Chapter 2: I’m Gonna Be the King of Manga!

Three days, 25 pages.

Mikazuki Haruna held a stack of manga manuscript paper with satisfaction, counting them carefully several times as if counting cash.

It all started the day before yesterday at noon.

When she woke up from her nap, some strange memories had suddenly appeared in her mind.

In those memories, she was dating a man, only to discover he was three-timing her.

She joined forces with the other two girls and killed the man…

She could even recall the sensation of the knife plunging into his chest; it wasn’t actually that easy to push in, it would get stuck on the ribs…

How bizarre. How could I possibly kill someone?

But then again, if she really encountered a situation like the one in her dream and found her feelings had been betrayed by a scumbag, she might actually get furious…

Still, it was a good thing it was just a dream.

She had a deep impression of the man’s face. He was indeed very handsome, completely her type.

It was a dream, after all. It was only natural that the man she saw in her dream was her dream lover.

It was just that everything else, aside from the man, was very blurry. She couldn’t even remember the specific appearances of the other two girls.

None of that was important. What was important was that the man in the dream was a manga author.

And Haruna had read his book carefully many times, even remembering every single brushstroke.

After waking up, she immediately searched for it on Google, but the book was nowhere to be found.

And so, she drew it.

Miss Sniper, and Pantyhose!

Haruna particularly loved the work she had just drawn.

Youth, romance, and… punishing the male lead severely with pantyhose.

The female protagonist in it made her feel as if she were looking at herself.

See? This must be a story that Lady Benzaiten sent me in a dream, for me to draw.

I am the woman who will become the King of Manga!

Haruna went downstairs with her manuscript, full of joy, and crossed the long corridor to the main hall.

A beautiful middle-aged woman was sitting on the sofa, flipping through a literary work.

“Mom! Look!” Mikazuki Haruna excitedly sat down on the sofa and placed the manuscript on her mother’s lap.

Seeing the stack of manuscript paper, a warm smile appeared on Mikazuki Aiko’s face. “Haruna, so this is what you’ve been drawing these past few days.”

“Yeah. Mom, didn’t you also publish a book when you were young? I want to be an author too,” Haruna said, sitting close to her mother.

“Hmm… it looks very interesting, but Mom rarely reads manga,” Aiko said, picking up the manuscript to have a look. “You know, it’s not that easy to become an author, but Mom supports you.”

“Mom, what I mainly wanted to ask is, I remember our family worked with a publishing house a few years ago. Do you have a contact for an editor? I want to submit my work,” Haruna said.

“You mean the Hitotsubashi Group? We did have contact with the Sōga family. Wait, let me find the contact information.”

Mikazuki Aiko picked up her phone, opened her email, and searched for keywords. After a moment of searching, she found the email from back then.

“Here, President Sōga’s phone number is right here.” Aiko showed the screen to Haruna.

“For such a small matter, there’s no need to go directly to the president, right? The editor-in-chief of one of the subsidiary publishers should be enough?” Haruna said.

“It’s fine, it’s fine. Your dad is good friends with their president. They were drinking together just two months ago.”

Aiko waved her hand and directly sent a message to her husband: Haruna drew a manga. I’ve seen it, she’s quite talented. You’re close with the president of Hitotsubashi, right? Help get in touch with him.

The Hitotsubashi Group, a large family-owned enterprise, owned renowned publishing houses: Shogakukan, with Shueisha being a subsidiary of Shogakukan.

When Aiko smiled, her eyes curved, bearing a nine-tenths resemblance to Haruna. “Haruna, you just focus on drawing. We’ll have them give you all the resources. Our family is going to have a genius manga artist.”

“Thanks, Mom~” Haruna was overjoyed.

In Japan, if you wanted to publish a manga, the usual path was to submit it to a magazine for serialization. If it became popular enough, you would get the chance to have it published as a standalone volume.

Magazine space was limited, so the competition was incredibly fierce. It was very difficult for a newcomer’s submission to get serialized directly.

But Haruna had no intention of taking such a roundabout path.

It would be a waste not to use the connections she had.

Her family was in business; she was well aware of the importance of resources. The quality of the manga was important, but sometimes, promotion was even more so.

She was on a roll right now. The memory of an entire manga was in her head. This was a stroke of divine inspiration; she just needed to replicate those images.

Haruna immediately returned to her room upstairs, picked up her pen, and continued to draw.

…

Sakamoto Ken had prepared the first two chapters of Chainsaw Man for submission.

After the entrance exams, he no longer had to go to school every day, and Sakamoto Ken knew he would definitely be accepted.

This week, he had negotiated with the manager of the convenience store where he worked to switch his hours to the night shift, allowing him to stay home and create during the day.

He had to keep his part-time job. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have enough for rent and utilities. After all, the hefty royalties were still just a future prospect.

Flipping through the manga he had drawn, he was very confident.

This was a work that would later win first place in the 2021 edition of Kono Manga ga Sugoi! and sell over 30 million copies.

Now the question was, how to get it published?

In his previous life, he had simply searched for a magazine’s submission address on Google and mailed the manuscript directly.

He hadn’t researched the background of that small publishing house at all and had signed the contract right away.

Although his work was continuously published, there was basically no promotion, and the magazine’s circulation was poor.

This time, he definitely had to find a major publisher.

However, it was still quite difficult for a new author to get a serialization spot in a magazine like Shonen JUMP.

After all, before publishing Chainsaw Man, Fujimoto Tatsuki had already gained a certain level of fame with Fire Punch and numerous short stories.

Of course, at this point in time, Fire Punch had not yet been published either.

Sakamoto Ken first went to the convenience store and scanned all his manuscript pages into digital files.

The easiest path at the moment was to submit to Shonen JUMP+, an online manga platform that had just launched last year.

After all, an online manga platform, unlike a magazine, didn’t have page limitations and would give more newcomers a chance to be published.

The first method was web submission: send the scanned manuscript to the editorial department, and you would hear back within a month.

The second method was to make an appointment with the editorial department and meet an editor in person with the original manuscript.

Besides direct submission, one could also participate in various manga awards. Winning works also had a chance at serialization.

On the submission webpage, Sakamoto Ken saw that the Shonen JUMP+ Manga Award was currently underway.

The grand prize was 1,000,000 yen, the runner-up prize was 500,000 yen, and the subsequent honorable mentions and special awards also came with prize money and a serialization contract.

Sakamoto Ken quickly filled out the information on the submission page.

【Attachment: Chainsaw_Man.ZIP】

Click send.

Sakamoto Ken believed that as long as an editor properly read his manuscript, it would definitely be published.

This time, starting with Chainsaw Man, he would become the King of Manga!

(End of Chapter)