Regarding the exclusive content for the tankobon, he didn't have any particularly special ideas.
There was no need to try anything fancy for this sort of thing.
Therefore, he planned to follow Hisashi's suggestion and provide some setting materials and the like.
For instance, the most classic Servant data templates, which included things like basic stats, Class Skills, Personal Skills, and Noble Phantasms.
Of course, the content displayed would only be based on information that could be made public so far.
Besides that, he could also draw some daily life title pages, similar to 'Today's Menu for the Emiya Family'.
Or, he could draw the vast amount of daily life plot from the original Fsn game that he had omitted to match Shonen Jump's pacing.
As for the more important color cover, he thought about it and decided to have the key characters of this volume, Saber and Emiya Shirou, appear together, striking a pose similar to Stand Users.
And for the lead color page, he would arrange for Emiya Shirou, Saber, Tohsaka Rin, and Archer to appear.
What about Matou Sakura?
She didn't have much of a role in this part of the plot, so she could only temporarily be a purple-haired female extra.
Having quickly decided on the content, Akira began to draw.
These bits and pieces didn't require much effort from him.
In two days, while the assistants were finishing the auxiliary work for Chapter 13, he also easily completed the bonus content needed for the tankobon.
Thus, Akira sent over the manuscript for Chapter 13, the bonus content, and the single CD for 'Marigold' all together.
...
...
"He really did send it to me, this brat..."
Looking at the single CD in front of him, especially Akira's name and his handwritten signature recorded on the CD, Hisashi's eyes twitched slightly.
To actually use his real name so openly over there and even form a musical group...
He was already past the point of wanting to complain.
In any case, he first put the CD into his drawer to 'imprison' it, and then he began to check the submitted manuscript.
However, this step was merely a symbolic inspection.
Regarding the storyboard design and plot pacing, he could still pick things out and discuss revisions with the other party, but the artwork was almost impeccable.
That guy's grasp of lines was simply at a monster level.
Confirming that there were indeed no problems, he carefully put away the manuscript and finally began to check the bonus content the other party had submitted.
The artwork on the two color pages was very good; there was nothing to worry about there.
Especially Saber and Tohsaka Rin; the character designs for these two female characters seemed quite outstanding to him. As long as they were characterized well, they might become enduringly popular characters.
However, compared to the color pages, the following character data settings were even more eye-opening—
『Class: Saber』
『Master: Emiya Shirou』
『True Name:???』
『Gender: Female』
『Height/Weight: 154cm 42kg』
『Alignment: Lawful Good』
『Stats:』
『Strength: B』
『Endurance: C』
『Agility: C』
『Mana: B』
『Luck: B』
『Noble Phantasm: C (?)』
『Class Skills:』
『Magic Resistance』: A
『Riding』: B
『Personal Skills:』
『Instinct』: A
『Noble Phantasm:』
『???』...
...
In addition to this Saber Servant template based on public information, there was also a document explaining the settings in detail.
In his view, this kind of templated ability setting was very beneficial for the promotion and popularization of the work; at the very least, it would help fans create and spread derivative works, namely doujinshi.
Doujin generally refers to non-commercial independent creations, including original works as well as adaptations that use characters or the worldview of existing works for re-creation.
And most of the doujin they spoke of referred to the latter.
Not only in China in his past life, but also in Japan in this era, secondary doujin creations were also in a gray area.
In a strict sense, secondary doujin creations were suspected of infringing on the rights of the original work.
However, since most secondary doujin were created by fans who loved the original work, and the spread of doujin also served to promote the original work to a certain extent, most of the time, officials turned a blind eye to it.
Or rather, as long as no large-scale commercial activities were conducted that significantly infringed on official interests, officials were mostly happy to see it happen.
Speaking of which, besides secondary creation, this kind of gamified data template was also beneficial for IP derivative creations, such as game adaptations.
Shonen Jump had already made attempts in this area and was already very experienced.
A recent typical case was 'yu-gi-oh!'.
This work was serialized in Shonen Jump, and in 1998, it collaborated with Konami to launch a Trading Card Game of the same name, which was currently receiving a hot response in the market.
And even earlier, there were examples of the reverse.
For example, 'Dragon Quest: The Adventure of Dai', which was serialized in Shonen Jump and adapted from the worldview of the 'dragon quest' game series.
In short, in Hisashi's view, 'Fate/stay night' also had full commercial potential, perhaps not inferior at all to the two examples mentioned above.
Not only that, he could see that Akira clearly harbored strong ambitions for this work.
Because besides Fsn, he had also created works like 'Emiya Kiritsugu' and 'Kara no Kyoukai' that belonged to the same worldview as Fsn, seemingly wanting to shape a vast and complete system.
However—
"Sigh."
Thinking of this, Hisashi sighed again in frustration at the missed potential.
It was the same old thing; if only this guy could stop squandering his talent so recklessly and honestly stay at home to draw manga.
A genius.
Truly an existence that was both fascinating and troubling.
...
...
If Akira could hear Hisashi's inner thoughts from afar, he might feel a bit wronged.
Because recently, he had indeed been honestly drawing manga.
As for the music side, there was nothing left for him to do for now.
And Rin had already received the company's event schedule; she would soon participate in a variety show called 'HEY! HEY! HEY! MUSIC CHAMP' to promote her song.
He wasn't very familiar with the variety shows here, but according to Haruka, it was currently one of the more popular variety shows that integrated music.
In short, Rin would start entering the program group next week to rehearse her songs.
As for him, he would naturally stay at home to cheer her on and continue drawing 'Weathering with You'.
Since he decided to start drawing 'Weathering with You' on the 15th, 14 days had passed until now.
Of course, the actual creation time might be less than 10 days.
But in any case, he was finally about to finish the storyboard for 'Weathering with You'.
Originally, in his estimation, while ensuring the completeness of the content and drawing as compactly as possible, he should have been able to compress the page count of 'Weathering with You' to within 200 pages.
But it still exceeded that by quite a bit in the actual drawing; the final page count reached 217 pages, which was a bit over the limit for a single tankobon, but still within an acceptable range.
And compared to the storyboard, the artwork this time was the real major project.
Wanting to pursue Makoto Shinkai's kind of background drawing precision as much as possible would definitely be much more troublesome than drawing Fsn; he didn't know if he could finish it in a month.
But what else could he say?
"You chose it yourself, big brother."
Looking at the thick stack of storyboards in front of him, he sighed helplessly and quickly resigned himself to his fate.
In short, just do it!