Now that the team is more or less fully formed, Hikuma and Noto set their sights on their biggest challenge yet in Hakutaku chapter 12: the totally fictional Pixel Summit, bringing a new layer of reality to the story.

Quite a lot has happened since we last checked in with Hakutaku. Not only did Hikuma and Noto take on a bunch of high schoolers and win a game jam, they also managed to recruit the wayward coding prodigy Seo after dealing with some lingering trauma surrounding his brother’s death. An overall goal for the series was even established as Noto declared that she wanted to win a Game of the Year award, spawning quite possibly the very first rendition of The Game Awards in manga form.

Seo’s more practical skill set as a programmer seems like it would complement Hikuma’s role as a designer and Noto’s role as a producer perfectly, so what better time to take on a new challenge? Hakutaku chapter 12 sets up the next arc for the story by having Noto explain that as high schoolers, their opportunities for exposure are limited, but it just so happens that Japan’s biggest indie game event is free for anyone to enter. This is Pixel Summit: a not-so-obvious riff on the very real Bitsummit, held every year since 2013 in Kyoto.

To be fair, it’s not as if Hakutaku hasn’t paid lip service to the real world up until this point. Back when the protagonists were tasked with making something for elementary school students in chapter 3, Noto chose to use pre-rendered models and code from the Internet in a way that went totally against a more idealised view of the game development process. The fact that very real features of the industry are making their way into the story is a sign that proper research is being done, making it a more well-rounded exploration of the subject matter as a result,

Of course, with a new arc must come new characters, so Hakutaku chapter 12 actually starts off by introducing perhaps its most bizarre personality yet: Nakaba Akamine. We don’t actually know that much about him yet, but he immediately makes a strong first impression by apparently getting so engrossed in games that he has to be pushed around on a cart by someone else if he wants to make it to meetings on time. He seems to hold some kind of position of authority on the Pixel Summit organizing committee, however, so it’s possible that he’ll end up being either a strong ally or formidable enemy for our main characters.

Considering the real setting and exciting new characters, it’s a little disappointing that Noto, Hikuma and Seo won’t be making a new game for the event. They’re just going to rework their Hideout Plan AR game to work in Kyoto instead, but this might just be for the initial screening phase. It’d be a shame if the series sacrificed variety this early in its run, especially considering that the premise should allow for plenty of different ideas.

You can read Hakutaku chapter 13 in English for free via VIZ Media’s Shonen Jump.