I know Sasaki has drawn much abuse on this forum for the decisions he has made concerning Ashirogi Muto, but I think that considering him as nothing but a corporate lackey is overblown. Yes, he is responsible for selling as many magazines as possible and not for babysitting high school kids, but let's take a look at his decisions.
1. He allowed Eiji and Ashirogi to be serialized as High Schoolers. Totally corporate choice to sell "Jack" without much consideration of the consequences.
2. In the hospital, he prohibits Mashiro from drawing and publishing until graduation. Two independent reasons. One, he feels guilty because of Uncle and does not want to cause Mom that type of pain again. Blame him for bringing in personal feelings if you wish, but that is not a salary man's reasoning. Two, the bad press from the headline "Teenage Mangaka Worked to Death in Hospital by Jack" would be devastating. He is regretting decision #1 now and wishes he had limited them to contests and one-shots until they were done with exams because school and manga are both full time jobs. As far as Eiji goes, maybe an exception can be made for someone who can do a name in 30 minutes without a script.
3. Holding Ashirogi to the condition that their new manga be able to match Eiji. You may think it too severe. You may think it unreasonable. But losing a talented young duo is not a way to sell magazines unless you look at the results:
HE GOT
ALL THE SENIOR EDITORS TO ACKNOWLEDGE THEY COULD BE AS GOOD AS EIJI.
His actions are not that much different than Hattori's when it comes to providing rivals and inspiration for all the young mangaka. As far as setting unreasonable terms
As far as the preview goes