Chapter 38: Future Film Star Call for Submissions

At the door, Sakamoto Ken pointed to the broken wooden door on the other side of the hallway.

“Editor-san, the restroom is over there. I’ll keep an eye out for you.”

“Keep an eye out?” Kaji Keiko asked in confusion.

“The lock on that door is broken. It opens with a push,” Sakamoto Ken explained.

“Oh, I see…” Kaji Keiko said, “Then I’ll have to trouble Sakamoto-sensei.”

Kaji Keiko quickly walked to the restroom door, knocked first, and then pushed it open.

Sakamoto Ken consciously moved a little further away to avoid hearing her embarrassing sounds.

A few minutes later, Kaji Keiko came out.

Sakamoto Ken still helped her carry the original manuscript paper, leading the way towards the Myo-o-in parking lot where they had parked earlier.

Walking on the small path leading to Myo-o-in, Kaji Keiko moved closer and asked, “Sakamoto-sensei, are you… in a difficult financial situation right now?”

After speaking, she added, “I’m sorry… for prying into Sakamoto-sensei’s privacy. If it’s not convenient to say…”

“It’s not inconvenient,” Sakamoto Ken shook his head and said, “I am indeed very short of money. Editor-san has also seen the place I live. Actually, I have a debt of over thirty million, and I don’t know if it can be waived.”

He sighed and said, “If it can’t be waived, I can only discuss an installment plan with the creditor…”

In his previous life, he of course also had this debt.

The pro bono lawyer helped him fight the lawsuit, and in the end, only managed to reduce the amount of over 33 million to 25 million, and the interest was waived for the next five years, but it was still a huge number.

So, the result of the mediation was that after Sakamoto Ken graduated from university, he would start paying back the money in installments.

However, before he even started paying in installments, a certain rich young lady helped him pay it off…

This time, Sakamoto Ken had no intention of living off a woman again. He had to work hard for this huge sum of money himself. After all, he still wanted to live a normal life in society, and his credit record could not be ruined.

“Thirty million?!” Kaji Keiko said in surprise, “How could it be so much?”

“It was left by my father. It’s been several years, and the interest has been accumulating,” Sakamoto Ken said in a calm tone. “I was tricked into inheriting his property back then, but in the end, there was nothing but debt. Even the house I lived in at that time was already in someone else’s name.”

“I’m sorry for making you talk about these things…”

Kaji Keiko didn’t ask any more questions. She felt that her heart had become heavier.

She remembered what his monk friend had said at the parking lot earlier.

Sakamoto-sensei used to be so poor that he couldn’t even afford to eat…

Living alone since middle school must have been very difficult.

So, that’s why he’s drawing so desperately, right?

Just to earn a little more manuscript fee to support his family…

“Sakamoto-sensei, actually, we editors usually don’t want to distract authors, but considering your creative speed, so…”

Kaji Keiko took out her phone and looked at it, saying, “Actually, there is a large manga award recently. It requires short manga that are convenient for film and television adaptation. It has foreign capital support, and the prize money is particularly high.”

“A short manga award?”

Kaji Keiko nodded and said, “You know Netflix, right? They have established a film and television team in Tokyo and hope to further open up the Japanese market. Once a work is selected, there will be an advance payment for the copyright. Even the third prize is fifty thousand, and it’s in US dollars.”

“Editor-san, I remember the contract requires that during our contract period, we can’t publish manga with other companies,” Sakamoto Ken said.

Kaji Keiko shook her head and said, “The manga part is a collaboration with our Shueisha. The publication of the award-winning manga will also be handled by our company. It’s just that the film and television adaptation rights need to be licensed to Netflix.”

“Editor-san, do you have a detailed introduction to the call for submissions? I’d like to know more,” Sakamoto Ken said.

Kaji Keiko said, “I’ve already sent it to Sakamoto-sensei’s email. But you have to promise me that you must prioritize completing the manuscript for Chainsaw Man.”

“Of course,” Sakamoto Ken agreed without hesitation. “I will prepare this short story in my spare time outside of the two chapters per week.”

“Oh? Sakamoto-sensei already has an idea?” Kaji Keiko asked.

“Yes, I’ll consider which one to choose,” Sakamoto Ken nodded and said.

“You have many ideas at the same time?” Kaji Keiko was a little surprised.

Sakamoto Ken shrugged and said, “It’s not a sudden inspiration. It’s mainly accumulated from the past.”

“Oh, oh, that’s a really good habit,” Kaji Keiko praised. “I’ve seen some well-known authors talk about their creative experience. They all have a common characteristic, which is to accumulate inspiration over the years.”

She walked Kaji Keiko to the parking lot. She took out her car keys and unlocked the door.

“Alright, then I won’t disturb Sakamoto-sensei anymore. If you need anything, feel free to call me anytime,” Kaji Keiko made a calling gesture and said, “Creative, life, all aspects are fine.”

“Okay, I’ll try not to trouble Editor-san.”

“That’s being too formal,” Kaji Keiko waved her hand and said, “The profession of an author is very special. Everything in life will affect creation. Therefore, taking care of everything for the author is our editor’s job.”

“Can you help the author pay off their debts?”

“Haha, I can’t afford to pay back so much money.” Kaji Keiko also knew that Sakamoto Ken was just joking. She said with a smile, “Sakamoto-sensei has manuscript fees. And I will seriously study how to help Sakamoto-sensei promote his work. When the tankobon sells well, it will be a continuous money-printing machine.”

“Then I’ll be counting on Editor-san in the future,” Sakamoto Ken said.

“Bye-bye~” Kaji Keiko got into the car and quickly drove away from the parking lot.

Sakamoto Ken watched the white Toyota leave, and then slowly returned to the apartment.

He checked the email sent by Kaji Keiko on his phone. It was a PDF file introducing the call for submissions.

The call for submissions was called “Future Film Star.”

It was indeed a collaboration with Netflix. It only supported short works of less than 300 pages, and there were two tracks: “Reality” and “Fantasy.”

The former required creation based entirely on the real world, such as youth, love, and detective stories. The latter must contain fantasy elements, such as superpowers, fantasy, and science fiction.

The two tracks were judged separately, and both had the same prize money.

Gold Award: 150,000 prize money, and 200,000 copyright advance.

Silver Award: 100,000 + 100,000 prize money.

Bronze Award: 50,000 + 50,000 prize money.

Even the finalist award had rewards ranging from a few thousand to ten thousand.

The key was that the above units were all in US dollars.

Scrolling down, Sakamoto Ken found that this competition also had a special campus section for students.

If you submitted as a student, you could additionally participate in a “Campus Star” selection with a top prize of 50,000 US dollars.

Although it was mainly for university students, high school students were also welcome.

Sakamoto Ken had already graduated from high school, and university would not start for more than a month.

In fact, he was not currently a student.

However…

Sakamoto Ken tried to click the link in the document and entered the campus section certification page.

Here, you needed to register as a student to upload manuscripts.

He took out his high school student ID. The validity period written on the ID was “April 1, 2012 ~ March 31, 2015.”

In other words, his high school student status would not expire until the end of March.

Before that, although he had not yet received his university student ID, he had no problem enjoying any benefits that students could enjoy.

So, theoretically, the highest prize money he could get was 400,000 US dollars.

This amount of money would leave a lot left over after completely covering his debts.

Although Sakamoto Ken had full confidence in Chainsaw Man, it was a long-running series after all. Before the tankobon was released and sold well, he could only earn manuscript fees.

After transferring from JUMP+ to weekly serialization, the manuscript fee would increase from 12,000 yen per page to 20,000 yen per page, but it was still slow money.

The “Shonen JUMP+ Manga Award” that Chainsaw Man was submitted to would announce the results in three months. The highest grand prize was 1 million, but unfortunately it was in yen, which was just a token prize. Converted to US dollars, it was less than seven thousand.

The deadline for this “Future Film Star” call for submissions was March 31st, which was a little over a month away.

If it were an ordinary manga artist, they would probably only be able to complete a hundred or so pages of finished manuscript even if they worked to their limit, and that would be with the help of assistants.

But Sakamoto Ken was different. His speed was about half an hour per page, and the key was that he didn’t need to spend time on brainstorming.

Counting the full 300 pages, that would be 150 hours. With more than a month to go, it was completely doable.

So the biggest question was, which manga to choose?

(End of Chapter)