June 5th, Monday.
Yuta arrived at the office around nine in the morning.
Work didn't officially start until ten, but almost everyone was already there.
"President."
"Good morning, President."
"Morning, President!"
People greeted him left and right as he walked in.
Yuta smiled and acknowledged each of them.
A successful anime brought all kinds of invisible perks.
Back in the old days, maybe three or four people would have been at the office by nine, and the rest wouldn't trickle in until close to ten.
But now, everyone at Starfall was glowing with energy like they'd been injected with adrenaline. Some of them were probably showing up at seven or eight. Who could wait until ten?
On top of that, a lot of the people who had been recruited to Starfall later on had quietly grumbled about the move at first. Now there wasn't a single complaint to be heard.
Raizen Kurosaki, Shidou Arisugawa, and Retsu Kurogiri, who had been convinced they'd been conned into joining, were now endlessly grateful to Yuta.
Of course, none of them would admit to being conned anymore.
The story they told everyone now was how they had been brilliant and visionary enough to recognize Starfall's potential at a glance, and since they were old colleagues and friends of President Shido, they had volunteered to jump ship.
Yuta had heard about it but never once called them out.
"President, a package came for you. I signed for it," Rika said, walking over.
"A package? For me?" Yuta was puzzled.
He had been so swamped lately that he hadn't had time to buy anything online, which meant someone else must have sent it.
But who would go out of their way to mail him something?
He followed where Rika was pointing and saw a small cardboard box. He walked over and opened it.
Inside was a pile of gleaming razor blades.
Yuta: ...
He'd been hoping it was food. Instead it was a box full of razor blades.
Tucked in with the blades was a handwritten note: "Shido! You actually wrote Fuko out of existence! Here's a box of blades. Think about what you've done!"
Yuta shook his head, tossed the note in the trash, and carried the box of blades to the storage room.
This was just the beginning. He'd probably be receiving a lot more blades in the future.
Might as well save them up. Maybe one day he could get rich selling razor blades.
"Rika."
"What is it, President?"
"From now on, check any packages that come to the office before you sign for them. I don't want us accidentally accepting a bomb and blowing up the whole building."
"President, you're such a kidder."
"No, no, I'm completely serious."
The odds of that happening were basically zero, but Starfall was going to be making a lot of tearjerker anime going forward.
Better safe than sorry.
After giving Rika her instructions, Yuta went into his office, buried himself in work, and didn't come up for air until well into the afternoon.
That afternoon, Aoi Fuji arrived at Starfall.
Yuta invited her into his office, and after some pleasantries, he got to the point. "Miss Fuji, isn't it about time we increased the production budget for Clannad?"
"Why would we increase the budget? You've been doing perfectly fine at twelve million per episode," Aoi replied with a smile.
"You can never have too much budget," Yuta said earnestly.
Aoi shook her head slightly and changed the subject. "The release date for the first DVD volume has been set. June 21st."
"Got it."
Yuta acknowledged with a nod.
June 21st was the Wednesday after next. By that point, episode eleven would have already aired and episode twelve would be just around the corner.
For context, anime DVDs weren't sold as one complete set covering all twenty-something episodes. They were split into multiple volumes and sold separately, with each volume containing two or three episodes.
After all the individual volumes were out, a complete collector's edition might follow, but that was a separate matter.
When people talked about an anime's sales numbers, they usually meant the average sales per volume, not total sales across all volumes.
Another thing worth mentioning was that there were two types of discs: DVDs and BDs.
DVDs had lower capacity and lower picture quality, but they were cheaper. Also, DVD players were incredibly widespread in Japan.
BDs were Blu-ray discs with more storage and better picture quality, but they cost more, and a regular DVD player couldn't read them, which made things complicated.
In a few years, the disc market would run on both DVDs and BDs side by side. But this was 2006, and DVDs still dominated. Blu-ray was barely a factor.
For Clannad, distribution had been entirely handed off to Arcane, and the DVD release was naturally being coordinated between Arcane and the disc company.
However, Aoi coming to Starfall in person probably meant she had more to say than just a release date.
Sure enough, she continued, "The disc company discussed things with us, and to help boost sales, they're going to need your cooperation on something."
Yuta blinked, then cracked a joke. "Which of our office beauties do they want a photo shoot with? I can't promise she'll agree, but I can ask."
Aoi: "..."
Yuta: "What, they don't want one of our girls? Don't tell me they want a photo of me instead."
"Why would you assume it's about photos?" Aoi couldn't help asking.
"Isn't that standard practice for boosting sales?" Yuta answered.
It actually was standard practice.
After all, the anime had already aired on TV.
Most people buying the DVD had probably already watched it on broadcast.
So why would someone who'd already seen it on TV go out and buy it on disc?
Maybe the anime was good enough to be worth owning. A collector's piece.
Maybe they'd missed an episode or two when it aired and wanted to catch up.
Or maybe buying the disc came with bonuses you couldn't get from the TV broadcast.
That was why many disc companies included things like voice actress photo cards to incentivize purchases. If a show had a production committee, the committee might even push for casting voice actresses with star power and looks, since disc companies were often committee members with a stake in sales.
The disc company working with Arcane wasn't asking the voice cast to help out though. They wanted Starfall to cooperate instead, which was a little odd.
Still, including a few photos of Starfall's attractive female staff didn't seem like the worst idea to Yuta.
And honestly, despite being a tiny studio, Starfall did have two or three beauties on staff. Yuzuki Amane, the key animator handling layouts, was one of them.
Rika was on the petite side, but she was definitely cute. Some people might even consider her delicate, doll-like look to be the ideal type of beauty. Not that every woman at the studio was a model. It was just that Yuta interacted with Rika and Yuzuki the most.
Aoi had no idea what was going through his head. She gave him a strange look and said, "Clannad isn't like those harem anime. We don't need anyone's glamour shots as a purchase incentive."
Yuta dropped the jokes and got serious. "Fair enough. So what do you need from me?"
"Your autograph. A personal, hand-signed autograph. And if you have time, it would be great if you could draw a few character posters as well," Aoi said.
"I see."
Yuta felt an inexplicable twinge of disappointment, but he quickly moved on. "No problem. I'll set aside some time to draw them."
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