The new work from genius director Touga Kuze, already being hailed as one of the strongest contenders for the year's throne, had finally been announced. Once again, he was joining forces with the overwhelmingly popular light novelist and renowned industry screenwriter, Natsuyuki Shirasawa. And now everyone wanted the same answer: what kind of spectacle would Ryuen no Ibuki deliver this summer?
A full year after their last collaboration, Touga Kuze and Natsuyuki Shirasawa were working together once more. For Seiun TV, it felt almost like a symbolic comeback, a chance to finally wash away the disappointment of their fruitless run at the Tokyo Anime Festival the year before.
The industry was already treating the project as yet another heavyweight title from the brightest rising director in recent years. Because of that, people had started saying, half-joking and half-serious, that every anime airing in the summer season had only one real goal left: competing for second place.
But if Touga Kuze had made his move again, then one question inevitably rose with it. Would Sora Kamakawa, last year's best new director and the young talent many considered the most gifted breakout in the industry, also return with a new work?
For several days in a row, the news cycle, the discussions, and nearly all of the industry's attention were firmly locked onto Ryuen no Ibuki. The new anime from Touga Kuze and Natsuyuki Shirasawa had swallowed the spotlight whole.
At that very moment, Touga Kuze sat in his office directing teams from two major companies at once, carefully calculating how to arrange the production schedule for Ryuen no Ibuki. A large-scale animation project backed by serious investment and involving well over two hundred staff members would push any director to the limit. The demands it placed on leadership, technical judgment, and mental stamina were brutal.
Even so, there was not the slightest trace of hesitation in his eyes.
During a rare moment stolen from the chaos, he opened NatsuYume and came across a piece of news that made him stop.
The announcement for Ryuen no Ibuki had already been sitting among the platform's hottest topics for three straight days, almost always within the top five. But on that day, among the top ten trending subjects, there was one title that caught his attention.
The newest work from Sora Kamakawa: Re:Zero kara Hajimeru Isekai Seikatsu.
By now, Sora Kamakawa was no longer some nobody with no influence in the industry. Natsume Yuujinchou had scored a 9.5 rating, and all six Blu-ray volumes had already been released, with total sales reaching 540,000 copies. The average per volume still hovered around 90,000, but following the usual pattern of the market, many believed that within the next six months that number would easily climb past 130,000 per volume.
With results like that behind him, it was only natural that any new project bearing his name would attract enormous interest.
The moment the news was released through the company's official website and Southern Alliance TV's official channels, Sora Kamakawa shot onto the trending charts in less than half a day.
"Sora Kamakawa..."
Sitting in front of his screen, Touga Kuze stared at the name displayed in the articles. And for the first time in a very long while, he did something entirely unlike himself. A man who normally paid no attention to other directors suddenly began searching through websites, forums, and entertainment reports for every scrap of information he could find about that new production.
After the Tokyo Anime Festival, he had bought the Blu-rays for Hoshi no Koe and Natsume Yuujinchou. Over the past month, aside from preparing his own new work, he had spent hours analyzing Sora Kamakawa's storyboards frame by frame, studying the way he constructed scenes, guided the audience's gaze, and controlled the emotional rhythm of an episode. It was not idle curiosity. It was serious study.
That was why the lack of information only made the disappointment sharper.
There was almost nothing concrete online about Re:Zero kara Hajimeru Isekai Seikatsu. When Sora Kamakawa had announced the anime on the official site, he revealed very little about the plot. In truth, he had left only a single line:
an anime about saving and dying, about love and redemption, a story that would move people to tears.
It sounded beautiful, yes. But it was far too vague.
It was the kind of synopsis that tried to suggest everything while saying almost nothing at all.
Even so, he had disclosed a few other details along with the announcement. The anime would premiere in the summer season and air continuously through both the summer and autumn cours. And above all, there was one detail that hit the industry with immediate force:
the total production budget would be 50 million yen.
Fifty million yen.
The moment that number appeared, fans did the math almost instantly. Anyone who had been following Sora Kamakawa knew exactly what it meant. In practical terms, it was everything he had.
To the fans of Natsume Yuujinchou and Hoshi no Koe, his decision to stake his entire fortune on the third work of his life was more than just boldness. It was a declaration of commitment. A gesture so extreme that it carried an almost solemn weight all by itself.
On NatsuYume, the fans were already in a frenzy.
"Same summer premiere. Same two-cour run from summer into autumn. One airing on Seiun TV, the other on Southern Alliance TV. You seriously think that's a coincidence?"
"Director Sora Kamakawa is aiming straight at Seiun TV. He wants a direct clash."
"But why? What does he have against Seiun TV?"
"If your info sources are that bad, go to the forum and look up the fallout between genius director Sora Kamakawa and Seiun TV. It's all written there."
"These two on the same stage is insane."
"But I like both of them... I don't want either one to lose."
"July still feels so far away. This damn winter season needs to end already."
"But Director Sora Kamakawa has never made an isekai adventure before, right? What if this genre ends up being where he slips?"
At the beginning of February, after leaving part of the storyboards for Re:Zero kara Hajimeru Isekai Seikatsu in Tokushima and officially setting the company staff in motion on the key animation work for episode one, Sora Kamakawa traveled to Tokyo alongside Sumire and Yumi Noriko.
There, at last, the result of twenty days of waiting finally began to bloom.
Southern Alliance TV was even more invested in Sora Kamakawa's new anime than he was himself. When it came to helping him recruit staff and build up the company, the network had genuinely gone all in.
At Yume Animation's Tokyo headquarters, the various departments now totaled ninety-seven employees. Add in the fifty or sixty still based in Tokushima, and Sora Kamakawa's company had surged past one hundred and fifty staff members in little more than a month.
And every last one of them was preparing for a single work.
At Yume Animation's new headquarters in Tokyo, Sora Kamakawa met the core of that staff face to face for the first time.
The person in charge of photography was Kazuki Tachibana.
The head of art direction and background design was Mio Shindou.
The dubbing supervisor was Tetsuya Tada.
All of them were respected professionals in the field, veterans with solid track records on anime that had been well received in the past. As for why they had agreed to join Sora Kamakawa's company, the answer was simple enough: the pay being offered there was high enough to make the choice for them.
Southern Alliance TV had helped him assemble the foundation of the headquarters and leverage its connections, but the salaries and conditions that actually brought those people in had come from Sora Kamakawa's own pocket. To gather that much talent in such a short time, he had obviously paid well above market rate.
The first full-company meeting at the Tokyo headquarters was held at 4:30 p.m. on February 3rd. Everyone was there. Men and women, veterans and newcomers alike.
During the meeting, Sora Kamakawa handed out copies of the storyboards for the first five episodes of Re:Zero kara Hajimeru Isekai Seikatsu to everyone present.
"As you can all see," he said before the packed room, "this is what our main headquarters will be working on from here on."
Since most of the staff still did not know their boss very well, they only flipped through the pages briefly without reading too deeply into them. Their attention was fixed elsewhere. Everyone was waiting to hear what Sora Kamakawa was going to say next. No one called a meeting like this just to show off storyboards.
And he made no effort to soften the impact or build up unnecessary suspense.
"Re:Zero kara Hajimeru Isekai Seikatsu will be the work of this company, top to bottom, for the next six months."
The room fell silent.
Then he lifted his eyes and let his gaze pass over every face in front of him.
"And before production truly gets underway, I want to make one thing clear about what I expect from this work."
The pause that followed was brief, but heavy enough to tighten the entire room.
"Re:Zero kara Hajimeru Isekai Seikatsu will defeat every rival in the summer season and become the most popular anime of the year."
The instant those words landed, the atmosphere changed.
It was not a noisy change. No one burst into chatter, no one stood up, no one laughed. But the tension spread through the room immediately all the same.
Because everyone understood what was hidden inside that declaration.
When the director said he would defeat every competitor airing in the same season...
did that include Touga Kuze's new work, Ryuen no Ibuki, or not?
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