Beginning

Akiyama Sakura did not want to give up drawing. She was an artist and she loved to paint because it made her feel alive. But in the end no matter how many panels she painted, no one seemed to care.

She already had enough bills stacked up and the piles were not growing any less. If she wanted to be honest with herself, the reason why she painted was to make a livable wage just like everyone else.

Sakura is an artist with big dreams but she has limited opportunities. She lives in a small town called Kurayoshi. The population is less than 200,000 people, it is no wonder that a web search hardly shows a town on the map. Sakura puts in more than 16 hours of work each day but it is often overlooked.

Sakura is getting to the point that it seemed like her talent would never be recognized outside of her family and friends. Then came a day when Sakura uploaded a YouTuube video of herself drawing on a foldable panel that was layered in gold pigments, a crane flying elegantly over a majestic mountain.

Sakura gazed intently at the panel as she muttered, "Okay, here goes nothing. I know this is a long shot, but maybe someone, somewhere will see my art piece and like it. Who knows? I could be the next Yokoyama-san"

Sakura made reference to an artist that became the founder of one of Japan's notable artworks.

Sakura begins the process of video editing, cutting out scenes she thought were unnecessary and progressing to adding or readjusting time stamps on the video recording.

Sakura clicked "upload," on the screen of the YouTuube page. She followed the prompts on fields or areas that she had to input the required information. She went through a series of checks to see if she had done everything right. When she was satisfied, Sakura closed the laptop, and went to sleep, hoping that this time around something big would come her way, and someone somewhere would notice it.