"Team up? Us...?" Because this proposal came so suddenly, Rin even doubted for a moment if something was wrong with her ears or if the other party was joking.
After all, teaming up with Mochizuki-kun to debut... Wait, it actually seems feasible!
She suddenly realized that he had just created a very moving piece of music, which had already proven his ability. Although there is a certain difference between composing instrumental music and pop music, at least when it came to composition, Akira's talent was absolutely unquestionable.
At the same time, looking at the serious expression beneath his smile, she realized that he was indeed not joking with her. But...
"Why would Mochizuki-kun suddenly have this idea?" she asked, somewhat puzzled.
"Because I want to make money," Akira confessed honestly. "I found that drawing manga is too much trouble to make money, and it's a bit slow too." "Writing songs might be a little easier to make money."
"..."
Writing songs is easy to make money... Listen to that, is that even human language? Looking at the innocent-looking Akira, Rin was expressionless, really wanting to punch him again. The most infuriating part was that, judging from the composing talent he had shown, he might actually be qualified to say such things. Damn it, why is God so unfair!
"Well..." Having teased a bit, he saw Rin's expression and immediately brought the topic back. "Of course, making money is one aspect, but I have indeed considered this matter seriously."
Thus, he candidly revealed the pros and cons he had analyzed and explained everything to her. As Rin learned more, her eyes grew brighter and brighter. Just as he had explained, this was indeed a situation beneficial to both of them!
As for the drawbacks... She thought about it carefully and could only find a few: for example, since he didn't want to handle specific affairs, she might have to work a little harder; and for another example, since the copyright for the lyrics and music belonged to him, she only owned the performance rights, so she might earn a little less. Hmm... That seems to be it.
However, she didn't actually consider the two points above as drawbacks. Akira not wanting to handle specific affairs meant she would have a high degree of autonomy, which was exactly the situation she had been striving for; as for making money, that was actually the issue she cared about the least.
Right. She suddenly remembered another concern, so she asked, "But, Mochizuki-kun has to draw manga, right? What if it delays your work..."
"On my end?" Akira was slightly taken aback upon hearing this. He hadn't expected the first thing she asked to be about his situation, and he suddenly felt something strange in his heart. But this also meant that he hadn't misjudged her, right?
Thinking this, he smiled slightly and said, "Please rest assured, this is the last thing you need to worry about."
"In that case, there shouldn't be anything else." Rin nodded, then took a deep breath, smiled, and reached out her hand to him, saying, "Should we say happy cooperation now?"
Playing that card, huh? Akira smiled and reached out to shake her hand as well. Slender, soft, and slightly cool. That was his first impression in his mind. "Happy cooperation."
...
...
After confirming the partnership with Rin, his new task was naturally determined—to write at least one song that could be appreciated by a record company.
Unlike his novel writing, Rin had to achieve results within a year, otherwise, she would have to go back and study obediently, so the priority here was temporarily higher. As for the novel, he could just write it slowly; no one was in a hurry to read it anyway, and he himself wasn't in a hurry.
As for whether the song could be picked up by a record company,' he wasn't too worried. After all, in his past life, he was neither a music enthusiast nor a hipster, so he wouldn't deliberately look for niche or obscure music to listen to. Therefore, most of the music he could hear, regardless of whether its commercial performance was good or bad, definitely had some level of success as a foundation, at least guaranteeing a minimum standard.
However, the problem also lies here. As an old-school otaku—though he hadn't called himself that for a long time—he had basically started listening to Japanese songs from various anime songs, including OPs and EDs. And apart from anime songs, by the time he really started to come into contact with Japanese music, Japanese music had already entered the streaming era led by Kenshi Yonezu. Like Aimer, Ado, Official Hige Dandism, King Gnu, Vaundy, Aimyon, Fujii Kaze, etc... He had come into contact with more of this group of mid-generation and new-generation streaming singers.
Of course, famous singers like Utada Hikaru, Miyuki Nakajima, Mika Nakashima, Ayumi Hamasaki... he had certainly heard of them, but he had actually only listened to a few songs by each of them. More importantly, he was not familiar with the Japanese music market before the streaming era! It was not difficult to choose a song that a record company would appreciate, but it was quite difficult to choose a song that would make a record company feel amazed, thereby allowing them to occupy an advantageous position in negotiations.
After thinking it over, he felt that picking only one song was not safe at all, so he decided to pick another one. Thus, after another difficult decision, he finally chose the following two songs—the first was "Snow Flower," released in October 2003 and sung by Mika Nakashima; the creation time of "Snow Flower" was relatively close to the current time, and it was one of Mika Nakashima's representative works. Although he didn't know what kind of results this song had achieved back then, it was definitely the safest choice;
Secondly, there was "Marigold," released in August 2018, written and sung by Aimyon; as one of the top singer-songwriters of the streaming era, "Marigold" was also one of her representative works. Before he transmigrated, the streaming plays of "Marigold" had already exceeded 600 million, which was quite terrifying number. In addition, the reason for choosing this song was that Aimyon's musical style was more traditional compared to other streaming-era singers, so it should be easier to be accepted by this era, and it would be easier to realize technically. Due to technological advancements, many new-era music pieces could not be perfectly replicated in this era, and if he wanted to use them, he would have to adapt them, which was a bit troublesome.
Having finalized these two songs, the next step was to transcribe the music and write out the rough song melodies as soon as possible. Once written, he could take them to Rin for processing. As for the lyrics, this was the part he needed to worry about the least.
So, in the following free time, Akira didn't have to devote himself that wholeheartedly to writing songs. Three days passed in a flash, and before he knew it, it was the day for the release of the 32nd issue of "Weekly Shonen Jump." It was also the day for the serialization of the 2nd chapter of "Fate/stay night."