Just In Time

August 1, 2019

Shizuka was reading the newly-published chapter of Break The Ice, which was the sex chapter that she had originally planned. Just in the nick of time, she had pulled it off, and as she read the chapter while sipping in a cup of tea, she nodded and said to herself, “Not bad for someone working in a rush to fix it and get it out there.”

As she finished reading the chapter, she heard a knock at her door. Knowing it was Chieko coming in to work for the day, she got up and raced to the door, opening it as her assistant said with a smile, “Good morning, Hiratai-sensei.”

“Good morning. Come on in. I was just reading the latest published chapter of Break The Ice.”

“I’m glad we were able to get it finished in time,” Chieko said to her as she walked in. “I was getting a bit worried there by the end.”

“I knew we would pull it off. With me, you, and Kunugi-san, anything is possible.”

As Chieko set her work bag down at her desk, she asked Shizuka, “So, what’s the agenda for today?”

“Today, we’re gonna start up the storyboard for the October chapter and finish the storyboard for the September chapter. Once you’re all set to go home, Kunugi-san and I will get work started on a page or two of the September chapter.”

“Sounds good to me.” Chieko then pulled out her pens, pencils, and markers, laying them out on her desk.

Shizuka then passed her an unfinished page from the September storyboard. “Finish the backgrounds and shading for me on this one.” Chieko took the page and went right to work. Overall, the mood in the office was much better than it had been in July, with seemingly everything going to plan and nothing going wrong anymore.

…

Meanwhile, Akari and Kazu were having lunch together at school, with Akari sketching out an original character she had created. Kazu looked over from his lunch and noticed, asking her, “Kunugi-san, who is that?”

Akari immediately stopped and flipped a page to cover up what she had been drawing. “Uh, n- nothing…”

“Come on, it has to be something. It looks pretty good.”

Knowing she could not hide it from him forever, she sighed and flipped back the page to reveal the character, who was a teenage girl with sharp teeth, claw-like nails, cat-like eyes, and carried a revolver in her right hand while also carrying a sheathed sword on her belt. “Here.”

“Hmmm… Interesting. What series is she from?”

“She’s not from any series,” Akari explained. “I, uh… I have an idea of my own, actually.”

“Do you want to make your own manga like Hiratai-sensei?”

“Well, yeah.” She then flipped to another page to reveal a logo for something that she had been designing, which was in both Japanese and English. “The title I’ve settled on is Kaiho.”

“Kaiho… Hmmm, like a sort of release or liberation.”

Akari further explained as she flipped back to the page with the main character, “The rough idea is that it’s about an oni girl who is raised by humans after his family is massacred by the Tokugawa Shogunate. She is told of what happened to her biological family one day, so she goes out and kills the samurai who killed them, only for his retainers to hunt down and kill her adoptive family. After this, she finds the other oni, who are all in hiding, and joins them in a war against the Shogunate. It’s basically a battle manga.”

“Sounds like it would do pretty well,” Kazu replied. “Everyone loves battle manga.”

“I don’t know if I would ever get it published. I mean… I’m still pretty young.”

“If you want,” he pointed out. “You could refine it over the next year or two. Have you told Hiratai-sensei about it?”

“No, no, no,” she said almost immediately in reply, shaking her head. “I’m not brave enough to show her that.”

“Come on. I think she would enjoy it.”

“No,” she insisted. “She’s got enough on her plate. Besides, I’m there to work as her assistant, not as someone pestering her with other ideas.”

“You miss one-hundred percent of the shots you don’t take,” Kazu cheekily pointed out.

“I’ll show it off to her when I actually refine it more,” Akari finally relented. “Right now, there’s barely a damn story. I haven’t even figured out how it ends.”

…

August 3, 2019

Shizuka and Michi had just finished having sex at the former’s apartment early in the evening, which was a first for Michi, as the two had usually ended up at his place. As the two laid in bed together in each other’s arms, Michi asked her, “Didn’t I tell you it was all gonna work out, Shizuka?”

“Yeah,” she admitted. “God, I was so fucking stupid throughout all of that shit.”

“To be fair, Obuchi-san definitely didn’t help matters. What he pulled on you at first was bullshit. Of course, you didn’t really help matters.”

“I’m getting better. I still need some work on the whole ‘taking back mistakes’ thing, but I’m getting there.” She then sighed and told him, “I began talking to Takeo again. He actually was the one who found my destroyed storyboard.”

“Wait, really?”

“Well, a garbage man found it, actually. What he told me was that a garbage man found it in the trash, recognized it since his daughter is a big fan of my manga, and then handed it to him since he lives next door to Takeo and knows he works for Shimizu.”

Michi, amazed by that coincidence, replied, “No shit. What are the odds?”

“I know, right? We got talking a bit, and while we’ve moved on and found other people, we did apologize to each other for what happened when we broke up. To be honest, Michi, we were both pretty stupid.”

“I’m glad to hear that,” he replied to his girlfriend as he slightly tightened his embrace of her. “Too often, I see couples stay on bad terms after a breakup. Even if they never get back together, it’s still nice to make up and apologize to each other.”

“Let me guess. You have a personal connection to that, too?”

Michi chuckled. “You know me too well, Shizuka. Yes, I do. Me and my first ex-girlfriend haven’t spoken to each other in years. I made some mistakes, and I wish I could reach out and apologize to her, even if I don’t love her anymore, but… I know she would rather see me get run over by a bus than talk to me.”

“Holy shit,” Shizuka replied, startled by how much his first ex-girlfriend hated him. “What happened between you two?”

“We had a few big fights over money. I said some pretty dumb shit, and I threw her out. I was young, and to be honest, I was fucking stupid.”

“Well, that’s how we grow, is it not?”

“She told me she would never talk to me again for as long as she lived, so yeah, there’s no chance I could ever reach out to her and apologize, and to be honest, it would probably only bring up bad memories for her, so I think it would be better just to keep my distance.”

“Sometimes,” Shizuka pointed out. “That’s for the best. At the end of the day, you’re a better person now than you were back then, right?”

“I hope I am.”

“Don’t worry.” Shizuka then kissed him on the forehead, telling him with a smile, “I know you are.”

Michi replied by giving her a kiss on the lips before telling her, “I love you. I know I really haven’t said that since we began dating, but I do love you.”

“I love you, too.”

…

August 4, 2019

Shizuka and Akari were working together on a few pages of Break The Ice’s next chapter, with Akari drawing in backgrounds for much of the day. However, aside from that, Akari was also drawing more ideas she had for Kaiho, keeping a sharp eye out to make sure Shizuka did not see her work. As she sketched out a male character, who, like the female character, was also an oni, she thought to herself, “I haven’t even figured out a name for this guy yet. I know he’ll be a prince of some kind, but I still need to figure out the hierarchy of oni society. A goal of mine is to make sure that I don’t just shove romance in at the last minute. I always hated it when manga series would have extremely dense main characters oblivious to love. Kaiho will be different. It needs to be.”

As Shizuka passed along another page to Akari for her to work on, she noticed her drawing the oni prince and commented, “Nice work, Kunugi-san.”

“Ah!” Startled by her, she quickly slammed her sketchbook shut. “You scared me, Hiratai-sensei!”

“Sorry about that. I have another page for you to do. What were you drawing in your sketchbook?”

Lying to her, Akari replied, “Oh, uh, just some sketches I had in my mind. I was just thinking up some ideas, that’s all.”

“That’s how I came up with the characters that would later be published in Break The Ice,” her boss pointed out. “One day, you could make a manga out of the characters you think up in your head, and maybe, you’ll end up published like me.”

“Ehhh… I’m not sure any of my ideas would be popular…”

“Oh, come on. There’s a niche for almost everyone out there.” Changing the subject, Shizuka asked her, “Speaking of different niches for artists, I talked to your mother last month, and she brought up your father.”

“As in my biological father?”

“Correct,” she nodded. “She told me that you still see him now and then, but he doesn’t know you’re working for me. I also heard he’s a graphic designer. I thought that perhaps art runs in your blood.”

Akari paused for a moment to think of a response, and then nodded in agreement. “Yeah… My dad works for a company making advertisements and logos for other businesses. I don’t see him too often.”

“Does he know you work for me?”

“No.”

“You know, if I can, I’d like to speak to him. Do you know how I could contact him?”

“I’m not so sure,” she said as she scratched her head. “His artistic skills are more for… Professional uses. I’m more into art for entertainment and storytelling. Honestly, I don’t really know how I’d break it to him.”

“Would it be okay if I talked to him?”

Akari then reached into her bag and pulled out a business card that had her father’s name, business, and contact information on it. “Use this.”

Curious, Shizuka asked her assistant, “You keep a business card from your dad with you?”

“Don’t judge me for it.”

“Okay, okay, I won’t.” Shizuka then read over his business card and was stunned. “No way. He works for SMY Marketing?! They’re one of the largest advertising agencies in Japan!”

“Yep,” she replied. “He makes a lot of money over there.”

“Holy shit, he’s pretty high-ranking in the company, too.”

“His salary was ¥16 million last year. Granted, he’s gotta pay ¥3 million of that to me for child support, but he’s still making a lot of money.”

“Wow. That’s way more than I make as a full-time mangaka and artist, even with commissions. Anzai-sensei makes just below that, and that’s only because of how successful Uncontrollable Battle is.”

“When you have the clients my dad has, you get paid way more money than you know what to do with.” Akari then turned back to her work. “Anyway, my dad isn’t a bad guy. He’s just really busy. You might not be able to schedule a meeting with him for a while.”

“That’s fair,” Shizuka nodded. “I figured he’d be busy given the clients SMY Marketing tends to pull in. As a matter of fact, a few years ago, Shimizu hired SMY Marketing to help them revamp their marketing overseas due to some troubles we were having selling our manga in the West. Because of them, Break The Ice has been really picking up steam in America, actually.”

“Wait, really?”

“I doubt your dad was involved. We really only used them for consulting. Even so, what are the odds we’d hire the same company your dad works for, huh?”

Akari then remembered some art she had seen posted online. “That explains why I’ve been seeing more fanart for Break The Ice posted by foreigners over the last year.”

“Exactly. In the last two years, sales of my manga outside of Japan have doubled. I’ve even started to get a few commissions from overseas, which really shocked me.” She then looked at the clock on the wall and realized how much time they had spent talking amongst themselves. “Hey, we should probably get back to work. Where do you want to go on lunch break at noon?”

“There’s an interesting cafè I passed on my way here. I know where it is.”

“Sounds like a plan.” Shizuka then turned back to her work and opened up her emails, checking them to see if she got any new messages and finding that she had two requests for commissions from her PictoView account. “Speak of the devil,” she thought to herself. “Both of them are from foreigners. One’s Korean, and the other’s English-speaking, so probably an American. Let’s see how badly they get auto-translated…”

…

August 7, 2019

Shizuka, who had just gotten done with a full day’s work making manga and finishing up the two commissions from overseas, was waiting outside of a coffee shop in Tokyo, checking her watch before she looked around. “Where is he? He said he would be here by now…”

“Excuse me,” then said a man who looked similar to Akari in business attire as he walked up to her. “Are you Hiratai-san?”

“I am,” she replied with a bow. “Are you Kunugi-san?”

“I am.”

Shizuka had now met Akari’s biological father in person for the first time. “Let’s head on in.”

As the two of them stood in line inside the small shop, he asked her, “How did you find out about this place? I go here at least once or twice a week before work.”

“I go here quite a bit too,” Shizuka explained. “It’s not far from where I live and where Akari works.”

“What a coincidence.”

As Akari’s biological father stepped up and ordered a coffee, Shizuka thought to herself, “He definitely is dressed for business. He must have just gotten out of work. Honestly, I’m surprised he was able to make time for this meeting.”

Then, as Shizuka stepped up and ordered her coffee, Akari’s father thought to himself, “So this is the woman my daughter works for. She seems pretty tired. Whatever she did today, she must have spent a lot of time doing it.”

As the two sat down at a table, Shizuka said to him, “It’s good to meet you in person finally. I’m honestly surprised you were able to make this meeting. I’ve heard from your daughter that you’re pretty busy.”

“Normally, I wouldn’t have been able to,” he explained. “Unfortunately, the guy I was gonna meet with today had to cancel because his father passed away. He had to reschedule to next week due to the funeral being tomorrow. Speaking of my daughter, what exactly does she do for you?”

“As one of my assistants,” Shizuka explained. “She helps me with the drawing, inking, and coloring process when I draw pages for my manga, as well as for any other art I may be commissioned to do. Aside from making Break The Ice, I have also made the cover art and insert art for several light novels published by Shimizu, and I also take commissions online. Any online commission I take that either her or my full-time assistant, Iwaya Chieko, helps me with, I’ll give them a portion of the money I earn. Usually, the two of them will draw backgrounds or do inking for me.”

“I see. How often does she work for you?”

“She comes in at least once a week after school for a few hours and then comes in once a weekend for a full day of work. I made sure to remind her to not work too much since she’s still in school. My other assistant is full-time and works a normal Monday through Friday schedule.”

Her father nodded. “I see. When I first heard about it, I was suspicious. You know about the issues with predators online and all.”

“Trust me, I’m aware. I met with her mother and her stepfather before I hired her for the same reasons.”

“As long as she’s safe, that’s what matters to me.” He then sighed, reminiscing about his past. “You know, when I was a lot younger, I tried my hand at manga and doujinshi, actually. That’s how I met her mother. Eventually, I transitioned to working in advertising instead, but the skills I picked up wound up being very useful regardless.”

“I can see where Akari gets her artistic skills from.”

Her father chuckled. “I guess you’re right. I heard you got your start doing fanart, actually. Did you go to Comiket?”

“I still do. In fact, all three of us are gonna go to Summer Comiket this weekend. I still can’t believe they extended it to a full four days.” Shizuka was genuinely surprised that Comiket had extended its operations. “For years, I had heard that there was no way Tokyo Big Sight would ever let them host a full four days, but now, here we are.”

“I remember when it was only two days. They made a three-day event starting with Summer Comiket 1995. I haven’t gone to one in years, but I still see posts about it a lot online. I was just as surprised as you were when they announced it would be four days. I assume you got them all industry badges?”

“I sure did,” Shizuka said as she reached into her bag and pulled out her own personal industry badge. “We all got our badges yesterday in the mail. Iwaya-san wanted to buy her own badge, but I insisted I get her an industry badge.”

“How big is it nowadays? The last one I went to was Summer Comiket 2004.”

“Wow, that’s a long time. They had over 500,000 attendees at both Summer and Winter Comiket last year, with about 35,000 doujinshi circles. They’re projecting up to 750,000 this year.”

“750,000?! Wow! I’m amazed Tokyo Big Sight is allowing that many. I’m also surprised the number of circles hasn’t gone down with how big social media has gotten.”

Shizuka agreed with a nod. “Me too. I do almost all of my work not related to Break The Ice online. I feel like over time, we might see a decrease in the number of circles that go due to more and more of them turning to the Internet for sales. For years, people would scan their doujinshi manga and pirate it, so some circles have taken the step of publishing their work online themselves in high quality. The best way to beat the pirates is to have good content for a reasonable price, after all. If only actual businesses in Japan would understand that, though…”

Akari’s father understood exactly what she was talking about. “I agree. I’ve always been a proponent of putting more things out there online and updating website design, but a lot of these older executives don’t get it. Hell, I’m pretty sure if it was up to them, their websites would look like something out of the Lost Decade, and some of the oldest ones might not even want websites at all. I assume Shimizu is only now realizing the potential for having manga distributed online?”

“Exactly. There’s talks of rolling out an subscription-based online platform for each of the magazines. The plan is to charge the same price for physical releases, and allow people who already have a subscription for the magazines to access them for free. Even so, though, there’s still quite a few people in the corporate side of things, and even some older mangaka and writers, who are hesitant to do it because they fear it will increase piracy. They don’t get that this is the only way to beat the pirates. I’m telling you this now: If Shimizu goes through with this, people will pirate our manga and light novels a lot less than they currently do. I know plenty of people, especially overseas fans, who would love to support us financially, but don’t have an easy way to do it.”

“Trust me. I’m aware. I was around when my company worked with Shimizu to revamp their overseas sales and licensing. From what I heard, it was a mess before we stepped in and fixed it.”

“It was. We signed that deal in 2014 with that American comic book company, but they had a lot of issues with us due to some of the stuff we were doing wrong. They almost pulled the plug on us until you guys stepped in.” Shizuka then finished her coffee. “Wow, that went fast.”

Shocked, Akari’s father replied, “Wait, you’re done already?!”

“I tend to drink and eat pretty quickly,” Shizuka explained. “You do that when you have to finish chapters by a certain deadline and have other projects that need to get done. I could never afford my current lifestyle or my apartment just on Break The Ice alone, especially when it hasn’t been adapted into anything yet.”

“How much do you earn in your current job?”

Getting into detail about her finances, she broke it down for him. “I am currently paid ¥9,000 per page, and given I’m a monthly mangaka and my chapters range from forty to forty-five pages, I make about ¥360,000 per month at a minimum from each chapter. I make at least another ¥60,000 on online commissions per month, plus about ¥20,000 to ¥30,000 for light novel artwork and other cover art Shimizu wants me to make per month. In total, I stand to make about ¥440,000 per month on my art, not counting royalties from manga volume sales, of course.”

Akari’s father was surprised. “That little… I thought you’d make more given you have five years in at this point.”

“I was getting paid less back when I first started. I only made about ¥7,000 per page. I relied a lot more on commissions and light novel art back then. Weekly mangaka get paid a bit more, but to be honest, I don’t think I’m cut for that. Too many mangaka suffer health issues due to it, and I feel like I’d burn myself out if I had a weekly manga, especially one that was very action-oriented and relied on high-quality art. Not to say I don’t put effort into making my own art look good, but drawing romance scenes is different from drawing two characters trying to kill each other in a battle.”

“Makes sense. When I did it, I, uh… I made art that was more on the… Erotic side.” Akari’s father was clearly embarrassed to admit to his past pornographic art. “I assume you know what I mean in this case, right?”

“You don’t have to dance around it, Kunugi-san,” Shizuka assured him. “I make erotic art, too. Hell, I have some erotic art I’ve drawn of Break The Ice characters. I don’t post it since I can’t really post fanart of my own series due to my contract, but it does exist at my apartment. I’ve taken plenty of commissions involving characters from various series having sex or just being nude. There’s no shame in it.”

“I know. It’s just that nobody at my workplace knows since I never used my real name as a doujinshika. I’d rather not have it come back to me since I fear I could lose my job, you know?”

“I get it. I never used my real name for fanart, either. I use the same name I use on PictoView. I can tell you now that there are many mangaka and writers at Shimizu who have drawn or written pornographic art or books. Some, I must admit, have even drawn lolicon and/or shotacon. I don’t judge. You can’t let it get to you when you’re in this industry. For example, I know the author of Uncontrollable Battle, Anzai Michi, very well.”

Akari’s father was floored. “You do? Wow! His manga’s huge!” Like Akari, he was also a fan of Uncontrollable Battle.

“I was actually a huge fan of it before I got hired, and I still am. He got his start making some pretty gory art in the past as a doujinshika, which makes sense when you see some of the violence in that manga.”

“No kidding. I was shocked when I found out Akari was not only reading Uncontrollable Battle, but was a big fan of it like I was. Perhaps she started reading it a bit too young, but I can’t really get too mad at her. I read some pretty messed up manga when I was her age, too.”

“Me too,” Shizuka admitted. “I read eromanga when I was in high school. Every teenager in Japan has seen porn at this point. Anyway, getting back to the original point at hand, Anzai-sensei also drew erotic art and doujinshi when he was younger, which is how he got noticed. Again, not all that surprising given what he’s been able to get away with in regards to sex within Uncontrollable Battle.”

Akari’s father then finished his coffee. “You can say that again. Seems like the only thing they don’t allow is anything below the waist.”

“Exactly. I’ve read the actual rules for what’s allowed in Weekly Riders, Afternoon Riders, and our other seinen magazines, and they say that exact thing. Bare breasts are okay, but no defined genitalia. Same applies to Rose Song, our josei magazine. Of course, in all cases, the editors for manga and light novel series make sure to emphasize that sex doesn’t need to be everything, and that there are limits to how much sexual content can be in a chapter. Shimizu isn’t punishing eromanga, after all.”

Akari’s father then looked up at a clock on the wall and remarked, “Wow, we got way off topic. Sorry about that.”

“It’s fine.”

“Getting back to Akari for a second, is she happy? Does she like working for you?”

“Of course,” Shizuka nodded. “Your daughter is a very talented young woman. I have full confidence that she will achieve great things as an artist. Already as one of my assistants, she has been incredibly helpful. I communicate with her as often as we both can, and I want her to be happy with what she’s doing, too. If anything was going wrong, I’d let you and her mother know as soon as I could. In fact, if she ever wants to become a mangaka, I’ll vouch for her at Shimizu.”

“You’d really do that for her?”

“Absolutely. When you’re been doing this for almost five years, you start to have some pull within the company. I can’t disclose the exact details, but Anzai-sensei has put his neck out on the line before for other mangaka in Shimizu, and people listen to him because of how long he’s worked with us and how successful Uncontrollable Battle is.”

“I’m glad she met someone like you, actually. It sounds like you’re really helping her along. If Akari is happy, then I’m happy. I only want the best for my daughter, especially since me and her mother aren’t together anymore. She took the divorce pretty hard when it happened, but I’ve been able to reconnect with her. She loves doing art, and I want her to keep going. She once told me that it helped her connect with me, even if she doesn’t live with me anymore, which I really loved to hear.”

“I totally get it. I’m glad I came out to see you. It really helps me understand who she is as a person.”