Within what range should the length of a short one-shot manga be limited?
How long does a manga have to be to be considered a medium-length work?
And what is the standard length for a long-running serialization?
So far, no consensus has emerged within the industry on a standard answer.
Take short one-shots, for example.
In most people's minds, a story that wraps up perfectly in just a dozen or a few dozen pages is undoubtedly a short one-shot.
But what about a manga that is dozens of pages, over a hundred pages, or even two hundred pages long?
That's a bit harder to say.
So, when this massive 217-page storyboard was placed before the three assistants, their first reaction was—
Is this really a short one-shot?
At least in their own experience, the one-shots they drew were usually only a few dozen pages long.
To this, Akira replied:
"I've positioned 'Fate/stay night' as a medium-length manga, so in my eyes, 'Weathering with You' can only be considered a short one-shot."
The three assistants looked at each other, thinking that what he said seemed to make a lot of sense.
And speaking of which, if viewed from the perspective of Shonen Jump, any work that finishes or gets axed within less than a year of serialization in the main magazine would probably be considered a short work, right?
Then it was fine.
But then again, what kind of story did Mochizuki-sensei draw for a 217-page one-shot?
At this thought, the three of them felt an itch in their hearts, wanting to find out immediately.
"If you want to read it, you'll have to wait until at least the lunch break, right?"
Seeing this, Akira said with a chuckle:
"Get back to work for now, hey! Do you really think I'm paying you for nothing?"
"Yes!" ×3
Having received Akira's promise, the three were instantly energized and dove headfirst into their work with great momentum.
Busyness is the ultimate weapon for killing time!
At the same time, after saying those words, Akira couldn't help but be slightly stunned.
His speech just now sounded too much like a 'boss,' didn't it?
Even he found it a bit hard to stomach.
In any case, he should try to avoid that problem as much as possible in the future.
...
Finally, lunch break arrived. After eating, Hayato and Shota couldn't wait to move the manuscript for 'Weathering with You' to the coffee table, preparing for the three of them to read it together.
Akira shook his head with a smile upon seeing this. He didn't interfere, merely giving them a word of caution before heading to the bedroom for a nap.
"Please be careful while reading; don't damage the manuscript."
"Yes!" ×3
Once Akira returned to his room, the three looked down at the manuscript before them. The paper on top, printed with the manga's title, first caught their eyes—
'Weathering with You'.
It looked like a fantasy-type story.
So they thought, but when the title page was moved aside and they truly saw the first page of the manga, all three were stunned in unison—
The background art is so detailed!
The first panel of the manga was a high-angle view of a rainy cityscape. Akira had depicted the clouds in the sky, the tall buildings beneath them, and the rain and mist between the buildings with extreme exquisite detail.
In the next panel, the urban background was separated by a translucent glass window. On the glass, which was wet from raindrops on the outside, a young girl's somber face was reflected.
The panel after that was a panoramic view of a hospital ward. In the frame, a woman wearing a breathing mask lay on a hospital bed, while the girl sat by the bedside, keeping watch.
This was followed by a series of close-ups: falling rain outside the windowsill, a teru teru bozu hanging inside the room, an ECG monitor at the head of the bed, and the woman's thin hand being held by the girl...
Even without any words, through a series of images, a somewhat unpleasant story was already being faintly told.
However, in the next frame, the dark clouds in the sky suddenly broke open, allowing a beam of sunlight to shine diagonally onto the roof of a building, like a ray of hope in the midst of despair.
The girl's attention was drawn by this sight. Unconsciously, she left the hospital and, following the guidance of that beam of sunlight, arrived at the rooftop of an abandoned building.
On the rooftop, a small red torii gate and a shrine were bathed in sunlight, as if a miracle had descended.
Thus, the girl unconsciously clasped her hands in prayer and stepped through the torii gate.
In a close-up of her face, the raindrops before the girl's eyes suddenly suspended in mid-air, and then, accompanied by a powerful gust of air, flowed straight upward!
Then, in the next low-angle wide shot, the girl's figure appeared high in the sky, with water droplets seeming to turn into swimming fish circling around her.
And in the distance, there seemed to be dragons made of clouds and mist swimming through the sky.
The girl scanned her surroundings and actually saw sky islands made of clouds above the heavens, with the surfaces of these islands even covered in lush green grass!
Finally, in a high-angle double-page spread—
The girl's figure, the water-droplet fish, the mist dragons, the floating sky islands, and the cityscape with its forest of tall buildings below all appeared together, forming a quite mysterious, wonderful, and spectacular image!
...
The story of the girl at the beginning temporarily ended there. The next scene shifted to a boy on a ship, and the three of them paused slightly, exhaling in unison.
In the opening content mentioned above, Akira didn't let the characters say a single word, nor did he insert a single line of narration, relying entirely on storyboarding and artwork to push the plot forward.
Therefore, they also focused more on the visuals themselves.
Regarding the opening artwork, all three held the same thought at this moment—
"It's drawn too beautifully!"
Hayato exclaimed from the bottom of his heart:
"Mochizuki-sensei's art is truly amazing."
"Yeah."
Shota also had a look of admiration, nodding in agreement:
"In this manga, Mochizuki-sensei's background art is so delicate, yet it's not that kind of realistic style... hmm... it's like he's depicted a truly existing 2D world!"
"However, the character art seems a bit..."
Simple? Crude?
"I think this must be intentional on Mochizuki-sensei's part."
Daisuke speculated:
"Exquisite, complex backgrounds and simple characters are easier to contrast. While readers appreciate the background, they can also easily focus their gaze on the characters."
"If both were drawn exquisitely, it would be hard to distinguish the primary from the secondary."
"Not only that, from the character design, you can see that Mochizuki-sensei specifically changed to a more ordinary drawing style, making the girl not have such a prominent aura like the female characters in Fsn, but rather more like an ordinary person."
"True."
Hearing Daisuke say this, Hayato and Shota suddenly had a moment of realization.
However, to draw a short one-shot, he not only spent time and effort on such exquisite backgrounds but even specifically changed his drawing style for the character designs...
Perhaps Akira attached great importance to this short manga, but it had to be said that this approach was also far too bold and wasteful.
Perhaps only a genius like Akira would dare to squander his artistic talent so freely.