Chapter 361: Sharp Demon Soldier
Translator: imperfectluck Editor: vb24
Seiji looked at the drawing.
The drawing was of the older brother displaying his skills for the first time, defeating some hoodlums and protecting his younger sister.
This seemed like it would leave quite a deep impression, especially with the excellent attention to detail on drawing the older brother’s expression. It seemed slightly icy but not overly vicious. His punching seemed pretty cool, and there was nice work done on the details of his clothes…
“What do you think?” Saki asked.
“It’s a pretty nice drawing, but I can do better,” Seiji responded.
His tone was filled with self-confidence.
While this drawing was pretty good, he still believed that he could do better if he was to draw the exact same thing.
Editor Yoshizawa blinked in surprise at this.
Seiji immediately brought out his own drawing that he had brought with him and placed it on the table in front of her.
Saki’s gaze paused for a moment when she saw his drawing.
She slowly picked up the drawing and carefully looked it over for a long while.
“It’s excellent.” After she finished, this was her review. “If you can draw other drawings at this same quality, then you are indeed more suitable than Demon Soldier Sensei to become the artist for Brother Monogatari. “
“I believe that I can produce other drawings of similar quality,” Seiji said resolutely.
“I believe in your confidence, Harano.” Saki looked towards him. “Let’s go meet Demon Soldier Sensei, and have a discussion with him to obtain his understanding.”
Seiji nodded.
This type of thing was better explained as soon as possible.
Sharp Demon Soldier was the pen name of Shouri Tanaka, who was currently twenty-two years old. He felt that his current life didn’t match his name of “Shouri” at all, which meant “victory.”
He had an ordinary appearance, he was introverted, he wasn’t skilled at communication, and he was basically invisible all the way from elementary school to high school. He was someone that basically blended into the air. He didn’t have friends, nor did he have enemies. He wasn’t popular, but he had never been bullied before, either. He was the type who was just one step above the lowest rung of the bullied in a school setting.
He felt somewhat lonely about this, but he wasn’t pained. That was because he found it bothersome to communicate with others, and he found it fine to simply live without attracting others’ attention, so that he could completely immerse himself in his hobbies.
He was a huge fan of manga. Ever since the second year of middle school, he had wanted to become a manga author. Starting in high school, he began writing drafts, and finally received an “Excellent Newcomer” award in his third year of high school, helping him to get published for the first time.
This was the most glorious moment of Shouri Tanaka’s life, and his first-ever “victory.”
Afterwards, he gave up on attending college, and moved to this city and rented a place by himself, making it his goal to become a manga author published in a serial magazine.
By now, four years had passed.
Instead of getting closer to his goal, he seemed to be getting farther and farther away.
All the drafts that he worked his hardest on were either deemed bad by editors or couldn’t receive good results in competitions. He continually received many impacts.
He became numb from failure, and felt confused about the future. He didn’t know what path to take anymore. That was his current condition.
Recently, Tanaka received a job to draw art for a light novel that would be published soon. The request asked him to complete it as soon as possible.
Tanaka was deeply enthralled by this light novel when he read it.
It was too amazing!
He couldn’t even recall the last time that he had gotten so excited over a light novel.
Due to his excitement, Tanaka even pulled numerous all-nighters and made many draft drawings. He didn’t draw only scenes from this story, and also drew his own scenes and character settings that he received inspiration for from this story.
He recalled the joy he had from his earlier days when he was drawing his own manga, and felt as if he had rediscovered his passion.
After he got tired, he would sleep for a long stretch, wake up, go to the bathroom, fill his stomach, and repeat the process of seriously working on the art for this story named Brother Monogatari .
“This story will definitely become a bestseller!” Tanaka was certain of this.
Since he had received many impacts in the past, he wasn’t very confident in his own judgment, but he was still instinctively certain that this story would definitely become a bestseller, perhaps even an enormous hit.
He considered it a rare piece of luck for him to have received the job to draw art for this story. He considered it precious, and worked his very hardest on doing a good job on drawing for it.
He had just finished the first insert art piece for the story and was thinking on how to draw the second one when he received a phone call from the story’s editor requesting for him to send over any completed insert art drawings.
‘She probably wants to see the quality of my artwork,’ Tanaka thought as he emailed over a picture of his drawing.
But, not long after that, he received another phone call, telling him that she was going to come over together with the story’s author! They wanted to have a discussion with him.
Tanaka was astonished by this.
‘Is my artwork that terrible? The story’s editor and author are both rushing over to my place after looking at it!?’
He was quite nervous and anxious about it.
However, he calmed down soon after. He had already gotten used to rejection. Although this was the first time that a story’s editor and author had come in tandem to personally meet with him, he figured that he probably just had to listen to some criticism and make some improvements.
Tanaka prepared some hot water and tea and waited for his guests to arrive.
After some time passed, his doorbell rang.
Shouri Tanaka mentally prepared himself, then went to open the door.
“Hello, Demon Soldier Sensei. Sorry for the bother.” The icy and beautiful editor who was wearing a windbreaker politely greeted him. Then, she indicated to the person standing by her side. “This is the author of Brother Monogatari , Idle Dimension by the Shore .”
Tanaka took a look at the person standing beside her.
This young man was tall and handsome and had a lively expression in his eyes. He was smiling gently and seemed to be as handsome as an idol from a television show.
“Hello, pleased to meet you, Demon Soldier Sensei.” The handsome boy politely greeted him as well.
“Hello… pleased to meet you, Shore Sensei.”
Tanaka was inwardly astonished by how handsome the author was, and then he thought of the male lead of Brother Monogatari . He felt as if this young man cosplayed the main lead, that would be incredibly perfect, just as if he was a living version of that awesomely cool male lead!
No, he should reverse that. The story’s main character was probably based on the author himself, wasn’t he? Tanaka felt that was highly likely.
Some authors would themselves as the character model and settings for the main character, which would make it easier to immerse themselves into creating the story and characters. He had done this himself as well; however, his story didn’t receive good reviews.
When an author used himself as the voice of the main character, no matter how good he was at drawing the main character, that still wouldn’t mean that the characters he drew would have charisma… especially in the situation where the creator himself lacked charisma.
And, when an author received criticism about a character based on himself, the author would receive harm that was several times that of what the fictional character would receive!
Tanaka had experienced this numerous times in the past, which was how he had come to a painful realization.
Perhaps those that didn’t know how writing worked would think that it was only natural for authors to use themselves as the person the main character was based on, but the only authors that actually did that would be novices that hadn’t received impacts yet, or narcissists, or the truly courageous… at the very least, that was what Tanaka currently believed.
Whoops, he had gotten sidetracked.
When he returned to his senses, Tanaka discovered that he had already invited his two guests to sit down.
” Demon Soldier Sensei, about our discussion… I must first apologize to you.” The beautiful editor who he knew was called Saki Yoshizawa lowered her head to him.
“Eh?” Tanaka was surprised at this.
This was different from what he expected.
‘They’re not here because they’re dissatisfied with the quality of my artwork?’
