The three of them talked in the café for nearly two hours. For almost half of that time, Ryo Yukishiro and Masashi Kondo remained absorbed in the script, turning page after page in silence, as though they had completely forgotten the cups of coffee cooling on the table.
"It's a very, very interesting story. As expected of Kantoku Sora," Masashi Kondo said, unable to hide the surprise on his face.
The Japanese television drama industry still carried many old habits. Most productions were filmed while they were already airing, with scripts adjusted in real time according to audience reactions. Sometimes even the importance of the female leads could shift midway through a broadcast. Everything was rushed, storylines were often patched together, and narrative logic was frequently sacrificed for immediate ratings.
Deception Game might have its own flaws. No work was completely immune to that. But in Masashi Kondo's eyes, a story this gripping while still only in script form was the kind of thing that appeared maybe once every few years.
The male lead, Shinichi Akiyama, possessed an almost infuriating level of confidence. In every game, at the most critical moment, when a single defeat would bury him and the heroine beneath hundreds of millions of yen in debt, he would always appear calm to the point of arrogance.
Then, in front of the utterly desperate heroine, he would slowly say:
"I have a guaranteed way to win this game."
Just reading that line in the script was enough to make Masashi Kondo's blood rush.
And beyond that, the structure of the games was ingenious. The mutual deception between the heroine and her former teacher in the first game, the crossing alliances in the second game, "Minority Vote," and the third round, set in the country of "Smuggling," all built one suffocating battle of wits after another.
Aside from the heroine, almost every character seemed to be competing over who had the lowest moral bottom line and the most poisonous mind.
The entire story lived up to its title.
Deception Game.
Masashi Kondo finished the script in one sitting. By the time he reached the end, his head was aching, as though his own intelligence had not been enough to keep up with all the turns in the plot.
But when he remembered that the script had been written in just one week by the young man sitting in front of him, a deep sense of helplessness rose in his chest.
So this was what people called genius.
Seeing his expression, Sora finally relaxed. If the network had judged the script unsuitable, the more than ten million emotional points he had invested would have gone straight down the drain. And he had absolutely no interest in turning Deception Game into an anime. He did not have the time, the energy, or the need.
Since this was only a script deal, Sora was not greedy either. Aside from requesting a share of the profits after the drama was produced and broadcast, he did not make any excessive demands.
After all, the real reward would come after the series aired, when the work began generating emotional points.
As for how the script would be filmed, how the cast would be chosen, and how the production would be handled, Sora would only find time to visit the set occasionally and offer some suggestions. Everything else would be Masashi Kondo's responsibility.
Throughout November, the Japanese television industry remained mostly calm.
The four major networks still held their dominant position in the market.
The Southern Alliance TV Network, meanwhile, continued to perform poorly that quarter. Anime, dramas, variety shows - none of its divisions had produced anything truly outstanding.
Then November ended.
With the arrival of December, Southern Alliance TV Network announced a new piece of industry news.
It concerned the drama the network intended to promote as its main January release.
Unlike anime, which had to enter production months in advance - sometimes even half a year ahead of broadcast - in order to sustain a full cour, television dramas operated under a different logic.
As long as there was money, a crew, and the proper logistics, almost everything else could be solved. In some cases, filming could begin roughly a month before broadcast.
There had been classic Asian films shot in less than twenty days. In the Japanese drama market, that kind of accelerated pace was nothing unusual.
After buying Sora's script in November, Southern Alliance TV Network needed only half a month to put everything in place and prepare for filming.
By December, before even a single episode had been fully shot, promotion had already begun.
Naturally, the focus of the campaign was not exactly Deception Game itself.
It was the drama's screenwriter.
Sora.
The heat left behind by 5 Centimeters per Second had not yet faded. The millions of Re:Zero fans were still watching his every move, eagerly waiting for him to begin production on the anime's third season. And now, at this exact moment, he had somehow found the time to write a television drama script.
As soon as the news was revealed, Sora's fans became completely restless.
"Is this serious? Doesn't Kantoku Sora already have two new anime premiering in January? How does he still have the energy to become a drama screenwriter?"
"But that's exactly how Southern Alliance TV Network is promoting it. I'm just as confused."
"What is Kantoku Sora doing? Is he some kind of superhuman?"
"Honestly, Southern Alliance TV Network is really milking the same person over and over again. Isn't Kantoku Sora just a minor shareholder there? Now he has to carry the anime division, and they also want him writing for the drama division?"
"Isn't it because Southern Alliance's ratings were terrible this autumn? When Re:Zero was airing, at least the network had one standout division. Their anime block shot straight to the top in influence among Japanese networks, the market regained confidence in them, and advertising revenue rose sharply. Now none of their divisions are doing well. If the ratings don't climb, their stock price is going to fall."
"And hiring an anime Kantoku to write a drama script is supposed to raise their ratings?"
"Look at it from another angle. Even if 5 Centimeters per Second hadn't been an animated film and had been made as live-action instead, it probably still would have done well. In Japan, the line between anime screenwriters and live-action screenwriters has never been that rigid. At the very least, I think a live-action drama written by Kantoku Sora will definitely have some brilliant points."
"To be honest, the network just wants to use Kantoku Sora's current popularity to pull us fans toward their drama. And I admit it: Southern Alliance TV Network's strategy is working. I almost never watch dramas, but when this Deception Game airs, I'll at least watch the first episode."
"Same here."
"I just hope Kantoku Sora can hold up under the pressure. More than the number of works he puts out, I want him to maintain their quality."
"All we can do is believe."
Unlike the almost instinctive confidence anime fans had in Sora, the reaction within Tokyo's television industry was entirely different.
Especially among the staff of the four major networks.
When they saw the news that Sora would serve as screenwriter for Southern Alliance TV Network's main winter drama, they were stunned at first.
Then they burst into laughter.
Had Southern Alliance TV Network lost its mind?
Was this how they clung to a last-minute lifeline?
Could that network not show even a single spark of its own without Sora?
Two major winter anime and one major television drama, all involving Sora in production.
He was only a twenty-one-year-old young man. He was not the wet nurse of an entire network full of employees.
As for the Japanese media, their words were even more direct.
In general, almost no one was optimistic about the January ratings for this drama called Deception Game.
The prevailing interpretation was simple: Southern Alliance TV Network had grown desperate to recover its ratings and performance, so it had started trying any remedy without properly diagnosing the illness.
The curious thing was that the television professionals and media outlets themselves barely noticed something.
Without anyone clearly realizing it, the name Sora had already become the center of an industry-wide storm of public opinion.
Out loud, many of them mocked him.
But in practice, whenever news involving Sora appeared, their eyes turned toward it with almost excessive attention.
The four major networks paid attention to him.
The media paid attention to him.
And millions of Japanese television viewers paid attention to him as well.
Whether through ridicule or trust, it hardly mattered.
At that moment, he was the center of public opinion in the Japanese television industry.
In early December, inside Yume Animation, production on the first episodes of AD and Steins;Gate was already approaching its final stage.
With that, the familiar tense atmosphere once again settled over the entire company.
In truth, throughout the production process, the employees had already come into contact with most of the script content for both works.
The first season of AD, in their eyes, could be considered above average on the script level. Fuko's arc was genuinely moving, but the other arcs did not seem quite as impressive.
Even so, everyone agreed that, with the enormous financial investment from Sora supporting its refined visual quality, the anime's performance after release was unlikely to be bad. It might not reach the level of Re:Zero, but it certainly would not fall too far behind.
Chairman Sora had said that the anime would have a second season in the future, and that the second season would be the true highlight of the work.
But no one took that claim too seriously.
After all, the first season was already a high-quality romance anime. Once the male and female leads started dating, what kind of development could possibly elevate the story enough to turn it into a masterpiece?
Because of that, what truly occupied everyone's mind inside the company at that moment was Steins;Gate.
To be honest, when Sora first handed the scripts for the first ten episodes of Steins;Gate to the team, the initial reaction had been terrible.
During the script meeting, several of the company's executives nearly fell asleep while reading.
At that moment, many of them silently lamented.
It was over.
This time, the Kantoku's reputation probably would not survive.
Who could have imagined that after Re:Zero, Sora's next anime would be a work with such a quiet narrative, so lacking in obvious explosions, so capable of making people feel drowsy?
They truly could not see where the impact point was in the first ten episodes.
And audiences had even less patience.
If the first three episodes failed to connect, if there was nothing compelling enough to grab them, viewers would abandon the series immediately. No one would waste time on a show that did not offer something interesting right away.
But the script meetings continued.
One after another.
And when they finally reached the events after episode twelve of Steins;Gate, everyone understood.
At that moment, only two words remained echoing in each of their hearts.
A masterpiece.
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