draw manga first."
Regarding the Tezuka Award win, although the noise on the internet subsided quickly, in this era, online voices represented only a minority of a minority.
The voice of the masses could only be heard in reality.
So, to be safe, Akira specifically explained the situation to Hisashi.
To this, Hisashi also indicated that it was not a big problem.
Although the Tezuka Award was the most important newcomer award for Shonen Jump, the vast majority of Shonen Jump readers didn't really care about it.
Or rather, many people were not very interested in one-shot manga.
Therefore, those who paid attention to this award were mostly industry practitioners, or aspiring Manga Artists preparing to submit their work, and finally, a small number of loyal Shonen Jump readers.
However, this time, there might be quite a few fans of Akira and "Fate/stay night," perhaps even accounting for the vast majority.
Actually, if it weren't for Akira being among the winners this time, the announcement of the Tezuka Award might have been like usual, without stirring up even a ripple of discussion.
But regardless, they had a clear conscience regarding the selection results, so there was no need to worry too much.
If a situation arose where they absolutely had to respond, at most, they would just need to explain it briefly in the author's note at the end of the next manga chapter.
Furthermore, Hisashi smiled and suggested, "Perhaps this event could also be mentioned in the upcoming author dialogue; it should be a good topic."
"Well, let's talk about that later."
Akira smiled helplessly.
However, after confirming that this matter would not cause any major impact, he felt completely at ease.
Next, it was naturally the routine time for shōsei results.
He originally thought that Shirou's final actions in this chapter would cause some controversy, leading to a drop in the shōsei ranking, but the final result was still 2nd place, the same as last week.
But thinking about it, it made sense; after all, it wasn't until the next chapter that Shirou's embarrassing performance against Rider would be revealed, so this week seemed fine.
In addition, "The Prince of Tennis," which he hadn't paid attention to for a while, seemed to be gradually making its mark; the shōsei results for the last two chapters had maintained a 6th place ranking, reaching the upper-middle level.
But at the same time, the situation for another work he had previously paid attention to was not looking good— "The editorial department has decided that 'zombie powder' must end in the next four chapters."
It was called an ending, but it was actually a cancellation.
The rankings for the first few chapters of "Zombie Powder" had been hovering between 15th and 17th place; the facts proved that its seinen-leaning style was not suitable for Shonen Jump; it had gone to the wrong place.
"The next four chapters? That means it will end in early December."
Hearing this news, Akira felt a bit of pity.
Although he had long known the fate of this work, he had originally thought that if "zombie powder" could last until after the New Year, he might have had a chance to meet Kubo Taito at the Jump New Year's party.
Now it seemed there was no chance.
And the birth of "Bleach," according to the timeline of his previous life, would probably be in 2001.
But that wasn't necessarily accurate; after all, it was a parallel world; who knows, maybe it would be earlier?
Of course, it could also be delayed.
Having said that, regardless of the outside noise, there was only good news for Akira and Fsn currently.
First, the production of the second tankobon volume of FSN was about to begin.
The second tankobon volume would contain chapters 9 to 18 of the manga, a total of 9 chapters, including the battle with Illya and Berserker, which was the most exciting battle in the manga so far.
As for the various color pages and bonus content, there would certainly be no shortage of them.
Secondly, there was progress in the sales of the first tankobon volume.
"As of now, the first printing of 300,000 copies is almost sold out, and the second batch has already started printing; this time, we will also print 300,000 copies."
When reporting the results, the corners of Hisashi's mouth couldn't help but turn up slightly; he was in a very good mood.
At the same time, he explained: "For a new serialized manga that hasn't been adapted into an anime yet, and has only been serialized for a dozen chapters, this sales figure can be considered quite outstanding."
If it could be said that "Fate/stay night" previously had only popularity but no sales, and thus had a shaky footing in the manga world, there were no such concerns now.
As long as Fsn could continue to maintain this level, he could even say without hesitation that this was completely the next pillar-level manga of Shonen Jump!
However, on the other side, Akira simply did some quick math—the price of the first tankobon volume was 420 yen, his royalty share was 7%, and with 300,000 copies sold, the final income was 8.82 million yen.
And that was just pre-tax.
Compared to the money earned from writing songs, this money felt more like extra income.
Therefore, he remained calm about it.