Equestria's Greatest Cartoonist

Chapter 3

“Excuse me, Mrs. Cake? Do you have a minute?”

Glancing from the baking preparations, Mrs. Cake gave Kai a warm smile. “Why, of course, Kai, is there something you need?”

“Well, more like something I want to say,” Kai nodded slowly, giving a cautious glance towards Pinkie, who was busying herself by disassembling an assault rifle. He tried his best to ignore it. “And it’s some private matter… so could we talk about it in the back or something?”

“Of course, dearie. Follow me,” Mrs. Cake smiled warmly, placing down the utensil she was holding and leading Kai to the back staircase towards the second floor. From there, she opened a small door, revealing a basic layout for an office—one that Kai was genuinely seeing for the first time. Judging by the stacks of papers on the desk, this was likely where the Cakes did all their financing and other business related matters.

Once they entered, Mrs. Cake tilted her head with an intrigued smile. “Now what seems to be the problem?”

“Well, um, I hope it isn't a problem, but…” Kai rolled the words in his head until he found something comfortable to say, “…I just wanted to say that I’ll be leaving the bakery.”

A moment of silence ensued before Mrs. Cake eventually sighed softly. “Oh… I had a feeling something was going on… are you sure everything is alright?”

“Uh, yeah, of course,” Kai sheepishly rubbed the back of his neck, feeling pressure that didn't exist, “if you’re talking about the other day where I didn’t show up, well… ok, it has to do with that, but not in a bad way. I’m just putting some time and effort into this, uh, new project of mine… and I don’t think I can balance it with my work here. So… sorry, I think I should resign for now.”

“... well, it’s good to hear that you’ve dedicated yourself to something important, and we're noponies to stop you from achieving your goals.” Mrs. Cake said with a rather understanding tone—a lot more understanding than what Kai was expecting. She showed no signs of dissatisfaction or anything along the lines. “You’ve been a real good help around here, Kai, and we really appreciate it.”

A spontaneous sense of guilt flooded Kai’s body, and he felt bad. It wasn’t like it was wrong for him to leave, but… given how nicely he has been treated by the Cakes… it almost felt like a sin to back out on them like this.

He pressed his lips with furrowed brows. “Look, if this project doesn’t turn out well, I’ll—”

“Now, there’s no need for that dearie,” Mrs. Cake kindly cut in, giving Kai a reassuring nod, “it’ll be fine. You just go ahead and do what you need to do. I’ll let you off early... I’m sure a busy stallion like you would appreciate the extra time.”

‘... I’m not really that busy, though,’ Kai thought to himself. Nonetheless, he suckered up his sour feelings and gave the most grateful smile he could offer. “ Thank you, Ms. Cakes. I really appreciate this… and, uh, again. Sorry.”

“Save your sorrys, dearie,” Mrs. Cake chuckled, walking out from the office, “ I’ll see you off at the front, okay?”

“Y-Yeah… alright.”

The rest of Kai’s resignations went much smoother than what he had initially anticipated. Of his total of four jobs, two let him off without needing anything from him—specifically the Cakes and a local carpenter shop a few streets down. It was nothing short of a blessing, one that would’ve definitely been impossible to achieve back in his previous cynical reality. That just left him with his clerk job at Quills and Sofa—who needed a two week notice—and his store maintenance job at the local Arts and Paints store, which he decided to keep working at due to the employee benefits and other obvious reasons.

In other words, Kai has managed to free up his calendar by quite a bit. Monday through Thursday have now become his free days, and he intended to make thorough use of this given time. Otherwise, he’d have just made quite the stupid decision.

‘But with twenty-four thousand bits in the bank… I should be good for a while, even if I do end up fully unemployed,’ Kai thought to himself as he walked through the light traffic at town center, ‘the question, then, is what my next move should be.’

Truthfully, since the night he decided that he would be picking up his artistic skills one last time, he hasn’t actually started up any drawings, sketches… or much less anything art-related. His biggest obstacle was initially the lack of time from his already tight schedule. But, with that out of the way, all that was left bugging him now was how to map out the rest of this far-fetched goal.

…

… well… one thing that was pretty obvious to him by now was that his best shot in making a manga was to make an adaptation of a pre-existing one. It was the smartest route to take, really; he doubted he even had the ingenuity or passion to make an entirely novel manga, at least not in his current mindset. That then brought the question of which manga he should even consider adapting. Spike’s suggestion from a while back was the first to come to mind.

‘Pokemon… Pocket Monsters… I mean…they’d probably dig the designs, but…’’ Kai frowned. Not that he was implying that the series was bad, but he needed to be critical for a moment. The version he told Spike wasn’t even the manga version of the Pokemon series. It was the television version, an entirely different canon from the actual manga of Pokemon. While that technically wasn’t even a problem to begin with, it did make him question whether a television version of Pokemon would be the best choice as his first manga in Equestria, or in an even greater sense the first manga ever in Equestria…

…

…

Kai’s eyes widened. ‘...hold on… do they even have manga here?’

He was aware that it was sort of a stupid question. But as embarrassing as it was to admit, besides Power Ponies he really didn’t know much about what type of comics they had in Equestria. He just never got the time to read much, despite how long he's been here for. Judging by Spike’s reaction during their conversation at the time, he had deduced that Pokemon didn’t exist in Equestria, but he couldn’t just completely go by that assumption, much less did it answer whether manga in its entirety existed here or not.

And even then… if Power Rangers had a knock-off in Equestria, then there was the possibility that Pokemon was also somewhere in the back of a comic book store. And he wouldn’t know that until he had a better understanding of Equestrian comics.

‘Great, so that’s what I gotta do first,’ Kai hummed to himself, leisurely taking a muffin sample from a pegasus that blissfully fluttered by. It’s clear now what he needed to do. He needed to familiarize himself with what these ponies had around here for comics. And currently the best way to start that search would be to make a visit at the local friendship castle.

Swinging the crystal doors wide open, Kai soundly entered the empty castle and wandered through the maze of shiny corridors. Eventually, he found Spike, who was on top of a ladder dusting the top of a bookshelf.

“Hey, Spike, got a minute?” Kai said, abruptly announcing his presence.

Spike flinched, quickly looking down from the ladder with a shocked face that he failed to mask. “Oh, uh, sup Kai! What’s up?”

“Where do you guys keep all your comics? And not just Power Ponies. I wanna see what else you guys got around here.”

“Well, if you go out and turn left, past three rooms you’ll see…” Spike almost instantaneously began directing Kai, only for his voice to die out as his face dawned with realization, “waaait, are you actually—”

“Yes, Spike, I’m planning on starting up something,” Kai nodded exasperatedly with a smile, “but try not to make too much of a fuss about it… I don’t want so much attention when I haven’t even done anything yet.”

“Awesome!” Unable to withhold his excitement, Spike immediately slid down the ladder and ran up towards Kai, pulling his arm—albeit forcefully—towards the door. “Then c’mon! I’ll take you to our comic section myself!”

Though mildly surprised by Spike’s sudden outburst, Kai didn’t make a fuss and allowed the drake to lead him towards the location of interest. Once they entered the room, he was greeted with a smaller line of bookshelves compared to the rest of the castle. Neatly organized were small rows of comics, and he could already notice some familiar series from where he stood.

“Twilight isn’t really the comic book type of pony, but some time ago she ordered a lot of comics for some reason,” Spike explained, walking up and pulling out a red and blue colored comic, “this is the last one she ordered, issue 97 of The Amazing Mule. I doubt she reads it, but I think it’s pretty cool.”

“Hm,” Kai hummed, taking the comic in question from Spike and flipping through the pages. He briefly skimmed through a sample text before nodding. “Alright, I think this should be good enough. Thanks, Spike.”

The man returned his attention to the comic, completely zoning out as he read the synopsis on the back cover. There was a moment of silence before Spike spoke hesitantly with a sheepish grin. “...sooo, uhh… c-can I also help…?”

Kai paused and glanced over at the drake, who was giving him the notorious puppy eyes he’s so frequently received from these ponies. Unfortunately, such a trick never worked on him. It only made him feel slightly bad if he said no… again, it never worked on him.

He gave a simple shrug. “I mean, I don’t see why not—”

“Yes!” Spike fist pumped.

“... but don’t you have your chores to do?”

“I—uh, yeah, I was almost finished, so I can do them later,” Spike quickly dismissed, hastily and fluidly piling up a stock of comics onto his claws, “meanwhile, I’ll be helping you make the coolest manga ever created in Equestria by…”

“...what?”

“Uh, why are you reading comics? Shouldn’t you be… drawing or something?”

“...There’s no reason to rush, Spike,” Kai shook his head, taking some comics off of Spike and placing them on a nearby table, “ before any of that, I need to know what other series you guys have here that are copies of the ones back in my home… and I can already see a lot of similarities.”

As he spoke, Kai shuffled through the comics, quickly noticing the obvious name plays. In addition to The Amazing Mule, there was also Aqua Pony, Batpony, Bulk, Captain Equestria, The Invincible Iron Pony, and many many other blatant knock-offs. And, to his shock, he actually stumbled across Heckcolt, which was so much for a surprise to him that he couldn’t help but give it a brief read through. Unsurprisingly, though, it turned out to be a heavily watered down version.

‘At least I know now that they can handle somewhat mature content around here.’

“... so, you’re doing research so that you don’t accidentally make something that we already have here in Equestria?” Spike summarized.

“Mostly, yeah,” Kai nodded, “but I’m also trying to gauge out what’s the norm around here.”

Clearly, just from this bunch alone, he could tell that probably the vast majority of Equestrian comics were western inspired. He didn’t see any manga, at least not in this collection. It made it even more convincing that Equestria had no manga… but that was both a good and bad thing. The good thing was that he potentially wouldn’t have to worry about any competition or risk of plagiarism (as ironic as it sounded). The bad thing was that if there really weren't any mangas in this world, then ponies obviously wouldn’t know what it was, nor would they be familiar with the distinct artstyle.

While that wasn’t something that would and should stop Kai from making manga, he had to take it into account for two reasons. One, there’s the culture shock. Manga, while originally inspired by mid-50s western comics and illustrations, had its plentiful differences. Could ponies get accustomed to the Japanese names and terminology? Would they understand or relate to common anime tropes? Hell, would they even feel obligated to change their entire reading style from left to right into right to left? Those were a few things that he had to consider.

Secondly, he had to approach this as not only an artist, but as well as an entrepreneur. There was a chance that these ponies might not even like manga in the first place. And although it might not seem detrimental at first, there's always the risk that a lacking fanbase could lead to little to no sales in the long run, ultimately making his efforts become nothing but a waste of time, money, and effort.

But, with all that said, he was still much in the dark. This little collection of comics won’t be enough for him to make a confident deduction. He’d need to find a magazine or newspaper highlighting the top 100 comic series in Equestra, or something along those lines.

“...I think you’ll be fine, Kai,” Spike cut off Kai’s mental ramble, taking a seat at the table, “I haven’t heard or read anything like that Pokemon manga you were talking about. The closest thing is probably Purse Puppies, but that's a completely different thing.”

“...Purse what?”

“Purse Puppies. It’s one of those magazines you read at the spa.”

“...” Kai contemplated Spike’s words, although with a bit of embarrassment. Despite the strange correlation, the drake just confirmed that Pokemon didn’t exist in Equestria, and the way he word himself would imply others relating series like Digimon probably didn’t exist either. It made Kai realize that talking to an actual local would be far better than spending hours in the books. He was beginning to reconsider his methods of approaching this situation.

Shaking his head, Kai pressed on. “Ok… then what about Naruto? Ever heard of that?”

Spike tilted his head with a confused look. “What’s that?”

“Eh, I’ll explain later. What about Fullmetal Alchemist?”

“Uh, never heard of it.”

“Bleach?”

“... I mean, we have some in the laundry—”

“C’mon Spike.”

“Alright, no, I don’t know that one either,” Spike snickered lightly, “but who even calls their own series Bleach? Sounds silly.”

“It’s anime, Spike. Don’t think too much about it,” Kai huffed, “but thanks, you’ve cleared up a bunch of things that were bugging me.”

“Uh… no problem!” Spike beamed, despite not knowing exactly what he answered, “so when are you going to start making it, the manga? Are you still doing Pokemon?”

“That’s… that’s what I plan on doing,” Kai nodded albeit awkwardly, “but there's another one I’m thinking of introducing at the same time. It came to mind just now, but… it’s called Astro Boy.”

Like a dog’s ears, Spike’s fins perked up. “Astro Boy? Sounds techno, what’s it about?”

“Uh… to really dumb it down, it's the adventures of a robot boy,” Kai explained, “and you’re right on the techno part. Astro Boy is all about technology, and it’s because of that that I think adding it together with Pokemon would be good in the long run. Anime has this large subcategory on robots and tech that we call mecha anime, but it just won’t make sense to any of you guys without some context beforehand… except for Twilight, I suppose.”

Spike frowned slightly from Kai’s comment. “What? We know what robots are, Kai.”

“Not to the extent that is seen in mecha anime.”

“Psh, try me.”

“...no, not right now,” Kai leaned back with a sign, his eyes glancing down at the cover of Iron Pony on the table. It was specifically because of this Iron Pony comic that mecha anime so suddenly crossed his mind. In the middle of his quick look-overs during their conversation, Kai had noticed that—unlike Iron Man—Iron Pony had almost little to no technological aspects to his character. The character was essentially the tin man from Wizard of Oz, just with a different color schematic.

‘If I really take this whole idea seriously, I wouldn’t mind working on a mecha series or two… but seeing this… I’d need to put the groundwork for that first.’ And the only way he could introduce such a topic like mecha—instead of just shoving it down these ponies’ jugulars—is to gradually introduce it in bite-sizes. And while there’s probably a better way he could do this, Astro Boy was the one series he felt most confident about.

(A/N: historically speaking, Astro Boy is by no means a ‘small’ aspect to mecha anime, but the general storyline within the series is a bit simpler than what most other series like Gundam or Evangelion have. That is what Kai is implying here.)

“So… how are you going to do it anyways? Is making a manga different from a comic?” Spike asked, seeming to be keeping up with the conversation.

Kai smiled, quietly organizing the comics into neat stacks. He didn’t mind explaining. “Manga is an entire subgenre of comics, Spike, so they have similar fundamental processes… with a few minor differences, of course. First is the storyboard, which leads into rough sketches. Once that’s cleared, we get into the inking and shading. Manga differs from being only black and white, so coloring is skipped in that regard. After that, add the dialogues and finishing touches, and you’ve got yourself a manga.”

“Huh… didn’t know it could be as simple as that.”

“... simple is probably not the best word to use, Spike. Everything is easier on paper than in practice.”

“I dunno, from how you just described it, it sounds easy for you.”

Kai scratched his cheek with a discomfortable expression. Maybe he shouldn’t have given such an overly-simplistic explanation. “...far from it, Spike.”

“...Huh?”

“Don’t mind,” Kai huffed dismissively, “with all that said, the question on how I do it isn’t my concern right now. Before I do any of that, I gotta put in the prerequisites. Frequent comic book tropes, pony anatomy, and some basic history on you ponies and your pop culture… I need to know all of that.”

In response, Spike’s face scrunched. “...why would you make comic books turned into some scientific article?”

“Told you there’s more to it than it seems, Spike.”

“...right…”

The hours passed. By the time the two finished their thorough read on Wonder Pony, the skies were orange from the dusk’s light. Under the slightly dimmed environment of the room, Kai wrote down notes on a scroll graciously given by Spike. It was nearly filled—both front and back—and yet there was still quite a bit more that Kai wanted to fill out. His deep dive into pony comics has shown him many things about how they worked around here, and unfortunately many of which could pose a problem to him.

As he’s come to quickly notice, there’s a very obvious trend of censoring throughout these comics. For example, in the Bulk vs Timberine issue, the fight ended up being far more tamer than what it should’ve been. In fact, there were rarely any scenes with blood in the first place. Such level of censorship is going to be a problem when he tries to adapt mature series. Hell, even a somewhat-non-mature series like Naruto could have a problem… much less One Piece.

He had a feeling that One Piece would at least have more of a fair shot compared to the other big hit series, and simply because it wasn’t so overly expressive on explicit violence. But at this rate, he was having doubts that even that series would be properly received.

‘I might have to look at a real document on the industry standards here,’ Kai thought. If Equestria was any more similar to his world than it already was, then there’s a good likelihood that there’s an age restriction system in place. If that’s the case, then he could probably adjust himself to be able to publish as close to an original copy of any anime series as he could without facing too many consequences. It’s quite the thought provoker.

Suddenly, while he closed the Wonder Pony comic and went to finish up the The Defenders series, the door to the room burst open. In came Twilight, who glanced around skeptically until her eyes fell on Spike.

“Spike!” Spike flinched up from the Aqua Pony comic he was reading, his face turning several shades pale. “This is where you’ve been? I thought I asked you to dust the bookshelves!”

“U-Uh, r-right! Sorry Twilight!” Spike awkwardly looked back and forth between Twilight and the comic in his claws before choosing the former and dropping the comic on to the table. Jumping off from his seat, he made a mad dash towards the door, giving a quick wave towards Kai. “I’ll be back, Kai! Just keep reading without me!”

‘Not like I was gonna stop anyways,’ Kai snickered to himself as he watched the drake disappear behind the door frame. He then brought an exasperated look towards the purple alicorn. “Don’t you think that was a bit harsh, purps?”

“It is a bit harsh, I know, but due to a certain someone, Spike’s grown a habit of neglecting his duties a lot more than what he used to,” Twilight retorted.

“Sounds like you’re just pressed, sister.”

Twilight simply huffed and rolled her eyes. “In any case, this is a bit irresponsible of you, Kai. While reading comics is fine, and frankly I’m glad you’re finally making use of this collection, doing it all day isn’t the best choice. You should know better… and you too, Starlight!”

Indeed, sitting on one of the sofas at the corner was none other than Starlight Glimmer. Some time ago, she stumbled upon Spike and Kai’s small comic book montage. After being given a brief overview on what was happening, she decided to give them the courtesy of helping out. In her magical hold was an issue of Super Mare, and she glanced up at Twilight with a polite smile. “Kai has a good reason for this, Twilight.”

Curling an invisible brow, Twilight glanced over to Kai. The man in question gave a casual nod. “I’m doing some research for a project. I just need to know the do’s and don’ts of comics around here before I really lock in.”

Twilight was silent for a moment, and one can visibly see her head working. Not a second later, her face lit up. “Wait, Kai, don’t tell me—”

“Yes, Twilight, I’m gonna try publishing a manga.”

In a rather uncharacteristically giddy manner, Twilight suddenly squealed in elation. The act gave Kai a bit of second-hand embarrassment, but he couldn’t ignore the joy in her tone. “Well, finally! You’re finally taking your talent seriously! I almost thought that you were never going to pick up a pencil again!”

“...It’s not that crazy, purps. You don’t gotta hype it up like that.”

“Of course it isn’t crazy, Kai, it’s amazing! And I’ll hype up anypony who embraces their special talent!”

“I-It’s not even something that big, though,” Kai muttered with an averted gaze, scratching his cheek, “I’m, uh, just testing the waters. I doubt it’ll work, there’s no guarantee.”

“Don’t be like that. The sketches you’ve shown me were nothing short of masterpieces!” Twilight objected passionately. “If you were more susceptible to it, I would’ve already told everypony how good of an artist you are!”

“You know, now you’ve got me interested,” Starlight cued in, giving an intrigued look, “I’d like to see what a human can draw.”

Twilight was more than happy to oblige. “You won’t even begin to imagine just how detailed his art is, Starlight. Let me—”

“Yeeeah, no,” Kai abruptly butted in with a deadpan look, “let’s not get ahead of ourselves, purps… besides, everyone will eventually see what I’ve got planned soon. No need for all this.”

Twilight’s momentum slowed down considerably with a pout. It was brief, though, as she walked up to the table and floated a few comics up from the table. “So, you said manga, right? And these comics for inspiration?”

“Yes and no. I already got an idea of what to work on. But, like I said, I just need to get a good idea on what comics are like around here,” Kai paused before blinking in remembrance, “right, and since you’re here purps, mind helping me learn about pony anatomy?”

Now that got her attention. “Pony anatomy? Why would you need that for… oooh.”

“Mhm. Humans just won’t work out here,” Kai nodded. Probably already a given notice by now, but there was no way he could simply make a manga with human characters. He had to take into consideration his audience, and pretty much all of them would be ponies.

“Personally, I beg to differ… but I see where you’re coming from,” Twilight said, placing her book down and soundly making her way towards the door, “then, I’ll be right back. I know just the right books that’ll help you!”

“Thanks a bunch, purps.”

Author's Note

Thank you for reading!

Sorry for the late publish. Sort of had two research papers due these past few weeks, so I had to focus on that for a while. Also, as you've probably noticed from how theoretical this chapter felt, I had to do a lot of thinking for this series. Namely, I had to figure out how Kai would approach making a manga in Equestria. I might've over thought a few aspects this chapter, and maybe I didn't even think of others. Do let me know.

Proof reading this draft, I also noticed that I may have made Twilight and Spike OOC. A bit too expressive, I know, but I just left it as it is. I'll probably need to binge the series again to get my lore in check, but that's only if I can even find the time lol. For now, and probably the most logical thing to do, I added the AU tag.

If there's anything off about this chapter, please do let me know. Otherwise, have a good day/night!