[72] The Passage of Time

The Passage of Time

The protagonist of the new manga, "Fate/Stay Night," is Emiya Shirou.

Unlike the previous ensemble cast, this one has a clear protagonist.

After reading it, Iwamoto Yu couldn't help but exclaim, "Is this the kind of manga that fits JUMP's theme?"

The story roughly revolves around the protagonist, Emiya Shirou, and the female lead, Matou Sakura... from Emiya Shirou's perspective, it portrays something like, "I'll take this girl, to hell with justice!"

Well, that's the gist of it...

Ah, but of course, in manga terms, it's more like, "I'll be your only ally in justice."

Oh my, back when he was reading "Fate/Zero," he couldn't stand those worms at the beginning. This time, he can finally vent... although the plot is still somewhat sad, the ending is good.

In this context, it should be the "Heaven's Feel" route from Kazuya's previous world. Its full name is probably "Fate/stay night: Heaven's Feel." He chose to draw this because it aligns more with the style of "Fate/Zero," with its darker and more healing tone.

The other two routes are different.

In this route, characters like Emiya Shirou, Tohsaka Rin, Matou Sakura, Illyasviel, Matou Zouken and Kirei Kotomine, who had appeared in "Fate/Zero" but weren't fully developed, now have their own storylines.

It's quite tough on those Heroic Spirits.

They finally get a chance to appear, and in the blink of an eye, they're gone, especially the gatekeeper, who only gets one panel.

So...

Adding a bit of grandeur here is necessary.

The main narrative style is "Heaven's Feel," but Kazuya added some original stories for characters who were supposed to die early and extended their battle scenes, using spectacular battle sequences to stretch out the plot.

After all... more pages mean more money.

As a result, what was originally estimated to be a manga of thirty or forty chapters turned into eighty chapters because he got carried away, especially with the battle scenes.

In reality...

When he was waiting for Tohsaka Tokiomi and the Mage's Association to arrive, he was already working on shifting his focus to this manga.

On the basis of the original work, he made some original changes, maintaining a pace of about forty pages for two chapters a day... until he just finished it recently.

Originally, he didn't want to continue drawing the story, but why hasn't anyone come to find him?

Is it that boring?

But for some of the manga's plot, like Sakura's experiences in the Matou household, he tried to keep it brief, transitioning quickly without going into specifics. It's just stated as being very tragic, without going into details. he didn't draw it.

Lesson learned, why did "Fate/Zero" receive so much criticism? It was because of this, right?

In this era, although people have relatively stronger acceptance, their upper limit for acceptance is also quite low. It's not contradictory.

After bidding farewell to Iwamoto Yu.

Kazuya continued to feel bored... he didn't want to work on original stuff at all...

"What should I draw... oh, let's count my money and review my recent assets. Then, I'll buy some more properties..."

He realized that he hadn't seriously reviewed these things until now.

Upon reviewing them, he was astonished.

First of all, the taxes he had paid for his manga last year amounted to 30 million yen...

This was even before the release of the "JoJo's Bizarre Adventure" tankobon.

The tankobon release of "JoJo's Bizarre Adventure" had been deliberately delayed by him because he wanted to redraw some parts before continuing. And... when combined with the rest of the assets, he was shocked—

He originally thought he would be fortunate to have a few billion yen in hand when he sold off everything, but in reality, he now had hundreds of billions of yen in assets, and... he still owed the bank over ten billion yen.

"Do I have this much money?"

Kazuya had no idea... the news about manga artists appearing in the news due to paying taxes didn't happen until 1986, which was next year. At that time, a manga artist ranked fifth on Japan's taxpayer list with a payment of 147.54 million yen. That person was Rumiko Takahashi. Her manga at the time was "Urusei Yatsura." In the same year, Yōichi Takahashi from JUMP paid 125.19 million yen in taxes for "Captain Tsubasa."

These were just the taxes they paid for one manga's earnings. Their total income for that year was probably over two billion yen.

[Over 180 million yen paid 37% in taxes]

Now, Kazuya's upcoming tankobon releases for "JoJo's Bizarre Adventure," "Battle Royale," and "Fate/Zero," if all goes as expected, would be completed within the next two years.

For "JoJo's Bizarre Adventure," if JUMP goes on hiatus a bit more during this period, it might even finish its second part at the end of the year (1986).

"Well... I can buy some more real estate."

With money in hand, his mood improved slightly...

As for anime...

"1991. It's still quite a way off."

That year—was a peaceful one.

Kazuya's assets were steadily increasing.

Although he had been eagerly anticipating something mysterious, there were no signs of it. His initial excitement turned into frustration, and eventually, he became indifferent.

Although he wanted to bring his sister back.

Unfortunately, the child had grown up and was no longer obedient...

There was nothing he could do about it.

That year, when Kazuya had nothing to do, he would visit the Ryougi family... and the rest of the time, he worked on his manga. He redrew the first and second parts of "JoJo's Bizarre Adventure."

Among them, the first part's tankobon began selling.

At first, "JoJo's Bizarre Adventure" tankobon had sales of only 200,000 copies, but... things quickly changed.

People who bought the tankobon found that the pacing and battle scenes inside were more than twice as good as what was serialized in JUMP.

JUMP released a statement at the right time, saying, "[Kurokawa-sensei felt that his artistic skills had improved, so he decided to redraw JoJo.]" In an instant, not only did the existing JoJo fans buy the "JoJo's Bizarre Adventure" tankobon, but also those who were curious to see why Kurokawa Kazuya, the tentacle monster, had redrawn it.

As a result, sales exceeded 800,000 copies... as expected, redrawing it was the right choice.

On the other hand, "Battle Royale" also sold 150,000 copies of its tankobon.

And the best-selling one was undoubtedly "Fate/Zero," with an initial release of 1.5 million copies, and it was rapidly rising.

JUMP didn't immediately serialize a sequel to "Fate/Zero" after it ended. They waited for two issues and announced it twice before starting.

It was serialized in 1986 after waiting for two more issues.

So...

Time passed through 1986 and arrived in 1987.

In this year, Kazumi graduated from elementary school and entered junior high. She was already in her second year of junior high!

The completion of "Fate/Zero" also brought him a new ability and a new manga...

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