"Hahaha..." Yanbai couldn't help laughing.
Madara said, nursing a headache, "Honestly, I started reading Icha Icha Paradise hoping to learn something."
"I thought the plot might not be all that good, but I never imagined I'd find it this incomprehensible."
Yanbai smiled without a word.
Jiraiya hadn't started out writing erotic novels, either.
How should he put it?
Market demand was what had led Jiraiya down the path of writing dirty old men's fantasies.
Jiraiya's first book, a spectacular flop, was called The Tale of the Utterly Gutsy Shinobi.
Calling The Tale of the Utterly Gutsy Shinobi a rousing adventure novel wouldn't quite be right.
It was a novel you couldn't think too deeply about and wouldn't want to read more than once.
Mostly, everyone's lives were hard enough already. They didn't want to seek out more suffering in fictional fantasies.
The Tale of the Utterly Gutsy Shinobi was filled with muted despair from beginning to end.
So there was a reason it had flopped.
The Tale of the Utterly Gutsy Shinobi reflected the cruelty and misery of reality-understated cruelty and plain, visible misery.
And so, one thick volume depicted the suffering of its protagonist, Naruto, throughout his life as a shinobi.
By the end, there was no satisfaction, only the feeling of a heart weighed down with boulders, leaving you unable to breathe.
Aside from people whose lives were too comfortable and who had far too much time on their hands, few would buy a novel that left them struggling to breathe.
After that flop, Jiraiya had seen the light.
Then Jiraiya had found the secret to making money.
Then Jiraiya had become a hit.
Then Jiraiya had quite legitimately resigned from public service to write novels full-time.
Then Jiraiya had become one of Konoha Shinobi Village's biggest taxpayers.