Chapter 21: False Love
After some back-and-forth, Shunsuke finally settled down in his room and began to carefully study Mashiro's manga.
But soon enough, what had started as a focused review quickly turned into him casually flipping through the pages. Even Mashiro could sense the lack of seriousness and... boredom in his approach.
"Um..." Mashiro's voice came out even softer than usual, carrying a hint of insecurity. "As I thought, it's boring, isn't it?"
"...That's right," Shunsuke replied bluntly, not sugarcoating it.
"Your art has its merits—it's great, really great. The way you draw from any angle is spot on, very appealing. In terms of shoujo manga, your characters are top-notch. The composition is beautiful, and the panel layouts are interesting. But, well, for a manga, those are secondary. The most important thing in manga has always been the story—it needs to be engaging."
"Yeah, Ayano said the same thing," Mashiro admitted.
"Your editor?"
"Yes. She found me during the Newcomer Awards. She said my art looked good and approached me."
"So what were her suggestions?"
"She said if delicate emotional portrayals are too hard for me, maybe I should try something more intense."
"She's just stirring the pot, isn't she?"
Shunsuke sighed in relief that this editor was a woman—if it were a man, who knows what kind of trouble Mashiro could have gotten into. Using manga as an excuse to take advantage of her? There was no need for more of those guys in her life—he, Shunsuke, was more than enough!
Shunsuke admitted it—he liked Mashiro. He wasn't hiding it, and honestly, it was worth celebrating!
After thinking it over for a moment, Shunsuke said, "The reason your story feels dull, Mashiro, is because you lack life experience. You don't have much common sense or real-world experience, and that reflects in your work. That's why many manga artists and novelists go out to gather inspiration. They call it 'fieldwork.'"
In the original timeline, Mashiro eventually moved into Sakurasou, where her experiences there helped her create a manga based on that environment, called Sakura Dormitory. It led to her debut. But now, since she wouldn't be going to Sakurasou, Shunsuke had effectively cut off one of her potential paths to success.
To make up for that, Shunsuke felt he owed it to her to find a way to help her break into the industry.
"Since you're drawing a shoujo manga, it shows you have an interest in that genre, right? But the way you portray relationships in your manga is too straightforward. To help you gain more experience in this area, how about we go on a date this weekend?"
"A date with you will make my manga interesting?"
"It's possible. But just one or two dates might not be enough. You'll probably need several to fully grasp it."
"Okay."
"And we can work together as a duo on a manga. I'll handle the story, and you can focus on the art. This way, you can gain experience over time, and when you're ready, you can strike out on your own."
Mashiro's eyes widened slightly. "Is that really okay?"
"Of course it is. I know other creators who work like that."
"I agree," Mashiro said, clenching her hands tightly. "I want to draw a manga with you, Shunsuke."
"Good. Then you should head back for now. Tomorrow, I'll give you the manga's NAME."
"Title."
"Huh?"
"The title of the manga."
"Oh, the title is False Love (Nisekoi). It's definitely going to be a hit," Shunsuke said confidently.
As one of the longest-running and most popular romance series in Shonen Jump, even though some of its plot points were considered cliché in his previous life, clichés were classics for a reason.
In this world, where the manga industry was at least ten years behind, False Love was bound to be a smash hit—possibly even a romance manga that future generations couldn't avoid referencing!
If they were going to do this, then they had to do it right. Shunsuke wasn't interested in the original magazine Mashiro had submitted her work to, nor did he want to offer a second-rate piece for submission there.
A work this good deserved to be submitted to Shonen Jump, where it could reach a much wider audience.
As for concerns about whether it might overlap with the real world, Shunsuke wasn't worried.
After fully regaining his memories, he had scoured the internet for every two-dimensional work he could remember.
There was no Yakuza syndicate called the Shuuei Clan, no American gang called the Beehive, no Bonyari High School, and the police commissioner didn't have the surname Tachibana, among many other differences.
His initial conclusion was that there was a 99% chance that Nisekoi's world had not merged with this one.
And even in the slim chance it did, at worst, he could just change the names of the main characters and related elements, and the problem would be solved.
Watching Shunsuke's confident expression, Mashiro stared at him intently and asked, "Explain in more detail."
Shunsuke gave her a rough overview of the story and characters, and Mashiro nodded repeatedly, finally leaving obediently.
Once she was gone, Shunsuke looked at the blank manuscript paper before him, and a sense of urgency surged within him.
He had coaxed and cajoled Mashiro into joining him on this project—if he didn't produce results soon, it wouldn't reflect well on him.
As for his original light novel career?
Shunsuke glanced at his faithful Platinum Star. "I'll take it all!"
Not just light novels—he wanted to break into traditional literature too!
In Japan, a manga artist's status was higher than that of a light novelist, and frankly, creators in almost all artistic fields were held in higher esteem than those who worked in what was dismissively called "toilet paper" writing.
Even a traditional literary writer whose works barely sold had a higher status than 99% of manga artists. And compared to a popular light novelist? Their prestige was ten or even a hundred times greater!
There was no escaping it—mainstream culture worked the same way everywhere.
Now that he had the opportunity to "borrow" works, Shunsuke wasn't satisfied with merely copying a few entertainment pieces. He had to transcribe some literary classics to boost his standing with literary-minded girls too!
With that thought in mind, he decided to visit the library after school the next day and check out what literary greats this world had preserved, what new masters it had produced, and how their styles differed from those of his original world.
Since many of these works were still under copyright protection, he wouldn't be able to find them online. If he wanted to read them, he'd need to get his hands on physical copies.
As he mulled this over, he quickly sketched out the Nisekoi NAME for the first ten chapters.
As drafts, his drawings were rough, with the panel layouts and structure following the original version.
The character designs were only roughly sketched out, not meticulously refined.
Looking back with ten years of experience, Shunsuke could see that Nisekoi's original creator, Naoshi Komi, had been somewhat inexperienced in the early stages. He could easily improve upon it, but he decided not to.
This was the task Fujii had assigned to Mashiro.
Rather than just handing her the answers, he believed in teaching her how to fish. Mashiro needed to make the effort to cross this hurdle on her own, or else he'd just be turning her into a dependent parasite.
Although, on second thought, that didn't seem too bad either—a forever reliant "pet girl" who could never leave him. Just thinking about it gave him a bit of a thrill.
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