Chapter 14: The Framework of Future Works
When considering what manga he should create, he needed to consider the genre of the manga first.
Among all mangas, there were several genres that had a huge readership and would continue to flourish.
One of the hottest genres was sports.
For example, Shotaro Ishinomori, the author of Kamen Rider was also the author of a manga about sports. The manga was later introduced into China, which was known as "Volleyball Girls" (燃えろアタック).
However, maybe because the mangakas that come later were all influenced by him, after that, the protagonists of sports mangas mostly had one or two super skills, and they would also shout out the names of their skills when playing.
Well, Shimizu Hakuseki still vaguely remembered that when he was a child, he liked to watch "Volleyball Girls", when hearing the female protagonist Kojika Junko shouting "Clear Sky Thunder" when she was playing volleyball, he indeed felt cool. And in reality, he occasionally had the impulse to shout out "Clear Sky Thunder" too.
But now, when he thought about it, he felt a little ashamed. If it was a martial art manga, it was fine. But in a sports manga, it was too strange.
However, sports manga didn't die out in the future but also carried forward. The most famous example was "Captain Tsubasa", and later, in "The Prince of Tennis", the protagonist's super skill had become more incredible. Could you believe that when playing tennis, flying tennis could cause a black hole in the air?
Thinking about it further, Shimizu Hakuseki realized that he didn't really love sports. If possible, he would prefer to stay at home, sleep or read comics. Therefore, he wasn't going to draw a sports manga.
The next option was to draw superhero manga such as Dragon Ball or One Piece. They were all very interesting mangas, but the timing wasn't good now. Nowadays, Kamen Rider was the hottest television drama. If you went to the streets, you could find kids imitating Kamen riders everywhere.
And Shimizu Hakuseki knew that this series would continue, forming a huge family of Kamen riders, until the 21st century, Kamen Rider still had a considerable amount of fans.
Do I really have the power to fight against Kamen Rider? Will my manga really be that good? Shimizu Hakuseki lacked in self-confidence.
In the classroom, Shimizu Hakuseki carefully considered his advantages and disadvantages. Finally, he wrote "SF" on the paper and drew a circle around it.
SF, science fiction.
In 1973, which was last year to Shimizu Hakuseki, the movie "Japan Sinks" was released, creating a stir amongst Japanese people. And even before that, science fiction had become one of the hottest genres in the manga industry. Whether it was Osamu Tezuka's Astro Boy, or Fujiko Fujio's Doraemon, or even Kamen Rider, they were famous science fiction mangas.
So, what kind of sci-fi manga is excellent and also meets the taste of Japanese?
Ah! Suddenly, a name popped out of Shimizu Hakuseki's mind. He smiled.
"Shimizu Hakuseki, what are you laughing at?" On the platform, Teacher Takahara Masato said, "Looking at your smile, I think you have understood everything I said before, come up and answer the question."
"Tsk." Shimizu Hakuseki moved his mouth to the side, went to the blackboard and looked at the math problem. He quickly wrote the answer on the blackboard, then returned to his seat and began to continue his thoughts.
Yes, since it's to create a sci-fi manga, it seems that there is nothing more appropriate than "Legend of the Galactic Heroes"!
Its original author was Tanaka Yoshiki. Computing the time, even if he also existed in this parallel world, he was still a college student now. Therefore, it shouldn't be a problem to copy his idea.
Should I copy the novel?
No, that's inappropriate.
First of all, Shimizu Hakuseki had already forgotten most of the plots of the "Legend of the Galactic Heroes". He only remembered a few classic characters and the trend of the story. Even if he wanted to copy the original shamelessly, he couldn't remember the details. Moreover, he didn't think that his writing could reproduce this masterpiece.
Second, whether it was novel or manga, they were just carriers of the story itself. However, there were advantages and disadvantages to different carriers. Undoubtedly, pictures were more intuitive than words in expression. And some battle scenes, especially the beautiful scenes of space battle, would be powerless if only showing them in words.
Therefore, what Shimizu Hakuseki wanted to do was to use the characters and stories in his memory as the skeleton, and then to enrich the story with the roles and details he created himself, telling the story in the form of manga.
That was to say, he would only draw the manga “Legend of the Galactic Heroes” and skip the novel directly.
In this case, he needed to conceive the details of the story.
First of all, he needed to carefully remember the story of "Legend of the Galactic Heroes".
As for the characters, it wasn't a big problem. As a novel that had a lot of protagonists, the most successful part of "Legend of the Galactic Heroes" was its character creation.
Miracle Yang Wen-li, Golden Lion Reinhardt, Bewitching Eyes Reuenthal, Wolfgang Mittermeyer… these aristocratic and slightly shameful nicknames were old-fashioned in the 21st century, but now it was 1974, they were still in the coolest settings.
Finally, it was time to determine the technology in the manga. After all, "Legend of the Galactic Heroes" was a story about a cosmic war, so anyway, the scenes of space battles were indispensable.
In "Legend of the Galactic Heroes", the main war machine was a space battleship, but there was a problem. Shimizu Hakuseki didn't want to copy the settings of the space battleships from the original.
"Legend of the Galactic Heroes" had also been animated. But, to be honest, the space battleships in the anime were too bad.
The original designers of the space battleships had no sense of aesthetics at all! The space battleships in the anime were too ugly as if they were some graffiti of children.
Shimizu Hakuseki didn't like them.
He preferred to draw human-shaped mechs such as Gundam or Eva, even Zaku was an acceptable choice. However, there was no room for human-shaped mech in "Legend of the Galactic Heroes". In this case, he needed to conceive the settings of space battleships carefully.
So, how to do it?
After thinking for a while, he remembered a set of very good space battleships.
The spaceships in Eve Online.
As a space-based, persistent world massively multiplayer online role-playing game, EVE had made great efforts in the settings of spaceships. There were four races in the game, and different races had a series of different styles of spaceships.
Moreover, the style of spaceships in Eve Online could be matched with the style of "Legend of the Galactic Heroes". Among the four races in Eve Online, the golden, gorgeous and mysterious spaceships of the Amarr were suitable for the Galactic Empire, and the spaceships of the Gallente were suitable for the Free Planets Alliance.
Shimizu Hakuseki could clearly remember the shapes of these spaceships, he only needed to draw them out on paper.
Since the settings of the space battleships had been determined, next was to determine the settings of characters.
He didn't think that he needed to change too much of the original settings. He just needed to make a few modifications on the costume, adding some science fiction elements.
Generally speaking, the character settings in the anime were very good. Although the characters in the original anime were too feminine, it was understandable. After all, the characters in Tanaka Yoshiki's novel were feminine too. Moreover, such a painting style could also attract more female readers.
Well, I’ve decided! My first masterpiece will be the manga version of the "Legend of the Galactic Heroes"!
The boys and girls of today's Japan, let me tell you what a real space opera should be! Let me correct your distorted love for human-shaped battle machines!
When the school bell rang, Shimizu Hakuseki had conceived a lot of settings in his mind.
Putting away the books, Shimizu Hakuseki only wanted to go home and draw the ideas in his mind as fast as he could.
However, when he just got up, he heard the exclamations from his classmates in the classroom.
"Look, it's Kasannoin Ayase senpai!"
"Oh my God, why did Ayase senpai come here? What does she want to do?"
"What? Is she that legendary straight A student? I didn't know that she was such a beauty!"
Kasannoin Ayase didn't pay any attention to them and treated them as if they didn't exist. She walked straight to Shimizu Hakuseki and stopped him.
"Shimizu Hakuseki, where are you going?"
"Going home."
"Go straight home after school? Aren't you participating in club activities?"
"Well, I'm in the 'Go Home Club'."
"There's no such a club! Are you going to make your high school life gloomy?" Kasannoin Ayase said sadly, "Don't you have any impulse to join any school clubs? Don't you like to enjoy the feeling of struggling with your classmates and friends?"
"Senpai, I need to go home to earn money. Don't you want me to pay the rent on time?"
"Cough, of course, you need to pay the rent on time, but also, you should try to join a few clubs in the school. Follow me."
After bringing Shimizu Hakuseki to the door of an empty classroom, Kasannoin Ayase flaunted, "Clang clang clang! This is the club room that I applied for from the student union, the amazing 'Manga & Literature Research Club'!"
