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I just want to quietly draw manga Chapter 248
🕑 Added 2025-07-22 17:27:30 +0000 UTCThat night, Haruki once again invited Ryuko to queue up for a few rounds of competitive games.
But Ryuko seemed… distracted.
She chatted idly with him throughout, not really focusing on the gameplay. It wasn’t like her.
Finally, after they wrapped up their last match with a win, she spoke up.
“Haruki…”
“Yeah?”
“Are you free in two weeks?”
“What’s up?” he asked, curious.
“Well… there’s going to be a major anime convention in Central Tokyo. The company signed me up for an appearance. Some promo stuff, signings, light interviews… You know the drill. It’s mostly for exposure.” She hesitated. “Anyway, I got a few extra guest passes, and I thought… you might want to come check it out?”
A convention, huh?
Haruki paused, thoughtful. It had been a while. Back before the system, he used to attend those kinds of events fairly often in Osaka. But ever since he'd gone pro as a manga artist and especially since moving to Tokyo—he hadn’t had the time or the friends nearby to make those kinds of outings.
“What’s wrong? Scared I’ll eat you or something?” Ryuko teased, smiling as she caught his silence.
Haruki laughed. “Nah. Sure, I’ll go.”
Their relationship had settled into this strange equilibrium, and if he backed out now, wouldn’t that just mean he was avoiding something? Afraid of something?
If he really didn’t like her… what was there to be afraid of?
But for the past few days, it seemed like he was starting to like her. In a way.
“Alright then, it’s settled,” she said. “I’ll give you the ticket. I might be busy with some official stuff that day, so I probably won’t be able to walk the floor with you. Just text me when you get there.”
“Got it,” Haruki said casually. He didn’t think much of it.
A convention was just a convention. At most, he might check out the cosplay zone and see if there were any standout cosplayers. He’d been to enough of these to know what to expect. Still… a part of him was curious.
August arrived.
Even though Initial D had already been officially announced to be ending soon, fans were still fired up about it.
The past couple of months had seen the story enter a new phase.
Elite racing teams from other districts had started challenging local Gunma Prefecture drivers, racking up a string of wins.
But it was only a matter of time before all their momentum zeroed in on one thing: the legendary AE86 of Akina Pass.
In the current arc, the Emperor Team had made a critical miscalculation. Instead of letting their veteran racer, Kyoichi, take on the challenge, they sent out Kiyoji fresh off a win over Nakazato to race against Takumi.
Naturally, fans didn’t expect Akina to fall so easily. Not at home.
Even though Kiyoji was driving a Lancer Evolution, the manga had been building tension and dropping foreshadowing. Takumi, during the race, began to feel—for the first time—that sheer skill alone wasn’t enough. That maybe, even after years of running the mountain roads and perfecting every corner, he was only just keeping pace.
The final outcome relied on a clever double-layered “drain pass” strategy and Kiyoji’s own carelessness. Ignoring Kyoichi’s advice to trail the 86 until the end, Kiyoji got overeager and tried to force a pass—only to be outplayed in the final moments.
Thus, Akina handed the Emperor Team their first loss.
Readers loved the tension of the arc. But still… if even their second-best racer gave Takumi that much trouble, what was going to happen when Kyoichi himself stepped in?
Especially since it was clear Kyoichi was far more skilled than Kiyoji.
At the same time, the manga had begun nudging another subplot forward—Natsuki Mogi, the girl who’d been ambiguously linked to Takumi from the start, was now talking about leaving her family behind to pursue happiness with him.
This development… left readers a little confused.
Sure, everyone knew Haruki wanted to wrap the series up. But wasn’t it too rushed?
Was he really going to let Takumi lose to Kyoichi, spiral into despair, and fall into Natsuki’s arms?
People joked about calling Takumi “NTR Takumi” implying he’d been cheated on and humiliated… but no one actually wanted him to end up with Natsuki. Most fans were rooting for him to end up with Shizuki from Usui Pass instead.
On social media, Mizushiro’s posts were being bombarded with reader pleas:
“Don’t rush the ending, please!”
“Even if Takumi loses, don’t turn the story into a mess. Take your time.”
“Let him lose with dignity, not a breakdown!”
But Haruki didn’t respond.
The foreshadowing was already in the manga. Most fans had guessed where things were going.
And they were half right.
Yes, Takumi would lose. But what they didn’t expect… was how he’d come back from it.
After all, how could he become the true King of Akina without first crashing and burning?
Meanwhile, talk about Madoka Magic had also begun to pick up steam.
This season, Haruki and producer Kazuya had co-funded the project. Thankfully, that meant Kazuya didn’t have to shoulder full production responsibilities. He just needed to manage pre-broadcast work and oversee the schedule.
Following the earlier release of the character designs, Kazuya had dropped a few short animation clips.
The warm, gentle art style surprised a lot of people—especially after Mizushiro posted that it was going to change the way people think about magical girls.
But from the art style alone, it looked like a typical magical girl show. Some critics scoffed:
“There’s nothing revolutionary about magical girls.”
“It’s just a show for little kids. What could you possibly change?”
A full trailer was scheduled for release in late August.
By then, every major studio was already promoting their Fall lineup.
Compared to those big-budget productions, Kazuya’s campaign felt modest—some even said lukewarm.
But Kazuya wasn’t too bothered. It was still better than the total obscurity Five Centimeters Per Second had faced in its early days… or Voices from a Distant Star.
At least this time, Haruki’s name brought in a baseline audience.
Even casual viewers had heard of Madoka Magic by now, just from the buzz alone.
Kazuya had poured a lot into the marketing effort, even if it didn’t match the industry giants.
Yet in production circles, the project was quietly being written off.
People assumed it would be Haruki’s first real flop. It was not expected to be a disaster, as projections still estimated over six million views per episode, but compared to the buzz generated by Five Centimeters, it seemed underwhelming.
Kazuya could sense the dismissiveness from his peers.
And while he didn’t say anything publicly, everyone in his studio knew…
They were holding their breath, waiting for October to arrive.
Comments
Banana19
Hope the October arrives quickly.
