Master of the Machete Style Manga

Chapter 38 Future Film Star Call for Submissions
At the entrance, Ken Sakamoto pointed to the broken wooden door on the other side of the corridor.

"Editor, the restroom is over there. I'll keep watch outside for you."

"Watching?" Keiko Kaji asked, puzzled.

“The lock on that door is broken; it opens with a push,” Ken Sakamoto explained.

“Oh…” Keiko Kaji said, “Then I’ll leave it to you, Sakamoto-sensei.”

Keiko Kaji quickly walked to the bathroom door, knocked on it, and then pushed it open.

Ken Sakamoto consciously moved a little further away to avoid hearing her embarrassed voice.

A few minutes later, Keiko Kaji came out.

Ken Sakamoto continued to carry the manuscript paper and led the way, heading towards the Myōōin parking lot where they had just parked.

Walking along the path leading to Myoō-in Temple, Kaji Keiko leaned closer and asked, "Sakamoto-sensei, are you... having financial difficulties right now?"

After saying that, she added, "I'm sorry... for inquiring about Sakamoto-sensei's privacy. If it's inconvenient for me to say..."

“There’s nothing inconvenient about it.” Ken Sakamoto shook his head and said, “I am indeed short of money. The editor has seen where I live. Actually, I have a debt of more than 30 million yen, and I don’t know if it can be waived.”

He sighed and said, "If it can't be waived, I'll have to discuss an installment plan with the creditor..."

He certainly had this debt last week as well.

A public interest lawyer helped with the lawsuit and managed to reduce the amount from over 3300 million to 2500 million, with interest waived for the next five years. However, it was still a huge sum.

Therefore, the mediation resulted in the agreement that Sakamoto Ken would repay the money in installments after graduating from university.

However, before he could even start paying it off in installments, a wealthy young lady helped him pay it off...

This time, Kenjiro Sakamoto has no intention of living off a woman again. He can only rely on his own efforts to earn this huge sum of money, since he still wants to live a normal life in society and his credit record cannot be ruined.

"Thirty million?!" Keiko Kaji exclaimed in surprise. "How could it be so much?"

“It’s what my father left me, and it’s been accumulating interest for years,” Ken Sakamoto said calmly. “I was tricked into inheriting his property, but I ended up with nothing but debts. Even the house we lived in back then is now in someone else’s name.”

"I'm sorry to have made you bring this up..."

Keiko Kaji didn't press the matter further; she felt her heart grow even heavier.

He recalled what he had said to his monk friend in the parking lot earlier.

Sakamoto-sensei used to be so poor that he couldn't even afford to eat...

Living alone during middle school must have been very difficult.

That's why he paints so diligently, right?

It's all to earn more royalties to supplement the family income...

“Sakamoto-sensei, generally speaking, we editors don’t want to distract writers, but considering your writing speed, so…”

Keiko Kaji picked up her phone and looked through it, saying, "Actually, there's a big manga award coming up recently. They need short manga that's easy to adapt into film or television. It has foreign capital backing and the prize money is really high."

"Short comic book appreciation?"

Keiko Kaji nodded and said, "You know Netflix, right? They've set up a film and television team in Tokyo, hoping to further expand into the Japanese market. Once a work is selected, there's an advance payment for the copyright. Even the third prize is 50,000 yen, in US dollars."

“Editor, I remember there was a clause in the contract stipulating that we couldn’t publish manga with other publishing houses during the contract period,” Ken Sakamoto said.

Keiko Kaji shook her head and said, "The manga part is a collaboration with Shueisha. Our company will also be responsible for the publication of the award-winning manga. It's just that the film and television adaptation rights need to be licensed to Netflix."

"Does the editor have specific information about the call for submissions? I'd like to know more," said Kenjiro Sakamoto.

Keiko Kaji said, "I've already sent it to Sakamoto-sensei's email, but you have to promise me that you'll prioritize finishing the 'Chainsaw Man' manuscript."

“Of course,” Ken Sakamoto readily agreed. “I will prepare this short story in my spare time outside of the two episodes per week.”

"Oh? Sakamoto-sensei already has an idea?" Kaji Keiko asked.

“Hmm, I’ll consider which one to choose,” Ken Sakamoto nodded and said.

"You had many ideas at the same time?" Keiko Kaji was somewhat surprised.

Ken Sakamoto shrugged and said, "It wasn't a sudden inspiration; it was mainly something I had accumulated before."

“Oh, that’s a really good habit,” Keiko Kaji praised. “I’ve heard some famous writers talk about their creative experiences, and they all have one thing in common: they accumulate inspiration over the years.”

After dropping Kajiko off at the parking lot, she took out her car keys and unlocked the door. "Alright, I won't bother you any longer, Sakamoto-sensei. If you need anything, just give me a call anytime." Kajiko gestured as if making a phone call, and said, "Creative, personal, anything."

"Okay, I'll try not to bother the editor."

“That’s too formal,” Keiko Kaji waved her hand and said, “The profession of writer is very special. Everything in life affects their writing, so taking care of writers is our job as editors.”

"Can you help the writer pay off his debts?"

"Haha, I can't possibly repay that much money." Keiko Kaji knew that Ken Sakamoto was just joking, and she said with a smile, "Sakamoto-sensei gets royalties, and I will seriously study how to help Sakamoto-sensei promote his work. Once the collected volumes become bestsellers, it will be a money-printing machine."

"Then I'll leave the rest to you, editor-san," Sakamoto Ken said.

"Bye-bye~" Keiko Kaji got into the car and quickly drove away from the parking lot.

Ken Sakamoto watched the white Toyota leave, then leisurely returned to his apartment.

I checked the email sent by Keiko Kaji on my phone; it was a PDF file introducing the call for papers.

The call for submissions is called "Future Film and Television Stars".

It is indeed a collaboration with Netflix, and only supports short works under 300 pages, with two tracks: "Reality" and "Fantasy".

The former needs to be based entirely on the real world, such as youth, romance, or detective stories, while the latter must contain fantasy elements, including superpowers, fantasy, and science fiction.

Both tracks have their own judges, and both offer the same prize money.

The gold prize is a cash prize of 15 and a copyright prepayment of 20.

Silver Award, prize money 10 + 10.

Bronze Award, prize money 5 + 5.

Even the finalist awards come with prizes ranging from several thousand to ten thousand.

The key point is that all the units mentioned above are in US dollars.

Scrolling down, Ken Sakamoto discovered that the competition also had a special campus section for students.

If you submit your work as a student, you can participate in an additional "Campus Star" competition with a top prize of $5.

Although it is mainly aimed at college students, high school students are also welcome.

Ken Sakamoto has already graduated from high school, and university won't start for another month or so.

In fact, he is not currently a student.

but……

Ken Sakamoto tried clicking the link in the document and entered the campus zone authentication page.

You need to register as a student here to upload your work.

他翻出了自己的高中学生证，证件上写的有效期是“2012年4月1日～2015年3月31日”。

In other words, my high school student status will not expire until after March.

Before that, although he hadn't received his university student ID, he had no problem enjoying any of the benefits that students could enjoy.

Therefore, the highest possible prize money is $40.

This money will leave a considerable amount after fully covering the debts.

Although Ken Sakamoto had great confidence in Chainsaw Man, it was, after all, a long-running serialized work, and he could only earn royalties before the collected volumes were released and became bestsellers.

Afterwards, the serialization moved from JUMP+ to a weekly magazine, and the original manuscript fee increased from 12000 yen per page to 20000 yen per page, but it was still a slow way to make money.

The "Chainsaw Man" entry for the "Weekly Shonen Jump+ Manga Award" will have its results announced in three months. The grand prize is 1 million yen, but unfortunately it's just a token prize, less than 7,000 US dollars.

The deadline for submissions for this "Future Film and Television Stars" competition is March 31st, which is just over a month away.

For an average comic artist, even working to their limit, they could probably only complete a hundred or so pages of manuscript, and that would be with an assistant.

But Ken Sakamoto is different; he can write a page in about half an hour, and the key is that he doesn't need to spend time brainstorming.

Even if we calculate the total length to 300 pages, that's 150 hours, which is more than a month. There's plenty of time.

So the biggest question is, which comic should I choose?
(End of this chapter)