A Prescription that Teaches the Brilliance of a Doctor 1

Hoho, you really came. Thank you for taking the time to come see us.

We wanted to talk to you about our secret doujinthat is, the next book we want to make.

You see, with the exception of Asclepius, we all agree on what kind of book we want to make next.

To be clear, he's not opposed to our proposed direction.

He just said he doesn't care what we do as long as it helps the field of medicine.

So, what did you have in mind?

With our first doujin, we set out to make a book that would promote the importance of healthy living.

I believe it made a meaningful difference in getting people to take better care of their health.

Yeah. I think we painted a fairly realistic picture in terms of health and medical care.

But aside from that... Hmm, how can I put this...?

Well, we thought we might want to use this opportunity to make our next manga more of a fable of sorts.

Something a little off the beaten path that would get readers to think more fondly about their health and medical care...

...and that would get them to trust doctors even more than they hopefully already do.

That was the idea for our next book we ultimately decided on.

A fable? So, you want to tell a fictional story then?

Yes, that's right.

Our goal is to showcase the greatness of medicine and the latest medical techniques through realistic fiction...

...and encourage patients to feel more comfortable about relying on doctors by painting them in a heroic light.

Basically, we want to tell a story that portrays doctors as, well, the heroes they are. We even have a model and title all ready to go.

We're going to call it...

Super Doctor A!

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However, at present, that is the only thing we've agreed upon.

It turns out there is much more to making manga than we originally thought.

We see now that it takes more than well-drawn art to make a good one.

The storytelling aspect in particular is much more difficult than it looks, and we can't seem to make even a rough draft that we're happy with.

So we thought we would ask you for your help, Master.

I see. Well, if you really want our help, we'd be happy to oblige. At least this seems like something we can do!

Now that's the kind of youthful energy we're counting on. We would appreciate any guidance you can offer us.

We would be happy with just advice on how to put a story together.

Is there anything like that you can tell us?

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Now that you mention it...that does make sense.

But you're all in the same club, right? Do you really need to observe him?

I don't know. I can't deny the possibility that we're having trouble coming up with story ideas for him...

...because we're all so used to his particular foibles at this point.

True, a leader does need to keep some distance if they're going to maintain their charisma.

The trick is to leave some room for the imagination to fill in the gaps. Constant close proximity isn't necessarily a good thing.

As luck would have it, Asclepius is currently the only one of us off on his own at the moment.

I believe he's out on one of his usual rare symptom huntsor rather, one of his freewheeling house calls where he doesn't care who he treats.

Hold on. We shouldn't be interfering with Dr. Asclepius's work.

House calls are very important. If anything, we should be helping him, not just observing him.

Of course, I don't mean to get in his way. We'll help out ourselves if the situation calls for it.

Besides, he'd surely be upset with us if we did anything less than helpful.

So even though we're going to research him...

...I think we'll have to do so by observing him and gathering information from a distance.

Agreed. We may feel as though we know what kind of person he is, but we can't say that for sure.

There's definitely a chance we'll find a hint for what to do with this story by observing him in a different light.

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