Chapter 66 – Sports… Really?
“Sports comic?”
“Aaaah, we’re doomed…….”
“Do we have to do something like Slam Dunk?”
The moment it was revealed that the theme for both the Comic Creation Department and the first-years was a sports story, a thick cloud of despair settled over every student’s face.
And for good reason: while there certainly were some major hit works in the sports genre, in reality, it wasn’t a genre with a particularly large or enthusiastic reader base.
Moreover, most of the students who had come to the Comic Creation Department… were the types who were far removed from anything involving physical exertion. Many of them either knew very little about sports or had no interest in them whatsoever.
But of course, there were also some whose reactions were noticeably different.
“Hmmm, sports, huh. If I go with something like Adachi Mitsuru-sensei—sports romance comics—that would be perfect. Nice, nice…….”
Oh Dong-gyo openly wore a satisfied smile, as if he had been waiting for this very moment.
“Sounds fun? Like, super-duper fun? I can stuff in tons of cute characters, right?!”
Rok-hee was literally stomping her feet in excitement, eyes sparkling.
“…….”
Han Yu-ra, expressionless as ever, was silently stroking her chin while diligently scribbling something on her sketchpad.
And as for Kang Min-hyuk…
‘So that’s why.’
He lifted the corner of his mouth in a faint smirk and nodded to himself.
He now roughly understood why they had thrown the “sports” theme at the first-years.
If he had to name the very first reason:
‘It’s easy to build the framework.’
At its core, sports stories already come with a clear opponent to fight or compete against…
And the world-building and rules that serve as the story’s background mostly already exist in reality.
For a beginner creator, that means far fewer elements they have to agonize over in the realm of pure invention.
Moreover, while the sports genre might appear extremely restrictive at first glance…
‘There’s hardly any genre that allows for as much variation.’
Beyond orthodox sports stories, there are countless successful examples that mix in romance, harem elements, and more.
Also, starting around this period in Japan, works centered on team sports like soccer or basketball began to gain popularity by making character charm and interpersonal relationships the main selling points—sports comics that appealed heavily to female readers.
And personally, Min-hyuk also thought trying a sports comic would be quite helpful for him in several ways.
‘It’ll be really good training for character design.’
Fundamentally, sports stories assign each character a specific position within the team, and with that comes a set of stereotypical personality traits.
A striker tends to be arrogant, narcissistic.
A defender is usually dependable, calm, stoic, etc.
Because these basic archetypes exist in the public consciousness, it becomes relatively easy to create characters using them as a foundation—and also to subvert or twist them.
To put it simply:
‘It gives you a solid basic skeleton to work from.’
Once his thoughts narrowed down to this point, Min-hyuk felt that assigning sports as the first-year theme was an absolutely perfect choice.
Just as everyone’s various thoughts and reactions were leaking out here and there—
Choi Jung-an smiled gently and spoke in a calm voice.
“Alright. From now on we’ll have regular check-in meetings, so make sure you work hard without any hiccups. Be sure to meet the deadlines so there’s no unfortunate incident where your work doesn’t make it into the collected volume. Because if that happens… your grades are going to take a serious hit, right?”
“Yeeesss…….”
“Keep this in mind, everyone. Meeting deadlines is a matter of life and death.”
Gulp.
For some reason, everyone felt a chill run down their spines at the tone of Jung-an’s voice.
***
After the grade-wide project theme was officially set as sports,
The atmosphere in the Comic Creation Department changed noticeably.
“Hey, what are you planning to do for the grade project?”
“Uggghhh… Personally I’d love to do something like Slam Dunk.”
“Can you even do that in a one-shot?”
“I’ll have to think about it some more.”
Here and there in the classroom, small groups formed as students chattered excitedly about their grade projects.
Scratch scratch!
“Hmmmmm…….”
Some kids, whenever they had a spare moment, were furiously sketching storyboards on practice paper, showing them to friends for feedback… or opening laptops to draft planning documents.
They were probably preparing for their preliminary planning meetings with Choi Jung-an soon.
In the midst of all this, Min-hyuk—as usual—was working on Brave King’s manuscript during drawing class, while precisely allocating set blocks of time to pre-production planning.
If there was one slight problem…
“Ugggggh.”
Scratch scratch.
Min-hyuk set down the mechanical pencil he had been scribbling with on the practice sheet and roughly tousled his hair.
“This isn’t easy…….”
When he first heard the theme was sports comics, he had been confident that ideas would come pouring out.
He might not have been deeply immersed in the genre before, but he still thought his reading volume was considerable.
But now that he had actually started working on it, the reality unfolding before him was completely different from what he had imagined.
Before starting, he had genuinely thought this time he would do a work that he truly, wholeheartedly wanted to create… something that really hit him in the gut, and learn from that experience.
‘Why isn’t there even one idea that makes me go, “This is it”?’
For some reason, that primal desire from deep inside wasn’t rising up.
The kind of urge where you think, ‘This would be so fun to draw,’ or ‘I really want to make a comic with this kind of material’… none of that heat was coming.
Was it because he had never really enjoyed sports much in his life?
He had mechanically tried coming up with a few ideas, but none of them really struck a chord.
And yet, the thought of just charging ahead anyway felt strongly like he would only end up wasting time meaninglessly.
‘I shouldn’t have been worrying about the other kids.’
The biggest problem is me… me…
And the slightly problematic part of the current situation was—
‘Tomorrow… what the hell am I supposed to say?’
Tomorrow was already the day of the preliminary planning meeting with Choi Jung-an teacher about the grade project.
He needed to have something ready by then…
While he was groaning and agonizing like that—
Tap tap!
“Hey, Kang Min-hyuk.”
Someone tapped him on the shoulder.
“Huh?”
Han Yu-ra?
When he turned his head, Han Yu-ra was standing there with her arms crossed, glaring at him with an icy expression.
Did I do something wrong?
Why is she looking at me like that?
“You’re being noisy. If you’re sick or something, just say so and go rest.”
“Ah…….”
Apparently, the groans he had been letting out while suffering had echoed through the drawing room.
“…Sorry. I’ll be quiet.”
In the end, Min-hyuk could only manage an awkward smile in response.
***
The next day, in the meeting room.
Flip flip! Flip flip!
Choi Jung-an quickly flipped through the practice sheets in her hand.
On them… were about five or six rough storyboards that Kang Min-hyuk had drawn.
After looking through them all, Jung-an scratched her forehead and asked,
“So you’re saying… there isn’t really any material that you particularly like?”
“Yeah… I guess you could say none of them feel like ‘this is the one.’”
Min-hyuk answered with a somewhat conflicted expression.
Jung-an scanned the storyboards once more with her eyes.
‘The quality of the works themselves isn’t bad at all.’
They were orthodox sports comic clichés, with slight twists added to create reversals or unique endings.
Honestly speaking, all of them were decent—more than decent, even.
If any of the other regular students had brought in these storyboards, she would have praised them lavishly, saying they did an excellent job.
But looking at Min-hyuk’s expression, Choi Jung-an could clearly sense it.
‘This level isn’t satisfying to him.’
Well, of course… if it’s Min-hyuk.
He was more than capable of feeling that way.
Back when Yang Jae-han’s new series was launching, hadn’t he scrapped an already perfectly fine manuscript just because he wanted to compete properly and do better? He was that kind of fiercely determined guy.
A choice that no ordinary person with normal levels of greed could ever make.
So naturally, something that was merely “decent enough” by his own standards wouldn’t satisfy him.
But the problem was…
According to the current guidelines for the grade project, the basic rule was to finalize the storyboard during this planning meeting, then develop it from there all the way to completing the manuscript.
‘Hmm…….’
Yet Choi Jung-an couldn’t bring herself to tell Kang Min-hyuk, “This is good enough, why don’t you just go ahead with one of these?”
Kang Min-hyuk was, among all the students who had fought through fierce competition to get into Animation High, one with truly exceptional, standout talent.
And for good reason: every two weeks he was pumping out high-quality Brave King manuscripts while simultaneously handling most of the mountain of school assignments thrown at them.
That kind of schedule was difficult even for professional comic artists.
And the fact that he could maintain serialization at such an… overwhelming level of quality while doing all that—was talent in and of itself.
Because he wasn’t an “ordinary” student…
Choi Jung-an thought to herself.
The guidelines created for average students might not fit someone like Kang Min-hyuk.
‘This… really needs to be handled in a slightly different way.’
Choi Jung-an tapped the table lightly with her pen, lost in thought for a moment.
Then she lifted her head again and spoke.
“Min-hyuk, suppose these storyboards were finalized… if you were just completing the manuscript from here, how long do you think it would take?”
“About a week should be fine… Why?”
“Then, how about redoing the planning from scratch?”
“Is that really okay?”
“Yeah, well…… If you’re fine with it, I was thinking of talking to the department head and proceeding that way. Anyway, as long as the manuscript comes out before the deadline, that’s what matters, right? If none of these storyboards here feel right to you, then wouldn’t that be better?”
And besides… the school would soon be doing that thing anyway, so maybe he’d get some inspiration from it.
When Jung-an stared straight at Min-hyuk, he stroked his chin as if pondering for a moment.
“If you’ll allow it, I’d like to do that. If I just start with what I have now, no matter how much I think about it, I don’t think I’ll be able to produce anything good.”
“Right. You should do the work you want to do.”
“The work I… want to do?”
Perhaps something in those words struck a chord.
For a brief instant, Min-hyuk’s eyes widened in surprise, then he slowly nodded.
Jung-an gave a gentle smile, handed back his practice sheets, and said,
“Okay then, we’ll go with that…… Let’s wrap up the meeting here. If you ever come up with an idea or want to show me some storyboards, feel free to bring them anytime.”
“Yes, teacher.”
Min-hyuk slowly turned and walked out of the meeting room.
‘The work I want to do, huh.’
For some reason, a faint smile lingered on his lips as he left.
***
And so, another few days passed.
The classroom was still sparsely filled since it wasn’t quite time for classes to start yet.
Min-hyuk sat blankly staring out the window, idly scratching his mechanical pencil across a practice sheet.
‘The sports comic I want to do… something I really want… It’s just not hitting me.’
Was he obsessing too much over the idea that he wanted this project to leave something meaningful behind?
He didn’t want to just churn out a generic sports comic using the standard techniques that immediately came to mind.
He already felt he was getting plenty of technical training and polishing through working on Brave King’s manuscripts.
What he wanted to achieve with this manuscript… it was hard to put into a single clear sentence, but…
Some kind of… originality as a creator, or whatever you’d call that core thing.
‘Tch, am I just being too dramatic about this?’
Part of him thought maybe he should just start with a decent-enough storyboard, but deep down his heart refused to accept that.
While he was groaning inwardly and blackening yet another innocent practice sheet—
“H-ha, hi…… Min-hyuk-kun. Haaaah.”
“Hey, you’re here?”
Oh Dong-gyo was staggering toward him.
For some reason, he had heavy dark circles under his eyes… and his face carried that unmistakable aura of someone utterly exhausted.
“Why do you look like that?”
“Lately…… I’ve been pouring everything into the manuscript.”
Dong-gyo let out a huge sigh, collapsed into the chair beside him, and let his head flop to the side as he spoke.
“I burned white-hot, you could say.”
“Dude, you sound like a total otaku right now.”
“Is that a compliment?”
“…About half.”
At the silly exchange, the corner of Min-hyuk’s mouth quirked up.
Even when Dong-gyo complained like this, Min-hyuk could see right through to his true feelings.
‘He’s clearly having fun with the grade project.’
Yeah, it was obvious at a glance.
During drawing class he barely breathed while hunched over his art, and even during breaks he was completely focused on the manuscript.
And on top of that—
“Hey, Min-hyuk-kun, can you take a look at my storyboard?”
“Sure, hand it over.”
“Be honest with me! I… I just want to grow more.”
He kept bothering Min-hyuk for feedback on this and that.
And honestly speaking—
‘It actually… turned out pretty well.’
Above all, you could strongly feel from Dong-gyo’s manuscript that the creator was genuinely enjoying making it.
Even if there were some technical rough spots or awkward parts, Min-hyuk was confident it would come out quite good.
The problem was…
“Haaaaaaaah. I’m so jealous, so jealous… I need to start my manuscript too.”
“You still haven’t decided?”
“Yeah… the feeling still hasn’t come.”
“Ugggh…… Wouldn’t it be better to just do something?”
“Yeah, you’re right.”
He had to come up with an answer somehow.
While the two of them were chatting away, the classroom gradually filled up with students.
How much time passed like that?
“Alright, everyone, take your seats.”
Choi Jung-an walked into the classroom with steady steps.
After greetings and roll call,
She looked down at a file folder in her hand and said,
“You all know the school sports festival is coming up soon, right? Today we need to decide a few things related to that.”
“Ehhhh.”
The students answered in unison.
‘Sports festival?’
Min-hyuk tilted his head, hearing about it for the first time.
**************
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