| name | manga-script-adaptation |
| description | Convert source fiction into a detailed manga-ready script before visual design or image prompting. Use when Codex must adapt chapters into high-quality dramatic scenes, page beats, direct-render page briefs, functional dialogue, environment carry-over, visible psychological action, and cut/merge ledgers. |
Manga Script Adaptation
This skill exists because weak scripts produce weak pages. Do not summarize the source into page blurbs. Build a dramatic machine that a page prompt can shoot directly.
Inputs
Read the requested source chapters, prior outline, and any active project notes. If the source is large, first make a source manifest and then work from the selected chapter range. Preserve uncertainties instead of inventing canon.
Before writing pages, produce or update these files under script/:
source-diagnostic.md
adaptation-treatment.md
beat-sheet.md
page-script.md
cut-merge-ledger.md
Use templates/page-script-template.md when the project needs a reusable page-script form.
Method
Start with the causal spine. Identify what changes because of this prologue or episode, who loses control, what object carries proof, and what question forces the page turn. Then list the source information that prose currently carries invisibly: environment logic, social rules, fear, calculation, injury, withheld motives, object state, route geometry, and power relations. Every one of those must either become visible action, staged silence, prop continuity, panel contrast, or functional dialogue.
Write dialogue last. A line is allowed only if it performs at least one job: reveals hidden information, forces a decision, shifts power, exposes contradiction, anchors an object, changes the route, pays off setup, or sharpens the page turn. Delete lines that only explain mood, repeat visible action, or say generic tension without adding information.
For each page, define the page goal, entry state, exit state, reader question, causal change, conflict pressure, environment burden, visible psychological action, required props, continuity locks, suggested page rhythm, key visual moments, and dialogue function. Do not draw deterministic panel geometry. The script should give enough page rhythm for the image model to compose the page: suggested panel count, the reason for that count, the opening image, the closing image, and any object close-ups that must survive.
Direct-Render Page Contract
The current production path has no board-file stage. A page script must therefore carry the information that rough layout files used to protect:
- panel-count pressure: choose 1 to 15 panels and state why
- key image sequence: what the first, middle, and final visual beats must communicate
- camera logic: close-up, wide, low angle, overhead, peeking angle, or crowd compression when story-critical
- character scale and gaze: who is small, who dominates, who refuses eye contact, who watches an object
- object continuity: what item must reappear, what state it is in, and what cannot be redesigned
- text economy: exact dialogue/captions/signs to render, and which surfaces must remain blank or abstract
For direct English rendering, keep each page's text short. Prefer one to four quoted text items, and only exceed that when the page is intentionally information-dense. Use plain English that fits in balloons. Avoid idioms that become confusing if line-broken. If source-language nuance matters more than speed, mark the page for manual lettering instead of asking the image model to solve it.
Output Standard
The script should be detailed enough that a different agent can write direct page prompts without rereading the novel. It should carry source anchors, hidden information, inner state, setting logic, object state, page rhythm, and text function forward. If later phases lose this information, the script failed.
Do not write image prompts in this skill. Do not render images in this skill.
