Well yeah I'm a day late, but I finally finished my first 4koma (4-panel strip) featuring two characters from the story I'm going to write. The image is below. Take note that it is read from right to left, because I originally wanted to write it in Japanese, but opted for English for the time being, and I don't want to flip the image. Just click to see the full-sized image. :D

For a short background on the characters: Sae Kobayashi (小林さえ) and Kaori Sanada (真田香吏) both poor girls that are in a fictitious exclusive school for girls on scholarship. They used to be rivals for the top student grades when they were younger, but Sae grew to hate school (more explained in the story) and decided to lay low on her studies, doing only well enough not to flunk any subjects.

I'll write more 4koma and maybe even short chapters that aren't necessarily part of the story, as teasers. I hope to get some love for these characters before the story comes out. Later, I'll work on sketch art featuring Sae and Kaori individually.

In unrelated news, I found some mp3s of the opening and ending themes of the old anime Akihabara Dennou Gumi (Cyber Team in Akihabara). Man that's nostalgic. What's funny is that, it turns out, the last time I watched this anime was 7 years ago, but when I hear the songs, it's as if I'm still in that time.

To remind myself, and educate other people, I originally got the idea for the name Hanakoganei (for my pen name, 花小金井たくや or Hanakoganei Takuya) from that Akihabara Dennou Gumi anime. There is a character there named Hanakoganei Hibari (花小金井ひばり), who is, in fact, the lead. The name amused me, because it was an unusual 7-character name, which is why I forced the Takuya part of my pen name to be written in hiragana, just like Hibari's name. Upon minimal research, I found that Hanakoganei is an old name, but isn't really used anymore. It's the name of a train station now in Tokyo. So it's interesting to use as a pen name.