@GoldenOrbs:
If anything, if your going to say that way, they would both be prizes for each other after their goals are completed.
What your saying is all well and good and true, if it were real life and they were an actual pair of people who had lives beyond what we see.
But it is a story. What we see, what is presented to us, is all there is.
We never see her, we never worry about her trying to achieve anything or get to know her better, and she's already achieved her goals, and she's only ever brought up in the context of "Mashiro needs to get an anime to win this girl!" She's just there, as something that will come along when the anime comes true.
If anything, that promise has jeopordized their careers multiple times now. They gave up on doing Tanto because they didn't believe it could get them anywhere, and for a while there, they were killing themselves to try and do two series a week, and jeopordized their entire work relationship to try and do a second series with dog boy, again, to try and get an anime. And like I said, Azuki is GIVING UP work and holding back, because of them. Not to mention how crazy they were driving their editors with their constant "We need to get an anime!"
When they were 15 and in school the promise made some sort of sense. At this juncture, in their early 20's, and with established careers, their promise is hurting more than helping and just keeping them apart for… no real reason. AND its also demeaning to their actual field. "Yeah, working in manga is cool, but its nothing if you don't have an anime to go with it."
They're popular and successful and they'll get to keep making manga as long as they want, but what if it takes 30 years more before they get an anime? Or never? Lots of series, even really popular ones, never do. Its kind of like saying "Well, when I grow up, I want to be an architect. But it doesn't matter if I build 100 houses and have steady stable work, I can't get married until I build the biggest skyscraper in the world."
Its NOT mature to take it to the extreme they've taken it. "We can't get married until there's an anime" is one thing. But "We can't see each other, date, or get to know each other any better until there's an anime, at which point we'll get married immediately" is incredibly dumb. And with a promise they made at 15 at that! They can barely hold hands after being engaged for 7 or 8 years. They're going to have problems with married life. At least go on a date each week or spend an hour together after a chapter is finished, or something!
There's a line between success, ambition, goals, and dreams, and it gets messy when you start mixing work with personal life. At some point there's a line and they've crossed it.