In the L.S president's office.
Makoto Shinkai found a place to sit, then said to Lin Zhiyan, who was busy working nearby: "I watched the October anime, 'A Place Further than the Universe.' It's quite good."
In the October season of 2012, L.S produced two anime series, one original and one adapted. The adapted one was, of course, the second season of "A Certain Scientific Railgun," and the original one was "A Place Further than the Universe."
This anime tells the story of several high school girls who join a civilian scientific expedition to Antarctica.
Of course, they couldn't just go whenever they wanted; they experienced many difficulties along the way. Furthermore, the beginning, middle, and end, as well as the characters' personalities and dialogue styles, were all quite interesting. They also selected well-known voice actors, so the performances were also quite good.
With only two or three episodes aired, the anime was already receiving rave reviews and was very popular, even rivaling the second season of "A Certain Scientific Railgun" in popularity.
After all, this was an anime that could sell over 10,000 copies per volume even in 2018; naturally, its performance in 2012 would not be bad at all.
However, the reason Makoto Shinkai mentioned this anime but didn't say a word about the second season of A Certain Scientific Railgun wasn't just because he had only watched A Place Further than the Universe and not Railgun, nor was it simply the difference between an original anime and an adapted one. The main reason was that Lin Zhiyan personally served as the script supervisor for A Place Further than the Universe.
Although Railgun was also an L.S. anime, Lin Zhiyan only served as the general producer, which meant it wasn't really his anime, so there wasn't much to say about it.
In response to the praise, Lin Zhiyan naturally smiled and thanked him, but he soon added, "For this anime, I only handled the planning and scriptwriting. Its success is mainly due to Yamada's hard work."
Makoto Shinkai didn't continue the praise but instead said, "Come to think of it, you were quite bold to use your real name for the scriptwriting at this time. Fortunately, A Place Further than the Universe appears to be quite successful so far. If this anime had failed, it might have affected the reputation leading up to the release of Your Name next year."
At first glance, the two anime have nothing to do with each other.
However, Lin Zhiyan had never made an animation that focused on the romance genre. A big reason why people were looking forward to "Your Name" was their belief in the myth of Lin Zhiyan's invincibility. If, at this critical moment, this myth were to be shattered, it would certainly have an impact on "Your Name."
Lin Zhiyan naturally knew this.
He smiled and said confidently, "Even though I'm not the supervising director myself, as long as I'm here, it can't possibly fail."
"So confident?" Makoto Shinkai couldn't help but take another look at Lin Zhiyan.
Lin Zhiyan nodded.
"Since you're so confident, why not just make 'A Place Further than the Universe' first, and then do 'Your Name' later?" Makoto Shinkai asked again.
"It's possible, but there's no need."
Lin Zhiyan explained, "I just want to build up some presence before 'Your Name' is released. To put it plainly, everything is in service of 'Your Name.' Besides, I no longer need 'A Place Further than the Universe' to prove my ability in animation production; our company's Yamada does."
"I see..." Shinkai Makoto understood.
Lin Zhiyan was busy for a while longer, then sat down across from Shinkai Makoto, poured himself a cup of tea, and took a sip.
"Since you attach such importance to Your Name, I assume your expectations for this anime are quite high?" Shinkai Makoto suddenly asked, a bit curious.
Lin Zhiyan set down his teacup and replied, "It's safe to say it's the anime I've had the highest expectations for so far."
"The highest so far? Even higher than Puella Magi Madoka Magica?" Shinkai Makoto was a bit surprised.
Lin Zhiyan nodded. "Let's not even talk about the Puella Magi Madoka Magica TV series; there's no point comparing a TV anime to a theatrical film. Even just taking the new film, Rebellion Story, its performance can't even compare to what I expect for Your Name."
"In terms of awards or box office?" Shinkai Makoto asked quickly.
"While I'd like to say both, there are too many variables when it comes to awards; it's really hard to say," Lin Zhiyan said with a helpless expression.
The corner of Shinkai Makoto's mouth twitched slightly, and he immediately asked, "What about the box office? What figures are you expecting?"
"You can take a guess," Lin Zhiyan said with a smile.
Makoto Shinkai bowed his head and pondered silently.
He had forgotten the exact box office figures for Rebellion Story, but vaguely remembered it being around 2.5 billion yen—in any case, it didn't exceed 3 billion.
Lin Zhiyan had said that this level of performance couldn't even compare to his expectations for Your Name.
Putting it that way, perhaps Lin Zhiyan's expected box office figure was 4 billion?
That was what he was thinking, but what he said out loud was: "5 billion?"
It was just a guess, anyway; there was no rule saying he had to be right.
Since Lin Zhiyan had asked him to guess, he surely wanted to hear a relatively high number. Since that was the case, he might as well aim high—Lin Zhiyan would be pleased, and he wouldn't lose anything by it.
As for anything over 5 billion yen, he hadn't even considered it; it was too exaggerated, simply impossible.
That was what he believed, but he soon heard Lin Zhiyan say, "5 billion yen at the box office? Too conservative."
"Huh?" Makoto Shinkai was momentarily stunned.
"If I were you, I'd be bolder and aim for 10 billion," Lin Zhiyan said in a joking tone.
"Ten billion... right now, only Mr. Miyazaki in all of Japan can make an anime with a box office of over 10 billion yen. And his anime has such a broad age demographic; that's something no one else can do." Makoto Shinkai shook his head.
Lin Zhiyan made no comment.
After saying this, Shinkai realized something was off: "You... you weren't serious, were you?"
"It's good to have dreams, right? Who knows, maybe you'll accidentally make them come true," Lin Zhiyan replied, maintaining a joking tone.
Shinkai said nothing more, though deep down, he didn't believe for a moment that Lin Zhiyan could actually make Your Name into a 10-billion-yen film.
Everyone wants to be Hayao Miyazaki, but no one can become the second Miyazaki.
Even if Lin Zhiyan had achieved countless successes in the TV anime field in the past, and even with his Puella Magi Madoka Magica still ranking second in average disc sales per volume, it was impossible to produce a 10-billion-yen box office film.
Of course, he wouldn't say that Lin Zhiyan having such expectations was wrong, because even he couldn't say he had never hoped for it himself—he just deemed it impossible.
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