March 5th, another Saturday.
Before the twenty-second episode of "Shirobako" aired, Lin Zhiyan had already packed his things, taken his family, left Tokyo, and headed to Kyoto.
Kyoto Animation, or "KyoAni" for short, is not actually located within Kyoto City, but in Uji City, Kyoto Prefecture, which is equivalent to a county-level city under the jurisdiction of a prefecture-level city.
It is true that Lin Zhiyan came for an exchange and learning visit, but the first two days were mainly for leisure, so they settled down in Kyoto City.
After playing for two days, on March 7th, he finally took his company staff to Uji City to visit the Kyoto Animation headquarters for the exchange.
In '11, the only anime produced by KyoAni was "Nichijou," which would begin airing in April, with Tatsuya Ishihara serving as the supervising director. After that, they would have to wait until April of '12 for "Hyouka."
The output was very low.
However, there was nothing that could be done about that, as this company could only be considered a conscientious small workshop.
Talents in anime production—animation, directing, scriptwriting, 3D, photography, coloring, supervision, etc.—were almost all concentrated in the Greater Tokyo Area.
It's not that there are no animation companies outside the Greater Tokyo Area, but they are basically all outsourcing studios. As of 2011, the only ones with the capability to act as prime contractors and independently undertake the production of an entire animation project were Kyoto Animation and P.A. Works.
The more animation companies there are locally, the more convenient it is. Kyoto Animation has a relatively strong reserve of talent in all aspects. As for P.A. Works, while they do have the ability to produce an animation on their own, they still need to specifically hire animation talent from the Tokyo area for certain key positions.
One or two people is fine, but it gets very difficult to hire more. And since local animation talent is far from sufficient, it becomes difficult to expand the company's scale.
No talent means difficulty in expanding the scale, and no expansion in scale makes it hard to attract talent—a vicious cycle.
Except for those who are locals, people who want to work in animation generally think of Tokyo; they wouldn't think of places like Kyoto or Toyama Prefecture. This is also why, at the beginning of the first episode of "Shirobako," the protagonist group all talk about going to Tokyo to make anime while they are still in high school.
Of course, if you are willing to spend enough money, you could technically set up an animation company and make it grow even in places like Otaru, Hokkaido, let alone Uji City, Kyoto.
But the problem is that just throwing money at it isn't enough; you also need to be able to produce good, hit animations. In particular, these need to be original, super-popular animations where the copyright is held by your own company. Otherwise, if you just spend money without a return, you'll go bankrupt sooner or later. Even if you can keep employees for a while, they won't feel a sense of achievement or belonging, and you'll eventually lose your talent anyway.
Neither Kyoto Animation nor P.A. Works has a president like Lin Zhiyan, who is a transmigrator with cheat-like memories and can easily churn out original, super-popular animations.
They each have their own difficulties.
For an animation company outside the Greater Tokyo Area, being able to produce one animation a year is actually already quite good.
Lin Zhiyan had naturally watched the anime "Nichijou," but unfortunately, it was a series that was critically acclaimed but commercially unsuccessful.
The senior management at Kyoto Animation were very welcoming of the arrival of the L.S.Produ team. After all, Lin Zhiyan and his animation company, L.S., had become a legend in the industry. Lin Zhiyan wanted to exchange ideas and learn, but they were even more eager to seek advice from him.
As for the ordinary employees at Kyoto Animation, although they welcomed Lin Zhiyan, they were, after all, quite busy. Apart from the initial curiosity to see him, with some even wanting to ask Lin Zhiyan for an autograph, they mostly returned to their own work afterwards.
The one-week exchange visit mainly consisted of tours, meetings, and discussions, covering areas such as keyframes, production, and direction, as well as discussions on company development, corporate culture, and management.
Because the main purpose was just exchange and learning, with no specific tasks or pressure, Lin Zhiyan didn't mind the frequent meetings and various discussions at all.
Through these few days of exchange and learning, he gradually became familiar with some of the people at Kyoto Animation.
However, the earthquake struck before the one-week exchange visit was even over.
In fact, before March 11, earthquakes of varying scales had been occurring intermittently in eastern Japan. The earthquake on March 9 even reached a magnitude of 7.2. However, Japan is a country prone to frequent earthquakes, so a 7.2 magnitude quake didn't mean much to them, and no one would have imagined that a 9.0 magnitude mega-earthquake would follow.
However, what was even more terrifying was the massive tsunami triggered by the earthquake, with the height of the waves reaching as high as 800 or 900 meters in the worst-affected areas.
The earthquake disaster area was mainly in the eastern part of Japan, especially the northeast, but on that day, even the Kyoto region felt a certain level of tremors.
At first, apart from Lin Zhiyan, no one knew what was going on. Once the news spread online and it was discovered to be a major earthquake, no one discussed animation anymore; the only topic of discussion became the earthquake.
As a reincarnated person, Lin Zhiyan was not at all surprised by the occurrence of the earthquake. On the contrary, if it hadn't happened, he would have been surprised, because he would have doubted if something had gone wrong, would have even doubted whether he had truly been reincarnated, and would have suspected that he might have just transmigrated into a similar but different Earth.
Since it happened as expected, there was naturally nothing to be surprised about.
It was just that, to avoid being seen as having something wrong with him, he still feigned great surprise.
After the surprise came all sorts of phone calls.
He called his assistant, whom he had left at the company, to ask about the situation there and how things were in Musashino City.
After learning that there was only a noticeable tremor, there were no injuries within the company, the office building remained stable, and the animation currently in production was unaffected, he was completely relieved.
He gave his assistant some instructions, hung up the phone, and then called others to check on their situations.
It was fortunate that everyone he knew was safe and sound.
In the evening, Lin Zhiyan received another call from his assistant and learned something: although the earthquake had no impact on the animation being produced, it did affect the broadcast of the shows.
The twenty-second episode of the second season of A Certain Magical Index, which was scheduled to air that night, was postponed due to the earthquake. The twenty-third episode of Shirobako, originally scheduled to air on the night of the 12th, was also postponed.
Many animations from other companies were also affected and postponed due to the earthquake.
There was nothing that could be done about it, and Lin Zhiyan had already mentally prepared himself.
He replied, "Understood."
Then, he gave a few more instructions.
After he finished explaining what needed to be done, he hung up the phone.
On the internet, discussions about the earthquake were already in full swing.
As Lin Zhiyan had anticipated, the anime Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 became popular.
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