Tokyo 1970: I'll draw Doraemon?

She was stunned when she received the Weekly Youth Future.

"It's so thick."

Turning to the end, she looked at the footer and discovered that there were a whopping 260 pages.

"Detective Story, The Original Manuscript of the Tide, Barefoot Boy... There are actually 12 long-running manga series!"

Some niche youth comics only have four long-running series, with the rest filled with short comics.

Second-rate publications, with 6 to 8 long serialized works.

And 12 articles is almost on par with those three major youth weekly magazines!

"For only 85, you get so much content. Mr. Oikawa is really generous."

Holding her comic book, Yuka Higashino was in a good mood.

Her idea was that as long as the price of "Future" was not above 200 and it was 120 pages thick, she could support Oikawa's career.

Upon seeing the actual product, she was extremely satisfied and couldn't wait to see its contents.

She happily walked to her friend Miyuki Nagai's dorm room, lay down on the bed, and prepared to watch.

However, her friend, who was putting on makeup, dissuaded her: "Asano-san said that 'Tomie' is scary, you should think it over."

"It's just a manga, what's so scary about it?" Higashino Yuka shook her head dismissively. Instead, she asked curiously, "Asano-san? Is that the high school classmate you often visit?"

“That’s right,” Nagai Miyuki nodded, putting down her eyebrow pencil with a helpless expression. “Asano-san is too timid. She actually watched her rival kiss Fushimi-san, but didn’t dare to do anything herself. If I were her, I would have won Fushimi-san over long ago.”

They were childhood sweethearts, yet she didn't cherish such good conditions. It wouldn't be surprising if Asano Megumi ended up as a "loser," and Nagai Miyuki wouldn't be surprised either.

“Oh, is she timid?” Higashino Yuka grasped the key point. “So Tomie isn’t scary at all, it’s Asano’s problem.”

She casually started flipping through the comics.

At the beginning, the female protagonist, Tomie Kawakami, died, and her fragmented body was found in various places.

The students mourned her in class.

"It's a suspense work. Later in the manga, we'll probably switch to different perspectives to enrich Tomie's character and experiences, connect them into a story, and answer the questions?"

Yuka Higashino thought to herself.

"What a pity, Tomie is so beautiful."

Just like the cover, the photos of Tomie taken during her lifetime, displayed in the funeral hall, outline her face.

She has an oval face, long and upturned eyes with a captivatingly languid look; full lips and well-proportioned features—the kind of beauty only a peerless beauty possesses.

Yuka Higashino believes that the cover of Weekly Youth Future alone led many people to impulsively buy the magazine.

With a sense of regret for Tomie Kawakami, Yuka Higashino continued reading.

The students were lamenting Tomie's tragic fate, but the next moment, Tomie appeared outside the classroom door.

"I'm sorry I'm late."

She said this to her teachers and classmates with a smile.

……

"Huh? What?! Tomie isn't dead? Or is she Tomie's twin sister? We've come to stir up trouble and avenge our sister!"

Upon seeing this, Yuka Higashino was taken aback, and immediately felt a strong curiosity, wanting to continue watching.

Mr. Takagi had the same question in class. After class, he called Tomie aside and questioned her about her identity.

Tomie, however, threw herself into Takagi-sensei's arms and made a passionate confession to him.

She was a bitch! She had an affair with Takagi.

The story starts to get melodramatic.

The deceased classmates are brought back to life, and the students have mixed feelings as they try to comfort each other. However, not long after, they learn that Takagi-sensei has been driven insane.

What exactly is Tomie? What did she do to the teacher? Or were these all accidents, and what happened that day was just a real dream?

Reiko was confused.

That day, everyone went on a study tour to Fox Fairy Mountain, which has a cliff behind the mountain. Tomie, who was being affectionate with the teacher, aroused the anger and jealousy of her male classmate Yamamoto. During the struggle, Tomie accidentally fell off the cliff and died.

The teacher stopped Yamamoto from calling an ambulance, and the other students all agreed.

"It's not your fault, Tomie brought it on herself."

"Arrogant woman, such a person deserves to die!"

"It's not worth it for Yamamoto to waste his life on someone like that."

"Did she have a sandwich for lunch today? It has a lot of vegetables."

The frenzied scene sent chills down Higashino Yuka's spine.

The vivid and realistic details of the murder terrified her.

"Yuka?"

"what!!"

Miyuki Nagai touched her body worriedly, and Yuka Higashino immediately screamed.

"Fushimi-kun's new work is actually a horror manga."

Seeing her friend curled up and trembling, Miyuki Nagai seemed to be deep in thought.

……

In the end, even Yamamoto, the instigator, was driven insane by Tomie.

Reiko, who threw Tomie's heart into the river and let it float away, moved away from this place.

But two years later, while she was playing at the beach, she unexpectedly saw a clump of clothing fragments, which was the very thing she had used to wrap Tomie's heart.

This made her feel uneasy.

She moved slowly, and the camera in the comic followed her gaze.

A monster suddenly appeared behind a reef.

It was a twisted and deformed human body of Tomie, with hands only the size of chicken claws, and the lower body upright like a snake. It had no internal organs and was rotten and looked like a rag.

In stark contrast to all of these is the exquisitely beautiful face of Tomie at the very top of the monster!

His features were distinct, with a beauty mark under his left eye and an arrogant smile at the corners of his mouth.

A new Tomie has appeared!

Reiko's fate is not revealed; the manga ends here, but it will likely be another chaotic affair.

Tomie's remains are regenerating into human form.

"So, that means there will be 42 Tomie?"

Some daring readers have high hopes for this.

Chapter 80 Industry Feedback

"The drawing is excellent, but Oikawa should see a psychologist."

After reading "Tomie", some readers couldn't help but complain.

He bought Weekly Youth Future because of Oikawa's realistic style.

Oikawa Niya also provided him with the most unique realistic experience currently available on the market.

Tomie's captivating beauty and her lifelike proportions brought him joy after he had seen enough five-head-tall manga.

This should have been something to be excited about, but when paired with a horror comic, it's just too scary!

The image of the twisted human body and the students dismembering Tomie was etched into his mind and could not be erased for a long time.

Blood, a beating heart...

Because it was drawn so well, with such clear details, it was actually more frightening.

Who could have come up with that?

"It's still not very well drawn..."

He even had ideas he had never had before.

The purity is too low.

……

Renowned manga artist Oikawa Ji has released a new work after several months, which is surprisingly a bloody horror manga.

This sparked heated discussions among the public.

"What happened? Did Oikawa get upset?"

"How can we let young people read these kinds of comics? It will affect their physical and mental health."

"Tomie is a seinen manga, and its rating is very clear, so I don't think there's a problem with that. It's just that the storytelling... is so different from before."

"Has Oikawa lost his talent?"

The story of "Tomie" is simple: the girl who was killed by the whole class is resurrected and drives the two culprits insane.

If it weren't drawn by Oikawa, or if it didn't have his exquisite art style, "Tomie" would just be seen as a novel horror manga, and wouldn't have generated much of a reaction.

The industry has gained a talented, niche newcomer, that's all.

“It’s normal that Oikawa didn’t produce any surprising works,” one critic said. “After all, his usual style is Doraemon, and his brushstrokes are full of kindness and beauty, while Tomie represents indifference, sex and violence. He needs to adapt and learn from such a big change all at once.”

"I think his future works will be a topic of great interest to readers."

That's roughly the consensus in the industry.

After all, in their view, Tomie was an experimental work by Oikawa.

Even Osamu Tezuka drew manga that dissatisfied readers and even himself, let alone Oikawa Ni.

It's because people have too high expectations of him that they think "Tomie" is just average.

Tomie is a decent horror manga, so why was Tomie Kawakami able to come back to life?