Kazuya's own negativity; if he becomes cheerier, his work suffers. Until near the end of the series Hiramaru's art was rather poor, which gave it votes from fans of comedy; however, Nakai (under Yoshida's orders) helped Hiramaru improve his drawing skills. Aiko Iwase is a former classmate of Mashiro and Takagi's during junior high school, where she is known for scoring high on school rankings. She assumes she and Takagi are a couple because he took her hand and accepted her statement of inspiring each other, although Takagi assumed she meant as academic rivals. Takagi later turns her down after she states that she disapproves of his writing manga. She reappears as a student at To-Oh University along with Kō Aoki. Under the pen name , she writes her first novel while in University, which she expects will impress Takagi. However, Takagi's refusal to say that novels are better than manga angers Iwase, who decides to write a manga for Shōnen Jack to prove her superiority. Her editor is originally Hattori, who sees her talent and believes her rivalry with Takagi will be an excellent way to spur Ashirogi for their next series. However, she is frustrated that Takagi does not return her feelings even though he admits that she is more talented than Miyoshi. After Takagi marries Miyoshi, she transfers her feelings to Hattori, who finds the relationship uncomfortable enough to bring the issue to his captain. Miura is assigned as her editor, while Hattori reassigned to Ashirogi for their upcoming series; the change angers her, especially because she feels Miura is less skilled than Hattori. Her writing and plot are praised as very well made and she is the writer of +Natural. Her favorite manga is Adolf ni Tsugu. Shoyo Takahama is introduced as a 19-year-old rookie assistant for Ashirogi on Detective Trap. While he is initially the least social of Ashirogi's three assistants, he gradually opens up to Mashiro, and expresses that he aspires to work for Disney. He eventually gets his own series in Jump, Business Boy Kenichi with Nakai and Kato as his assistants and Gorō Miura as his editor. However, the series eventually gets cancelled. Without a series of his own, Takahama returns to being Muto Ashirogi's assistant for their next series Tanto, but eventually gets another series, Seigi no Mikata (Mikata's Justice), which winds up being very successful. Both Mashiro and Takagi think