Chapter 266: Chapter 266 - 248: Gourmet is the King’s Path_2

This analysis is correct.

“Food Wars: Shokugeki no Soma” is a highly commercial food-themed manga, with a strong touch of web novel style. It vividly captures the exhilarating feeling of content creation, and the protagonist’s cooking skills are near unbeatable. He is one of the most outstanding newcomers in the culinary world. As for the reaction of diners after they’ve finished eating, everyone should understand it as the ‘shock’ often seen in web novels. This constant shock is an important theme in this type of work and one of the crucial elements that contributed to the success of this manga.

The only difference is:

While traditional shonen manga emphasize the awesomeness of the protagonist through their battles, “Food Wars: Shokugeki no Soma” accomplishes this by showcasing the protagonist’s cooking skills that conquer one opponent after another. His adversaries may be talented colleagues or fastidious diners, but the thrill of victory is identical. It’s exhilarating to see eaters’ clothes bursting off due to the deliciousness of the food, let alone the fact that food-themed works naturally have a tempting quality.

Since Tribe Comics was just established, there’s a delay in presenting data on its comics. However, for all manga artists who’ve started serializing new works on the site, the most accurate reflection of their work’s success is still the popularity ranking. The most crucial ranking is:

The Popularity Ranking!

The popularity of a manga is determined by a combination of votes, likes, and donations. Only works with the highest overall data can make it to the top of the ranking. Since everyone is freshly launching new works, many manga artists are waiting for the debut of this ranking. Even some readers on the site are paying attention to this list.

The reason is simple.

Manga readers often use rankings to find works that suit their taste. High popularity means a work is exciting, and being exciting suggests that the work caters to the general public. This is the most straightforward logic.

Zhang Wei is a manga artist.

Specifically, Zhang Wei is a well-known manga artist, one of the first dozens of big-name artists announced by Tribe Comics. Although not the top one among these artists, Zhang Wei is confident about his new work He believes he could make it into the top ten in popularity!

So, Zhang Wei has been closely following the ranking.

When it was the fifth hour after the site was successfully established, the ranking was finally updated. Zhang Wei checked it instantly and excitedly pumped his fist as he saw his manga named “Dragon Fist” was ranked seventh in popularity!

“Impressive, Bro Zhang…”

Zhang Wei’s friend must also be an insider. He looked at the computer screen and then congratulated with a smile, “The seventh place is super high. If you maintain this momentum, you could become one of the top authors in Tribe Comics. You’re on your way to superstardom!”

“Not too bad.”

Zhang Wei grinned, “The main thing is that after the merge with Qin Qi, the reader base of all manga has more than doubled. Whoever can achieve good results at this moment has seized the opportunity. Yet, it isn’t easy, you see, those ranked in the top ten are all top-notch artists on the site…”

“All of them?”

The friend pointed to the work ranking eighth and said uncertainly, “Who’s the author of this ‘Food Wars: Shokugeki no Soma’? I don’t remember hearing much about it before.”

“Huh?”

Zhang Wei paused.

He too found the name “Food Wars: Shokugeki no Soma” somewhat unfamiliar, not like those from the site’s main artists. Could it be like him,all of a sudden making headlines after the industry reshuffle?

He instinctively hit refresh.

Then Zhang Wei’s face darkened.

After he refreshed, he found himself dropping to eighth place on the popularity list, and stepping into his previous seventh place was the just-following “Food Wars: Shokugeki no Soma.”

“Got beaten online.”

The friend couldn’t help but joke.

Zhang Wei just curled his lips, not bothered too much. However, when he clicked on “Food Wars: Shokugeki no Soma” and saw who the author was, he finally showed a surprised expression, “It’s written by Shadow?”

“Shadow?”

The friend’s face also slightly changed after he recalled something, “The author of ‘King of the Net’, right? He’s known as a manga artist. I heard his new work planned to go down the original creation path relying on his own drawing and scripting… so this is his original work..”

The two exchanged glances.

An original work by a manga artist?

Without further discussion, they directly read the manga. But halfway through, the friend started laughing, “This Shadow is indeed a rare talent. A food manga painted so enthusiastically, even eating food has a clothes-bursting effect, can you imagine if it was adapted into an animated series?”

“His dad is awesome.”

“The protagonist’s got some skills.”

“Hahaha, this is so fun!”

Having finished the comic, his friend was already in fits of laughter, but Zhang Wei was sporting a helpless expression. This manga was indeed spectacular, completely breaking the mold of past gourmet comics. Although still focused on cooking, the emotional build-up was tremendous. Even a casual meal could elicit a sense of fervor. No wonder he had been blown away by the competition!

“It’s bound to go viral…”

Zhang Wei came to his own conclusion.

Just as Zhang Wei finished speaking, a glowing red number appeared on the website: [Applauding and exclaiming with astonishment, this reward is the only way to express my admiration. User Hanyu awarded ‘Food Wars: Shokugeki no Soma’ with 1,000,000 Tribe Coins, becoming the Silver Alliance of this work!]

“Silver?”

Zhang Wei’s friend was taken aback: “According to the conversion rules of Tribe Comics, a million Tribe Coins is about ten thousand yuan, right? Some big spender just rewarded this manga with ten thousand yuan. That’s quite something.”

Zhang Wei:

I’m envious, but I won’t say it.

Just as Zhang Wei was filled with envy, another notification popped up:[Applauding and exclaiming with astonishment, this reward is the only way to express my admiration. User Feather awarded Food Wars: Shokugeki no Soma’ with 1,000,000 Tribe Coins, becoming the Silver Alliance of this work!]

Zhang Wei:

Friend:

Another wealthy reader has popped up?

Seemingly provoked, soon other comics received Silver Alliance-level rewards too. Like ‘Food Wars: Shokugeki no Soma’ currently ranked seventh, these comics were also in the top ten hot comics.

That’s normal.

The top ten comics are generally created by GOAT-level comic artists. These GOAT comic artists already have many loyal fans. So, it’s quite typical for some affluent fans to be among them.

However…

Shadow couldn’t be considered a GOAT-level comic artist yet, but rather a new comic artist. Yet, he received so many rewards which made Zhang Wei’s heart ache a bit. Clearly, his fame was not much less than Shadow in the industry. They were in the first batch of comic artists announced. Why was there no support from any Silver alliances for him?

Suddenly.

Another banner floated up, and this time it was actually related to Zhang Wei: [Applauding and exclaiming with astonishment, this reward is the only way to express my admiration. User ‘Zhang Wei’s Friend’ awarded the comic ‘Dragon Fist’ with 1,000,000 Tribe Coins, becoming the Silver Alliance of this work!]

“You…”

Zhang Wei turned to his friend.

The friend laughed: “You’re welcome.”

Zhang Wei held his forehead: “I mean, your nickname is so embarrassing, it sounds like I made up a friend out of nowhere. Couldn’t you at least change it to a more reader-like nickname to reward me?”

Friend:

Fine, this was a misstep.

However, this had genuinely increased the popularity of Zhang Wei’s work Just like when the first Silver Alliance appeared, ‘Food Wars: Shokugeki no Soma’ attracted a lot of readers too. The comic’s popularity began to rise!

When refreshed for the third time.

Zhang Wei saw it already, ‘Food Wars: Shokugeki no Soma’ moved up to the sixth spot in the popularity rankings and was showing signs of leaving him behind: “Is this really a work from a pure illustrator?”

“It’s intense.”

“Shadow is known to be good at original creations. The plot design of ‘Food Wars: Shokugeki no Soma’ is really good. Why did he choose to be an illustrator before? Wouldn’t it be better to go original earlier?”

“The fun is just getting started….”