The next afternoon, in the Manga Research Club.
Tsushima Kagami was working on his final piece, while Sayuri had once again been conscripted by Kosaka Akane to brew coffee.
Kosaka Akane sat frowning at her draft paper, deep in thought. Every now and then she would put pencil to paper and sketch a few lines, only to crumple the sheet in dissatisfaction and toss it into the wastebasket, swapping in a fresh page.
Machida Sonoko, seated across the long table, was also quite unlike her usual composed self. She was scribbling rapidly in her notebook with a ballpoint pen, then halfway through she started tugging at her hair, which had grown out a little, and finally tore the page out in frustration and flung it toward the wastebasket beside Kosaka Akane.
It hit Kosaka Akane instead. Kosaka Akane didn't even react, and Machida Sonoko just put her head back down and kept writing.
Only then did Tsushima Kagami notice the atmosphere today felt off. He looked up toward Sayuri, who had just finished brewing the coffee and was pouring it into the cups.
"Sayuri, what's going on with the senpai duo over there?" He nodded in the direction of Kosaka Akane and Machida Sonoko.
Sayuri shook her head, equally puzzled.
"They were like this the moment they came in today."
"Maybe it's that time of the month!"
Sayuri handed Tsushima Kagami a cup of coffee and whispered in his ear with a stifled giggle.
"Thanks." Tsushima Kagami accepted the cup, took a sip, and thought it over.
"Probably not — the senpai usually aren't like this when that happens."
"Then maybe it's graduation-anxiety syndrome."
"Is that even a real thing?"
"I made it up."
Sayuri held her coffee cup and savored her own handiwork, all while watching the two senpai with undisguised amusement.
"Oh right, Kagami — are you really sure you don't need our help with your manga this time?"
Tsushima Kagami leaned back in his chair, leisurely enjoying his afternoon coffee.
"No need." He paused. "The senpai have their own things to focus on now, and it wouldn't feel right asking just you to help on your own. Besides, aren't you still preparing for the winter Comiket? I can manage by myself at this point."
Sayuri scooted her chair over beside Tsushima Kagami and said:
"That's still ages away."
"Though this time around the senpai will be busy with entrance exams."
"When the time comes I'll have to trouble you to come with me, Kagami."
"Of course I'll go with you."
"Hey, what are you two whispering about over there?"
Kosaka Akane set down her pencil and looked over at Tsushima Kagami and Sayuri.
"Sayuri, the coffee's ready — why haven't you brought it over?"
"Ah, well, I didn't want to disturb Akane-senpai and Sonoko-senpai."
Sayuri hurriedly stood and carried the other two cups over.
Kosaka Akane picked hers up and took a sip, and was just beginning to frown and open her mouth to say something when Sayuri quickly shot Tsushima Kagami a meaningful glance.
"So, senpai — you two seem really off today. What exactly are you working on?"
Tsushima Kagami jumped in before Kosaka Akane could start picking on Sayuri.
Hearing the question, Kosaka Akane forgot about going after Sayuri and simply let out a long, heavy sigh.
Machida Sonoko also set down her pen and lifted her head to look at them.
"You know — after yesterday's discussion about girls' bands, we thought maybe that theme could be worth a shot at JUMP."
"So Akane and I worked it out: I'd handle the story, she'd handle the character designs and artwork."
"We were getting on so well about it over the phone last night, too." She paused. "But then the moment we actually sat down to write, nothing was good enough!"
With that, Machida Sonoko tore another page from her notebook and hurled it at the wastebasket.
Kosaka Akane pressed her fingers to her temple.
"I don't have a concrete script or setting to work from." She sighed. "And without that I can't find any inspiration for the character designs."
"Honestly — weren't you the one who said last night that the ideas were just pouring out of you?"
Kosaka Akane shot an accusing look at Machida Sonoko.
Machida Sonoko shot right back.
"And who was it that swore up and down last night that she already had a clear image of the characters in her head?!"
"Oh, please, stop fighting, you two."
"Maybe take a little break, have some coffee — inspiration might come on its own."
Sayuri played the peacemaker while quietly delighting in watching the two of them pass the blame back and forth.
Tsushima Kagami stood up and walked over to the wastebasket beside Kosaka Akane. He bent down, fished out the crumpled balls of paper the two had been tossing in all afternoon, smoothed them out, and laid them on the table to read.
When they saw Tsushima Kagami suddenly picking up their discarded drafts, Kosaka Akane and Machida Sonoko both fell quiet and waited for him to finish.
He started with a rough read-through of Machida Sonoko's story outline.
Hmm...
The plot was roughly along the lines of NANA — a naive young girl gets chewed up and spat out by the entertainment industry and some terrible men, dragged through a messy love polygon within the band, and ultimately ends with the girls' friendship shattered and their lives in ruin.
By the time Tsushima Kagami skimmed through a few of the key plot points, his blood pressure had already spiked.
He then looked over at Kosaka Akane's artwork.
Clearly influenced by his own style, the drafts had taken on a noticeably more polished look — while also showing her attempts to work in her own distinctive personal flair.
But the style still leaned too heavily female-demographic, and not just any kind — that particular strain unmistakable to anyone in the know.
Good grief. A female scriptwriter and a female artist tag-teaming an NTR storyline. That checks out.
Back in the day, if word got out online that the artist was a woman, it would've scared off a whole wave of readers just like that.
Though audiences these days are still pretty clueless, so there's a bit more room to corrupt them.
Still, calling it a "girls' band" story, it was actually structured around adult women in a professional band — not the school-age kind.
Tsushima Kagami thought it over. In this era, the ACG scene had only really started rising in the past few years — school girls' band clubs and that whole scene barely even counted as a subculture yet.
The concept of girls' bands truly exploding and becoming a mainstream phenomenon was something that wouldn't happen until the landmark K-ON! in 2009 set it all off.
After that would come projects like Love Live! and BanG Dream! — 2.5D multimedia franchises combining anime, games, and real-life seiyuu concerts to successfully channel that 2D passion into the real-world stage.
"Sonoko-senpai, don't you think this kind of story is already overdone?"
"But doesn't that just mean it's popular?"
"And precisely because it's popular — how are newcomers like you, who haven't even debuted yet, supposed to carve out a slice of that market?"
"All the ground has already been claimed by the people who came before you."
"So what should we do?" Machida Sonoko looked at Tsushima Kagami.
"How about doing the opposite — try something light and breezy."
"A bright, easy, feel-good atmosphere."
"Something that leaves readers thinking, 'it's really good to be alive' when they're done."
Hearing that, Machida Sonoko fell into thought.
Tsushima Kagami turned to Kosaka Akane.
"Akane-senpai — what if you tried taking the character designs down to high school students, or even middle school, or elementary school?"
"Make the characters more soft and adorable, that healing-type look."
"It's Shonen JUMP after all — going young isn't a bad thing."
"But I think adults smoking and drinking and playing music is so much cooler!"
"The adult world is too grimy."
"Shonen JUMP should save a little of that pure, innocent fantasy for the boys."
"Fine, let me think about it some more."
As Kosaka Akane pulled out a fresh sheet and prepared to start drawing again, Tsushima Kagami smiled and looked around at everyone.
"What if we went and observed a real, live girls' band of today for reference?"
"You mean the Light Music Club?" Sayuri pointed upward.
Tsushima Kagami smiled.
"Exactly — the Girls' Band Observation Squad, move out!"
____
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