Mashiro and Takagi relentlessly work to meet Hattori’s deadlines without taking any breaks, even going without sleep in Mashiro’s case.

On their way to a meeting, Mashiro sees Nakai talking with a young girl, who then notices them and invites them for a chat. Nakai’s in the Golden Future Cup as well and the girl is Aoki Kou who wrote Story King, the story that’s entered, with Nakai drawing for her.

Nakai introduces her to Ashirogi Muto and she says quite frankly that she didn’t like Money and Intelligence because it was too bleak for a shounen magazine.

Takagi gets a annoyed and asks what Aoki’s manga is. Her manga is a fantasy story. Originally she drew for a shoujo magazine but was advised the fantasy story would do better as for shounen. But because she can’t draw shounen, Nakai came along.

Nakai informs them that Fukuda got in too and the editorial department has high hopes for him as they’re running it first. There are 4 entrants and the order they’ll be realised is Fukuda’s ‘Kiyoshi Knight’ first, then it’s ‘Gitantei Trap’, next is Nakai and Aoki’s ‘Hideout Door’ and lastly is Makino Kouji’s ‘Colorfusical.’ Aoki again says frankly that she doesn’t like ‘Kiyoshi Knight’ because Fukuda tries to depict modern youths in a magazine where the word drug is forbidden, a Seinen magazine would’ve been better.

Both Mashiro and Takagi felt nothing for Colorfusical, but surprisingly Aoki liksd it because it’s artistic. And Nakai’s going along with anything she says…

They realise it’s past 6 so Mashiro and Takagi rush off to their meeting. Hattori declares, after seeing how serious the 2 are, future meetings will be aimed at serialization. He says that they don’t need to get first in the Cup and then explains some complications of ranking the Cup participants. Hattori accidently blurts out that he doesn’t want to lose to Colorfusical, but doesn’t say why. Mashiro then declares that they will take first place, so they can catch up to Eiji.

Hattori tells them that Crow is doing well in the weekly rankings and the first three volumes of the manga have sold over 2mil copies. It also has an anime offer. But Hattori’s confident that they’ll surpass Eiji.

After the meeting the scene switches to a Koogy concert. When the concert finishes Koogy, the lead singer, declares that he’s taking a break from music and is going to be a mangaka. He drew Colorfusical, which explains why he’s doing well in rankings even though few like his work as his fans are sending in questionnaires.

Fukuda calls Mashiro the next morning to tell him about Koogy and how annoyed he is. He and Nakai are going to protest and asks Mashiro to come along.

After Takagi agrees to go, he and Mashiro head to meet up with Nakai and Fukuda. The four meet, ready to march into the editorial department!


With this episode comes two new characters, Koogy and Aoki. Koogy first, I don’t think Fukuda’s protest will get anywhere. I mean, what Koogy is doing, I guess it’s a little underhanded, but I don’t see that it’s against the rules. I am against it and think he’ll probably be ‘taken down’ by the other mangakas but only after he’s been serialised or something though. Or who knows, maybe the protest will yield results. But I highly doubt they’ll get Koogy kicked out of the competition, the editorial department won’t be influenced by 3 up and coming mangakas.

Speaking of Koogy, this quite nicely explains why we’ve been getting glimpses of him lately. Nice way to work in a new mangaka, I was pleasantly surprised.

Aoki now, her voice sounded more mature than I expected. For some reason I don’t remember her to be that blunt and emotionless… at least the current her in the manga isn’t, did she really change that much? Huh… well either way, it’s quite a good voice for her current self in the anime. Wonder if they’ll change how she sounds when her personality changes. Or it could just be me and she’s still the same blunt self in the manga… but I don’t think so.

Seeing Mashiro on the verge of collapse reminds me of how his uncle worked himself to death. That’s not really productive for being mangaka so I would advise Mashiro to get proper rest now and then and make it top priority, unless he wants to live fast and die young.

Is anyone for NakaixAoki? They seem alright, but I don’t think their personalities match, you have one man, who’s a little desperate and a young girl, which means the guy will be doing everything he can to get the girl to like him i.e. agreeing with everything she says. Nakai’s more experienced, he should be the one giving opinions. I don’t think he’ll get anywhere if he just nods at whatever she says, unless he wants to be led along… but I don’t think a relationship can happen like that. I do think it’s funny how Mashiro thinks of it, she writes the story so she takes the lead. How that relates to a relationship, I have no idea.

Again it’s the order of appearance of manga on debate. Didn’t hear anything from Fukuda this time, though he’s leading the Cup… I think I’ll agree that it’s kinda unfair to run them in an order. However, how else can they do it? They can’t not run them in some form of an order. There’re 4 mangas you can put them all into one magazine issue, but even then they’ll be an order. So I think the editorial department makes a good judgement and instead of using a randomised order, which is still placing in an order, put the one they think will do best at the start for best results.

Anyway looks like Ashirogi Muto’s heading in a good direction now. However this protest plays out will have no effect on their manga. So I look forward to seeing how they do.