In Japan, manga isn't just popular—it's one of the nation's economic pillars, an even larger market than video games.
While many countries have their own comics, only Japan managed to turn its manga industry into a cornerstone of the national economy.
As a Chinese man who grew up immersed in Japanese pop culture, Lin Baicheng had been deeply influenced by anime and manga. He watched countless anime adaptations over the years and loved them dearly—even if he rarely read the original manga versions.
Though he couldn't remember every story in detail, he still retained the main plots of many hit manga from his previous life—enough to recreate or reproduce them.
So, Lin decided to enter the manga business.
He hired a professional investigation company to analyze the current state of Japan's manga industry, planning to buy a mid-sized manga publisher. Once he had his own publishing platform, he would recreate several future-hit manga from his memories—providing rough story outlines and letting his team fill in the details.
But art style would be critical—if the visuals didn't match the "originals," readers wouldn't accept them.
The report arrived within a day.
To his satisfaction, the manga industry was booming, even after recent economic crises.
Major players included:
Shueisha
Shogakukan
Hakusensha
Kodansha
Kadokawa Shoten
Shinchosha, etc.
Together, these companies controlled a massive market worth hundreds of billions of yen annually, with manga magazines alone selling hundreds of millions of copies a year. And that didn't even count spin-offs—anime, films, toys—which were enormous industries by themselves.
There were hundreds of publishers in total. Most small local publishers survived by reprinting and distributing other companies' works.
Lin had no interest in those—he aimed to buy a medium-sized publisher with channels in Japan's major cities: Tokyo, Osaka, Yokohama, and Nagoya.
He then commissioned another investigation—to locate publishers willing to sell. That would take time, but money could speed things up.
Meanwhile, Yokoi Gunpei (横井均平) gave Lin his answer: he accepted the invitation to join Galaxy Games (星河游戏公司).
However, since Yokoi still had a contract with Nintendo, leaving required a termination fee of 50 million yen—about HK$1 million, which Lin gladly paid.
Yokoi also insisted on finishing his handover duties at Nintendo before officially joining, and Lin respected that.
After all, development of a console like the Famicom (Family Computer)—which Lin envisioned—would take years and major investment anyway.
Atari's console, for example, had cost around $100 million USD and taken over a year to develop. Lin's machine would be even more advanced, so it would take time.
With Yokoi secured, Lin's next focus was publishing.
He spent the following days sightseeing with Shigeru Miyamoto (宫本茂) while waiting for the investigation company's report.
When it arrived, it listed over a dozen publishers in his price range—from ¥500 million to ¥3 billion (about HK$10–60 million).
Each had different levels of profitability, but all were reasonably sized.
Lin was just about to decide which to buy when he received an urgent phone call from Hong Kong—forcing him to return home and postpone his manga acquisition plan.