Full-time comic artist

"Please give me a copy of Jump. Weekly Shonen Jump!" The visitor's eyes lit up as he looked at the magazine in Mrs. Nakajima's hand, and he said excitedly.

Sorry, Jump is sold out.

"Not again? This is the fifth supermarket I've looked at..." He was very disappointed.

"Could you wait a moment?" Mrs. Nakajima said. "I'll give it to you after I've looked at it."

"Thank you so much!" the visitor said loudly, bowing deeply.

The two went together to a nearby coffee shop.

Mrs. Nakajima introduced herself, "I am Nakajima Rei, hello."

"My name is Takeshi Konomi, thank you so much." Takeshi Konomi thanked him again.

"Oh, you're too kind," Mrs. Nakajima waved her hand and said with a smile.

"Because Jump is very important to me," Takeshi Konomi confessed. "To be honest, my manga also started serialization in this issue of Jump."

That is, "The Prince of Tennis".

In July 1999, "The Prince of Tennis" began serialization.

The villain, Ryoma Echizen, replaces Kintaro Toyama as the protagonist, and his story begins.

"Eh!" Mrs. Nakajima exclaimed, covering her mouth. "That's surprising! But don't you have... you have that sample copy?"

She always saw the editor sending sample copies of the magazine to Akino Mirai.

Takeshi Konomi said embarrassedly, "I forgot where I put it after playing tennis."

Mrs. Nakajima had a sexual relationship and chatted for a long time with the manga artist named Takeshi Konomi.

He used to work in a design company, but because he couldn't stand not being able to create freely and his work was always subject to various interferences, he picked up his original passion and started drawing comics.

"After the completion of 'COOL RENTAL BODYGUARD', I started to think about what kind of works I should draw."

"After consulting with editor-in-chief Kazuhiko Torishima at the New Year's meeting, I decided to start drawing sports-themed manga."

"Hmm," Mrs. Nakajima said, resting her chin on her hand to indicate that she was listening.

"I really like Akino Tori's 'Slam Dunk,' and 'The Prince of Tennis' was also influenced to some extent, but I'm a little depressed about it."

Takeshi Konomi sighed, "It was just a short serialization, yet Akino-sensei's manga made it to the front page of the magazine. I was very unwilling to accept this and wanted to know what kind of work 'Millennium Actress' was."

"Millennium Actress?"

Mrs. Nakajima's smiling expression froze.

This was the first time she had ever heard the name of Tori Akino Mirai's new work.

"Actress..." she murmured, "Is it a work about actresses?"

For a moment, I was lost in thought.

“Mrs. Nakajima…” Takeshi Konomi called out to her.

"Excuse me, I'll look at it now," Mrs. Nakajima said immediately, snapping out of her daze.

"Take your time looking at it, I'm not in a hurry."

……

The most captivating feature on the cover of Jump is a girl wearing a gold kimono.

Then, behind her, the students ran to the left with longing expressions.

Chapter 228 Terrifying Drawing Skills and Storyboards

The story of "Millennium Actress" is not complicated, and Kishimoto quickly finished reading the first episode.

"As expected of Teacher Tori Akino."

He wasn't referring to the content, but rather to the artistry and the storyboard design.

In Mirai Toriaki's writing, a 70-year-old actress is portrayed as adorable as a young girl in every smile and gesture.

Judging from the character's appearance alone, you can see that Fujiwara Chiyoko has a face full of wrinkles and a slender, fragile body, clearly making her look like an old woman.

But beneath her appearance, Kishimoto could sense from her bone structure that Fujiwara Chiyoko must have been a very beautiful woman in her youth.

Moreover, her elegant demeanor and refined temperament are something that ordinary cartoonists cannot portray.

It shows a high level of skill.

The story starts off a bit boring in Jump, but thanks to the clever paneling, Kishimoto finished reading it without even realizing it.

As smooth as silk.

There are many aspects of "Millennium Actress" that he can learn from.

"Editor Yahagi once said that it's important to learn the techniques of top manga artists when drawing manga, and it's true."

Most cartoonists follow in the footsteps of their predecessors, so studying their panel layouts is especially important.

He has watched Dragon Ball many times, but from the creator's perspective, he has gained many new insights.

Now, after watching "Millennium Actress," Kishimoto was writing and drawing, summarizing techniques. Suddenly, his hand stopped.

"Actress...Actress..."

He was reminded of someone by "Millennium Actress".

That was the neighbor across from Tori Akino Mirai, the middle-aged woman named Nakajima Rei.

"So Nakajima Rei is actually Ms. Nakajima Sherry!"

"That big star who retired from acting twenty years ago!"

……

Mrs. Nakajima sat in a chair with her legs together, her head slightly lowered, looking at a comic book. She turned the pages carefully, as if afraid of disturbing others.

"How elegant," Takeshi Konomi thought involuntarily. Influenced by Mrs. Nakajima, he dared not even breathe loudly.

"A very interesting comic."

After a while, Mrs. Nakajima put down Jump with a smile and pushed it toward Takeshi Konomi.

"Please take a look."

"Thank you." Takeshi Konomi nodded, picked up the jump with both hands, and looked inside.

Mrs. Nakajima did not get up to leave. At this moment, her feelings were complicated. She lowered her eyelids, closed her eyes, and pondered, seemingly lost in thought.

"That's amazing!"

She heard Xu Feigang exclaim in surprise.

The customers in the coffee shop all looked over.

Mrs. Nakajima smiled and nodded in apology. After everyone else looked away, she looked at Takeshi Konomi with a probing gaze.

"what happened?"

"I'm sorry," Xu Feigang said softly, "Tori Akino-sensei's drawing is so amazing that I couldn't help myself."

When he was in fifth grade, he was exposed to comics and was influenced by them. In his elementary school graduation essay, he wrote that "his future dream is to become a comic artist".

Throughout junior high and high school, he pursued sports while cultivating his interest in art, his dream remaining to become a cartoonist.

In university, he also studied a major related to fine arts.

After graduating, Takeshi Konomi became a manga artist's assistant and began a long-running serialization in 97.

It can be said that he has always been striving to become a cartoonist, and even has two years of serialization experience.

His painting skills are not bad.

As a sports manga, "The Prince of Tennis" features stylish characters, powerful racket shots, and simple, clear artwork.

The reading threshold is very low.

But after watching Mirai Tori's "Millennium Actress", Takeshi Konomi couldn't help but express his emotions.

The storyboarding and animation style of "Millennium Actress" are different from the sporty feel of "Slam Dunk". Instead, it has a storytelling style that is gentle and soothing, like a bamboo forest in midsummer.

This change in style stunned Takeshi Konomi, who also realized how formidable this 24-year-old manga artist was.

It's perfectly reasonable, very reasonable, that his short story got featured in the frontispiece.

“That’s terrible,” he muttered.

Takeshi Konomi's attitude made Mrs. Nakajima realize the influence of her neighbor in the manga world.

She didn't have a habit of reading comics, but she knew that her daughter really liked Akino Mirai, who was very popular among the students.

“Millennium Actress is indeed very good,” Mrs. Nakajima thought.

She had only watched it for five minutes, and from her professional perspective, she could see quite a few film techniques in this comic.

The opening scene shows a female astronaut insisting on boarding a rocket despite others' objections.

Then, amidst the vibrations of the rocket about to launch, the scene transitions to an earthquake causing the bedroom to shake.

It turned out that it was Tachibana Genya, the president of Lotus Film Company, who was watching TV, and the plot he had just witnessed was from a movie.

Genya Tachibana walked out of the bedroom, pressed the rewind button, and the movie returned to the beginning, and the story of "Millennium Actress" began.

Due to the earthquake, the abandoned photography studio of Eun-yeong Photography Studio began to be demolished.

This demolition also gave Gen Tachibana an excuse to interview actress Chiyoko Fujiwara, who had been retired from acting for 30 years.

He was Fujiwara Chiyoko's most loyal fan, and his admiration for her was evident throughout the first episode of "Millennium Actress".

The moment he appeared, he was watching an old movie from decades ago, and he had that nervous and expectant expression when he was about to meet 70-year-old Fujiwara Chiyoko.

This comic, from the very beginning, has a tightly woven plot that unfolds smoothly, as if it were always meant to be this way.

It was so realistic, it seemed to happen in real life, that Mrs. Nakajima was momentarily stunned.

The skill is evident in the details; this must be a plot that Tori Akino Mirai racked her brains to come up with.

In every scene, Mrs. Nakajima could see the other person's deep consideration.

With such dedication to a short story, it's no wonder that Akino Mirai has risen to fame and become a highly popular manga artist.