Mashiro is the main protagonist of the series. He was once content in following the usual life of a Japanese citizen: attending a university, and eventually becoming an office worker; but he now follows in the footsteps of his late uncle—a manga artist who loved his classmate in secret, and later died from overwork—as he too aspires to become a manga artist. Mashiro has been a talented artist since early age, but is highly dissatisfied with his drawings.