To get a manuscript ready for the Tezuka award Takagi uses his lesson time to write out notebook after notebook of story ideas. Because of this Takagi hasn’t been sleeping much, and Kaya’s noticed Takagi’s exhaustion. She even calls Azuki, but just gets teased about it.

After another all-nighter Takagi finally comes up with something that he and Mashiro both like and gets to work on drawing it.

The story is about how a government ranks everyone’s brains and how the highly ranked controls the lower ranks. The heroes in the story fight against the highly ranked and try to end this system. But they realise that it’s the supercomputer that ranks everyone that’s controlling the humans. And that’s the battle element, humans against AI computers, robots etc, that sort. The heroes would obviously be using some sort of sword for Shounen and I think Mashiro suggested something similar to light sabre. Happy with everything, they get to work.

Even with only 20 days, they manage to finish on time and like what they have.

They give it to Hattori and he’s pleased with it. He enters it for the Tezuka award, but the results don’t come out until Novemeber, so he wants them to write something with publication in mind as their next one. ‘They should aim for Shounen Jack NEXT’.

They’re unable to concentrate on drawing or writing as they’re fantasizing about winning the Tezuka award.

Midterms results come out and Takagi has dropped to third on the school rankings. But he doesn’t care. He’s more worried about the next name and how he can’t think up anything good, but Hattori calls and tells him that they’re in the top 8. This means that their names will at least be in print. Now their spirits are high, but they won’t be able to concentrate until the results, so they decide to take a break.

It’s finally the day of the results. Both of them wait nervously by the phone. But after a long wait, they get the call. It’s bad news. They didn’t make the top four.

But with Takagi’s renewed spirit as he starts writing again, Mashiro picks himself back up as well.

During class one day, Ishizama comes by and insults Mashiro’s art. It seems that it was the art that dragged the manga down. Angered by Ishizawa’s blunt comments Takagi punches Ishizawa in the face. The episode ends as Mashiro and Kaya try to drag him away from Ishizawa.

Quite a brilliant ending I have to say. That Ishizawa had it coming, his drawings were crap, they were just moe faces, nothing more. He can’t even draw whole bodies, seriously, what does he know about manga? Nothing, he had no idea what he was talking about, I mean how can he compare himself with someone who’s actually got somewhere whilst he’s got nothing, that’s just pure arrogance. And people like that deserve to be punched, or maybe something less violent, but they need a lesson. Although that said, I don’t like how Takagi will probably get into a lot of trouble for this, he probably should’ve stopped after the first punch and left it there. That’d make him look cooler and he might get away with it if no one tells. But with all the commotion he’s caused it’s quite likely a teacher will notice.

So Takagi’s dropped to third in the school tests, well I guess it just shows how really serious he is. Dropping two spots isn’t that bad considering he’s just been writing up manga ideas and not studying at all. I’m sure if he wanted he could easily get a highly paid managerial job after university. But dreams are so much better than a normal life even if it pays less, it’s not always about money, as long as you can survive.

It’s interesting that Takagi pointed out all the top shounen mangas have characters using swords. They are nice weapons and all, but it does make you wonder. I love swords, but I wouldn’t mind seeing guns either. It’s probably because with swords or rather, archaic weapons, you can draw so much action. With guns it’s just a well aimed shot and everything’s over, more suited for mystery than action for the speed of things. Though if someone does it well enough it could easily work. What Mashiro thought of was basically a light sabre, reminds me of ‘no more heroes’ and I really don’t need to mention Star Wars.

I have to say, Takagi and Mashiro are hilarious when they’re nervous. They should’ve played some games or something to calm themselves down. Anyway, top eight’s not bad, it’s only their second manuscript and they’re not geniuses. This shows that they both have quite a substantial amount of talent, much more so than Ishizawa in every way possible.

That’s two awards they’ve failed to finish top, but no matter, that’s perfectly natural. I think what Ishizawa said will light a fire in Mashiro and he’ll practice his drawings a lot more and most likely improve them. As for Takagi, he’ll probably be suspended or something, in which case he’ll have more time to think of new stories. So their next work will probably be much better and actually make it somewhere.