Starting as a Manga Editor

Chapter 169: Stealing Ideas

This was… impressive.

At that moment, Rumi was full of amazement, almost tempted to rush over to Tang Yao and ask—

How the hell did you even come up with this?

But since she hadn’t caught up with the latest chapters yet, she forced herself to calm down and kept reading.

The Eternity Devil arc had started.

And this entire arc? It constantly bounced between dead serious and totally unhinged. Every major character got their spotlight, but the way it all played out—especially with Kobeni—left Rumi speechless from laughing.

Becoming a devil hunter because she didn’t want to “go into that line of work”?

Now that’s next-level absurdity.

Actually, the whole arc was absurd start to finish.

But once you finished reading, you had to admit— ...This was real talent. And seriously good storytelling.

Finally.

She got to the end of the Eternity Devil arc.

Rumi let out a long breath as the story transitioned into the post-mission celebration scenes.

She couldn’t help but shake her head.

What a shame… If this manga were just a little more serious…

But then—

She shook her head again and took that thought back.

No, that wouldn’t work.

If this manga were serious, it wouldn’t be what it is.

Honestly—

This was the kind of work that would completely overturn readers’ impression of that so-called “Third-Rate Artist.”

As long as it kept up this momentum.

Because manga like this—distinctly unique and genuinely fun—were rare.

So how popular was this manga, exactly?

Rumi suddenly remembered that she’d first noticed Chainsaw Man being discussed in a random group chat... which had made her come back to check it out.

But she still didn’t know how the manga was actually being received by the wider reader community.

The moment she remembered—

She stopped hesitating and opened up MyAnime, the biggest domestic anime and manga rating site. Not exactly “authoritative,” but widely trusted by fans because all the scores came from users themselves.

Rumi sometimes peeked at her own ratings on there too.

She navigated to the manga section and searched for Chainsaw Man.

The page loaded quickly.

When the manga’s profile came up—and she saw the score—

Rumi blinked in surprise.

“…9.6??? That high???”

Her reaction was completely understandable. The site used a 10-point system, and with the sheer number of users, the bigger the sample size, the harder it was to get high scores.

Basically, a 10/10 didn’t exist.

Even breaking past a 9 was hard.

She herself had only ever gotten one manga rated that high—and only after it had finished serialization.

And Chainsaw Man?

It hadn’t even been running that long!

When she glanced at the number of ratings—

Rumi froze again. “…Over 30,000? Seriously?”

Clearly—

The manga’s popularity was far beyond what she’d expected.

Even though MyAnime was well-known in the anime community, the percentage of users who actually left ratings was small.

One out of ten viewers rating a series was already considered high.

But thirty thousand? And averaging a 9.6??

“…"

Rumi gripped her mouse and returned to ANF, reopening Chainsaw Man, scrolling all the way to the comments section.

…The total number of comments was about to break 50,000.

It was packed with meme references, plot discussions—manga fans going wild.

?

Rumi went back to the ANF homepage to check—

She found that Chainsaw Man now had tons of related videos.

At least within the ANF platform, this manga was dominating everything.

It was that popular?

Rumi could hardly believe it.

And then—

Knock knock—

A knock on the door snapped her out of it.

She looked up.

Her editor-slash-mother pushed the door open, walked over to her desk, and, after a brief silence, asked, “Are you still in contact with that so-called Third-Rate Sensei at Avalon?”

“Huh? Why?”

Rumi raised her eyebrows slightly.

She couldn’t imagine what her mother could have to do with Tang Yao… She had heard that it was Li Xue who received her when she visited Avalon.

Logically, her mother shouldn’t even know that Third-Rate Sensei was Tang Yao.

So why the sudden question?

“…If you’re still in contact,”

Guan Fang’s expression was a little stiff. “Ask if Chainsaw Man’s collected volumes would still consider being published by Startrace.”

“…Huh?”

Rumi was totally caught off guard. She stared blankly at her mom. “Why? Our publishing house… Wait.”

She suddenly remembered something.

Not long ago, the Fate/Zero volumes had been published by Startrace. When she was working on the crossover story, she’d even seen ANF promoting it.

No way—

“Fate/Zero sold really well?”

Rumi blurted out.

“…Yeah.”

Guan Fang paused, then slowly nodded. “Extremely well. Maybe it’s the game factor, or maybe it’s ANF. Either way, the business team reported that it’s already going into another reprint. And based on projections, the final sales might surpass many of your own works.”

“Tsss—”

Rumi sucked in a sharp breath, completely stunned.

Seriously?

That good??

She couldn’t help asking, “So that’s why you’re asking about Chainsaw Man? But it’s only about twenty chapters in. You’re that confident? And there’s no word on a game adaptation yet, right?”

“…”

Guan Fang went quiet again before finally saying, “You’ve been busy lately and probably haven’t seen the chatter around this series in the manga community. But the editorial department’s been paying attention. The popularity has exceeded expectations. Most importantly, we had a meeting yesterday—Startrace is planning to build its own online manga reading platform… Going digital is the future. That’s a consensus now.”

Rumi was quick to catch on. “You want to use Chainsaw Man’s print rights as a bridge to deepen collaboration and—basically, steal ideas from Avalon!?”

“Don’t say ‘steal,’ it’s called referencing!”

Guan Fang frowned. “This is normal business strategy. Don’t act like it’s a scandal. You better believe it—before long, every publisher with a manga division will be thinking the same thing. Because Chainsaw Man’s influence as a web-serialized manga has been way bigger than anyone expected.”

“…”

Rumi lowered her head, staring at the screen, struggling to believe what she was hearing.

No way.

Was this really going to… change the industry?

…

And actually—

Guan Fang wasn’t wrong. Startrace wasn’t the only one with that idea.

Thanks to Chainsaw Man’s popularity—and with ANF being a major hub for 2D content—the platform’s manga section was growing by the day.

And as that section grew, it started feeding back into Chainsaw Man’s momentum, pushing the manga’s popularity even higher…

This digital-first model?

It might actually work!

More and more publishers were getting interested.

Though this interest hadn’t peaked yet, Startrace had an edge thanks to their previous involvement with Fate/Zero and the collected volume release, so they were ahead of the curve.

Because right now, Chainsaw Man was only starting to hit its stride.

It hadn’t even peaked yet.

But even now—

It was enough to make Cai Quan beam with joy.

Thanks to the acquisition of new anime licenses, and the manga section’s rise, ANF’s user base was skyrocketing daily!

At this point—

ANF had grown big enough that even mainstream streaming platforms couldn’t ignore it.

For the past few days, Cai Quan had been bouncing with excitement every time he saw Tang Yao.

“……”

After sending off yet another giddy update from Cai Quan, Tang Yao sighed helplessly.

Then started packing up to go home.

It was almost New Year’s… all the projects were moving steadily forward, so she decided to not torture herself with overtime.

After all, it’d be cruel to leave Xun home alone.

But—

Just as she finished packing up and was about to head out—

Li Xue came rushing in, holding the latest chapter draft in her hand. She barely caught her breath before blurting out:

“Tang Yao! In this chapter—Makima DIES!? Shot full of holes?? This is the Lunar New Year issue! You’re taking a break next week, and you’re ending this week with that? Readers are going to riot!”

“...Can’t help it,”

Tang Yao blinked her beautiful eyes and looked at the flustered big sister in front of her. “That’s just where the plot is.”

“Then—is she really dead?”

Li Xue hesitated, then asked seriously.

Tang Yao thought for a moment.

Then smiled brightly, her pale face glowing as she said:

“You tell me.”

And with that—

She ran off.

Li Xue: “!!!”