The Lurkers Want to Cling to the Protagonist's Team

The cover and character cards were both commissioned. I’m planning two sets of illustrations.

Liu Yu is naturally contrarian and resists anything that becomes wildly popular.

When the school-based superpower action manga End of Days took off, he refused to follow the trend and watch it.

But the series was so popular that he kept getting recommended clips about it, and ended up becoming an unwilling armchair fan.

Liu Yu only knew what the characters looked like and roughly what their abilities were. He didn’t even know who the protagonist was.

Then, completely by accident, he transmigrated into the school-based superpower anime as a transfer student in the protagonist’s year.

Worlds with superpowers are usually extremely dangerous, so Liu Yu decided to latch onto the protagonist’s group.

The protagonists would surely make it to the end, so sticking with them had to be the right choice!

The question was, who exactly was the protagonist?

*

Liu Yu made a rough list of the characters he remembered:

1. A taciturn, aloof heartthrob with mysterious, powerful abilities who seemed extremely calculating.

2. A cheerful boy who loved wearing traditional clothes and had a high ponytail, as if he belonged to a different era.

3. A beautiful ice wielder who seemed expressionless but was actually shy and timid, and had enrolled to find out what happened to her older brother.

4. A battle maniac who liked provoking strong opponents and was obsessed with fighting others.

5. A mysterious teacher officially hailed as the strongest, but “exiled” to the school to teach and guide students because of some hidden circumstances.

6. The most brilliant talent of the new generation, a spirited young heir born into a prestigious family.

There wasn’t a single familiar, textbook “sunshine-type” protagonist. Liu Yu figured the anime must be taking an unconventional approach.

In the end, he turned his attention to the person in the corner

A timid, weak, gloomy guy with black hair!

This had to be a good-for-nothing protagonist with a destined rise to power!

After all, the other characters fit the role of popular supporting characters too well. A growth-type protagonist like this had to be the action-manga author’s favorite!

Confidently, Liu Yu latched onto him, determined to become the protagonist’s right-hand man.

To help the group come together and grow faster, Liu Yu buzzed around like a little bee, introducing himself to the familiar characters and helping them get along so they could form one big, loving family.

But he forgot one thing

Besides the classic, straightforward kind, there’s also a small subset of action manga known as the dark type.

By the time Liu Yu realized this, the protagonist’s group had already been scattered, and their fates were unknown.

And the black-haired boy he had declared the “protagonist,” who had been missing for ages, had changed completely. He stood at the very front of the villains’ ranks, gazing at Liu Yu with an obsessive, yearning look.

“A-Yu, come over to my side.”

*

In a world where ordinary people made up the vast majority, those with superpowers were seen as monsters and freaks. The superpower academy was where these monsters were kept.

So when Liu Yu greeted everyone in his class like the social butterfly he was on the first day of school, added them all as friends, and bounded around with an incredible sunny brightness and light always shining in his eyes, like a little puppy wagging its tail, he became an unusually special presence.

Brilliant and dazzling, he was impossible to resist

The naturally aloof smiled only for him.

The one who was warm on the outside and cold within offered his heart to him alone.

The quiet one couldn’t help saying more whenever they spoke.

The one who seemed to hate everyone equally treated him as the sole exception.

The one who had long since let go and taken an indifferent attitude toward everything developed an intense possessiveness toward him.

[Things to know before reading]

1. Puppy vibes 😋 Everyone dotes on the central, universally adored protagonist. No secondary couples. Everyone is an adult.

2. There’s everyday life, action, and schemes, but I’m not very good at writing intricate, mysterious plots. This may not suit readers looking for a high-IQ villain’s master plan.

3. Everyone gets a proper place in the ending. The puppy will live happily ever after with all the people he loves.

4. Content warning: I’m aiming for the feel of a hot-blooded shonen manga mixed with a universally adored protagonist story. It’s partly an ensemble cast, with plenty of development for the supporting characters and some plotlines focused on them. There may be stretches where the protagonist doesn’t appear much.

5. The commissions in my portfolio are all of the protagonist.

Premise: Be the master of your own life.