Saiko is not pleased.
Saiko and Shujin in this episode aims to go for a bigger gold, winning a Tezuka Award. So, Shujin tries his best to write a story worthy for a shonen manga awarding group until Saiko will be satisfied with his inputs before making the art. Therefore, our dynamic duo works hard for this big gold!
After Saiko was satisfied with the last notebook given to him, in which the title of the work is “One in a Million.” It is story about a future in which a group of rebel humans fight against an AI machine that assigns people social rankings, in which after some recommendations from Saiko they added light sabers for the kick ass battles, they duo sets off to work for their Tezuka Award deadline!
After their hardwork, they submit their work to Shueisha, I mean, Yueisha to give it to their editor which is quite pleased with their latest work and cite their improvements, in terms of their story, yes. In terms of their artwork, he never commented much. I repeat, never commented much. So, he decides it to submit for the Tezuka Awards.
To make their agony quick, here’s what happened. They can’t think on what they will do next since their editor suggested that the next work they will submit is for publishing and they will submit it in Shonen Ju… I mean, Shonen Jack NEXT, which is where most amateurs and pros submit works for serialization because of them worried about the Tezuka Awards!
Here is a quick run on their Tezuka Award agony. They qualified to the top eight and a few months later, like fathers waiting for their wife to tell them that she was able to deliver the child normally, they waited while reading Dragon Ball. At the end, they were honorable mentions. Not bad.
A few days later, still depressed, Shujin moves on and starts writing manuscripts for NEXT and later on, Ishizawa the guy who likes drawing moe girls and meets Saiko and tells him about the Tezuka Awards and starts ranting that it’s Saiko who is pulling back Shujin due to his artwork.
RAIDAAA PANSSSS~!
Shujin, controlling himself about the Ishizawa’s ranting until Ishizawa pops up his bad drawings (Seriously, his drawings are bad in my opinion. At least Saiko’s artwork felt like it was meant for a seinen title) and did the thing on the screenshot on top. He punched the guy endlessly.
On to the review, this episode felt like the Summer episode and the next episode after it rolled into one. Aside from more Shonen Jump title product placements. Speaking of product placements… buy your copy of popular Jump titles in your nearest bookstores now, or if it is not available, online! Oh, Bakuman Vols. 1 and 2 are now available courtesy of Viz Media!
Enough with the product placements, aside that it is like the summer episode and the next one rolled into one, this is when we saw how our characters improved as manga-ka. For Shujin’s case, his stories are less light novel types while as for Saiko, his artwork in my opinion, works best for seinen (mature) titles. It is also one of the main points in this episode, Saiko’s artwork.
Ishizawa ranted that in terms of artwork, they only got 3 out of 5 while in terms of story, and they got 4 out of 5. He said that the artworks are not fit for a shonen title. Oh, come on! Did that guy read or watch Initial D? The artwork of the characters are crap, the only thing that is worth checking out in the title is the cars and the Japanese street culture! Like I said earlier, his artwork fits well on mature titles, especially titles that has something to do with gothic or dark themes. Aside that the lines looked more refined, the character designs of “One in A Million” looked stunning. Too bad, we only see a few pages of it in the anime… and I expected to see Saiko’s lightsaber battle artwork!
I have to admit, the opening art of “One in A Million” is not an eyecatcher. When I say it, the impression it gave to me is a zombie who has just awoken from the death and not a bunch of rebels wielding lightsabers to fight SkyNet. Ishizawa has every right to comment them with their opening art but not in their overall art.
This is one of major turning points in the series. You see, with Ishizawa telling them about the Tezuka Award, some of the classmates overheard it, thus learning the reason behind on how close Saiko and Shujin were aside that they walk home together and why Shujin’s midterm rank is on the third place in which, he is supposed to be the smart one.
This episode also marks the turning point of the friendship between Saiko and Shujin. This is when we learned that their partnership is not only because of manga but they respect each other as individual artist. This was proven when Shujin can’t control himself and decides to punch the lights out of Ishizawa. Shujin practically has every point on why he should punch Ishizawa. Aside that Saiko drew 32 pages worth of manga, he was just a beginner with the pen, and it requires quite an amount of mental workout. I mean, just simply writing this review is mental workout and typing exercise while drawing involves hand and eye coordination, an awake mind to see if the art for the story is good and most importantly, if the artwork catches the eye of the readers at first glance.
Overall, this episode is one of the strong points of the entire series. Aside that it talks about how strong the friendship between Saiko and Shujin, it tells us about the efforts they made just to reach that level of success for the Tezuka Awards. I mean, it is not bad to reach honorable mention! If you reached that level, it means that you need to improve something in your work so that there would be fewer complaints about it next time.