Yumi and Sumire, who was in the middle of drawing the storyboard for episode nineteen of AD, exchanged a glance almost at the same time. Then both of them looked toward Sora, their eyes carrying a faint, unconcealed curiosity.
"Sora, why do lines like that always come out of your mouth so naturally? It was the same on that variety show before. You suddenly recited a couple of poetic lines, and now a lot of young people online are using them as their social media signatures. What high school did you graduate from? Was your literature teacher really that good to have taught a student like you?"
When Sora heard that, his expression turned solemn for a brief moment. Then he smiled.
"That has nothing to do with whether my literature teacher was good or not. It's a matter of talent."
He said it so naturally that it almost sounded irritatingly sincere.
"Just like my talent for animation. Just like my talent for music. In the future, you'll see plenty of similar examples, so there's no need to make such a fuss every time."
"That's true. When I think about works like Re:Zero and Five Centimeters per Second, made by someone who has never even dated yet somehow seems to understand everything instinctively, it really is absurd." Yumi took a deep breath, her expression thoughtful. "Be honest. Did you like some girl back in middle school? Did she hurt you? Is that why you created this work?"
"Don't overthink it." Sora froze for half a second, then immediately changed the subject. "That's private. A personal secret. Asking about it so casually is pretty rude."
"I'm only curious from the perspective of a business partner. It's hard for me to believe that a genius like you passed through high school in complete obscurity without even dating anyone." Yumi studied Sora carefully, as if trying to find a crack in his expression. "Tell me a little about your romantic history. I promise I won't spread it around."
Sumire and Sora looked at her with strange expressions.
Who here did not know what kind of person she was?
When Sora had once fallen asleep in the office from overwork, she had secretly taken a picture of his sleeping face and posted it on her account. If he really told her anything, then by tomorrow, before lunch, that story would probably already be on her account with twenty million followers, spreading across all of Japan.
"Even in Yume Animation, where two beautiful people like you and Sumire are around, I'm still completely absorbed in work. Do you really think I had some strange romantic past in an ordinary high school?" Sora joked.
"So, in your eyes, little Sumire and I are actually great beauties?"
Yumi did not feel embarrassed at all after Sora turned the topic back toward her. On the contrary, she followed his words and used them to tease him further.
"In that case, isn't little Sumire in danger? She spends every day in the same office as you, carrying out her duties as animation Kantoku. What if one day you…"
"Cough, cough, cough."
Sumire's ears turned red at once. She looked at Yumi, using that dry cough as a very clear expression of dissatisfaction.
"All right, all right. I won't tease you two anymore. I have something to take care of, so I'll escape first."
Although Yumi loved teasing Sora, she still cared a great deal about her friendship with Sumire. The moment she sensed that the atmosphere was becoming dangerous, she slipped away.
However, once she left, the air inside the room between Sora and Sumire became faintly awkward.
Sumire felt that silence might be even more embarrassing than forced conversation, so she took the initiative to speak.
"Kantoku, you know what Yumi is like. What she said just now was only a joke. I won't take it seriously."
"But I wasn't joking." Sora paused, as if her response had caught him slightly off guard, then smiled.
"Huh?"
Sumire's gaze froze for an instant.
But Sora did not continue on that subject. Instead, he raised a hand and pointed at the production schedule hanging on the wall.
"We don't have time to waste energy discussing things like this."
His voice returned to its usual work tone, calm, direct, and heavy.
"The first season of AD and Steins;Gate have already been decided. Both animations will premiere together next January on Southern Alliance TV."
He paused briefly before continuing.
"Two works airing at the same time. For the two of us, both serving as Kantokus, the workload will be enormous. It's already August now. We only have four months left."
"Actually, Kantoku, you could slow down a little." Sumire reminded him carefully. "Over the past two years, our company's production pace has been a little too fast. Touga Kuze, who competed with you last year, may not even have a new work ready next year. But during this same period, you'll have produced at least two or three new animations."
"We can talk about that later. Right now, the company is still in its growth stage. If I also move slowly, then Yume Animation will only ever become a half-baked company in the future of Japan's animation industry."
Time passed, and August came to an end.
The final box office of Five Centimeters per Second ended up slightly higher than everyone had estimated. Before leaving theaters, its total box office reached 13.7 billion yen.
Including the films released during the New Year season that year, this result placed Five Centimeters per Second seventh on Japan's annual box office ranking among all works released so far.
For a newcomer to the film industry, that achievement was nothing short of explosive. It was almost unreasonable.
Japan's film industry had not yet reached the era where variety show performers, comedians, singers, presenters, athletes, and people who had never learned a single thing about professional directing could all become Kantokus and make huge box office returns purely through marketing.
High-grossing films in Japan were still usually handled by seasoned veterans of the industry. Marketing was important, of course, but if the film itself lacked quality, Japanese audiences were not foolish enough to hand over their money blindly.
A case like Sora's was extremely rare in Japanese cinema.
But at the very least, he had become famous with a single work.
Among many Japanese moviegoers who loved romance films, the name of Kantoku Sora had already been firmly engraved in their minds.
Whenever he decided to make his second animated film, the reputation created by Five Centimeters per Second among cinema audiences would surely lend him strength.
The cooperation agreement between Sora and Southern Alliance TV was officially signed on September 1st.
In his personal name, Sora would invest 300 million yen. In addition, over the next six years, he would produce at least eight animated works for exclusive broadcast on Southern Alliance TV. In exchange, he would receive 42% of the broadcaster's shares.
The news immediately stirred up a tremendous storm inside Japan's television industry.
After all, what was Southern Alliance TV?
At this point, it had basically already been confirmed that it would become Japan's fifth television station with nationwide broadcast rights.
And an existence of that level had actually paid such a tremendous price in order to secure Sora.
A single cooperation agreement had firmly tied Sora to Southern Alliance TV.
This caused the four major broadcasters, who had once again become interested in Sora after the explosive success of Five Centimeters per Second in Japanese cinema, to give up completely.
Since he was unwilling to cooperate with them, there was only one conclusion.
He was their enemy.
Within the four major broadcasters, the executives responsible for their animation divisions now shared the same hostility.
They all understood that Sora was shining too brightly in the animation world.
If they did not suppress him now, they might never have another chance.
And coincidentally, only two days after Sora signed with Southern Alliance TV, both sides jointly held a press conference.
A group of reporters was invited, and in front of them, an announcement was made.
During next January's winter anime season, Yume Animation would have two medium-to-long-form animated series premiering.
Steins;Gate.
And AD.
The moment the titles of the two works were revealed, Japan's animation industry erupted.
In truth, the four major broadcasters had already learned about this information months earlier through insiders. All of them had also made preparations in advance, silently and tacitly, without needing to say anything aloud.
But ordinary anime fans in Japan had no way of knowing that.
In July and August, everyone had only just begun to recover from the impact that Five Centimeters per Second had brought to the animation industry.
And now Sora was already announcing two new medium-to-long-form works that would premiere within a few months.
This level of productivity felt unfamiliar to both industry professionals and ordinary anime fans.
Since when could high output and high quality appear together?
"Isn't Kantoku Sora pushing himself too hard? Two animations airing at the same time? Has there ever been a case like this in the history of Japanese animation?"
"Twenty years ago, Kantoku Kanemori of Kinsei Animation did something like this. He served as Kantoku for two animations at the same time and nearly worked himself to death. I didn't expect Kantoku Sora, young as he is, to challenge such a feat."
"Doesn't this feel a little forced? Could it be that Kantoku Sora announced this because he became a shareholder of Southern Alliance TV and has no choice but to cooperate with the broadcaster's attempt to raise its stock price?"
"I feel the same. This is way too exaggerated."
"In Japan's animation industry, where releasing one anime every two years already counts as high productivity, a monster like Kantoku Sora suddenly appears and produces six animations in three years, including a year-long series like Re:Zero. Honestly, I surrender."
"I have a feeling that anime made in such a rush will definitely have flaws in the story. Maybe Kantoku Sora will ruin his reputation in the animation industry because of this reckless move."
"These two works haven't even aired yet. Why think so much? Be careful, or Kantoku Sora might slap everyone in the face with his results again when the time comes."
"I believe in Kantoku Sora. He's a genius. You can't measure someone like him with ordinary thinking. Can an ordinary person release three anime and one animated film in two years, then rise from industry newcomer to one of the top names in animation? Since Kantoku Sora has already created results like that, supervising two anime airing at the same time doesn't seem that exaggerated."
"Exactly. The first season of Re:Zero sold an average of 370,000 BD copies per volume, breaking the average BD sales record of Japan's animation industry for the past ten years. And the BD sales data for Re:Zero season two will probably exceed 400,000 copies per volume. Stop doubting Kantoku Sora's ability all the time. His past results are right there. He wouldn't gamble with his own reputation for no reason."
Under the impact of the news that Sora would have two new works premiering in January, the direction of public opinion in Japan's animation industry suddenly shifted.
After Re:Zero and Five Centimeters per Second, Sora's position in the animation world had already become too important to ignore.
Judging purely by results, he could already be counted as one of the industry's top Kantokus.
The original purpose behind Southern Alliance TV releasing this information was to use Sora's current fame in the industry to slightly raise the stock price of the newly listed company.
But what Southern Alliance TV had not expected was that Tokyo's four major broadcasters seemed to have coordinated with one another.
Their timing was precise. All of them released information at the same time about four new self-produced animated works that would premiere in January of the following year.
Those announcements fell like bombs into the already restless lake of Japan's animation industry.
Sora might indeed be one of the most outstanding animation professionals to rise among Japan's younger generation in recent years.
But within Japan's animation industry, the Kantokus and famous screenwriters who had created classic after classic during the golden age had merely grown old.
They were not dead.
These people cherished their reputations deeply. They might spend five or six years before producing a new animated work, but when they did, the quality was usually extremely high. Combined with the reputation of their older works, their results were often very strong.
Under normal circumstances, having even one work by a veteran of that level airing in a single anime season would already be rare. It would be enough to draw the attention of countless Japanese anime fans.
But that day, the announcements published on the official websites of the four broadcasters were, without exaggeration, explosive.
Because next January, every self-produced animated work premiering from Tokyo's four major broadcasters would be helmed by famous industry figures of that level.
If it had only been one or two, that could still have been accepted.
But it was all four broadcasters.
Every single one of them.
Were those famous industry figures so easy to invite? Some of them had not released a new anime in seven or eight years, yet now they were all gathering in the winter season of the following year to produce new works.
Anyone who thought about it even a little would know this could not possibly be a coincidence.
Tokyo's four major broadcasters could no longer tolerate Kantoku Sora's presence in the animation industry.
So they simply decided to act together.
In January of the following year, they were preparing to launch a massive strike against him.
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