In early May, the second week of Voices of a Distant Star sales was already underway, and the numbers kept climbing as if the market had suddenly decided it wouldn't let the work die.
Total Blu-ray sales cleared forty thousand units. The novelization passed half a million copies. And licensed goods - T-shirts, collector items, small collaborations that normally took months to gain traction - were moving far beyond expectations as well. For the Japanese industry, it was an unexpectedly pleasant shock: an original project from Shikoku, made by a tiny studio, had managed to create a real wave.
Even so, there was one limitation no one could ignore.
The work was simply too short.
No matter how impressive the sales volume looked, the revenue ceiling was real. A single episode. A single volume. A short-lived phenomenon. In the end, the money it generated sat in the tens of millions of yen - excellent for surviving, not enough to build a future with any sense of security.
In Tokushima, though, the topic had already become a fever. Within the regional animation circuit, Voices of a Distant Star was the yardstick for everything. Twenty-five thousand on debut. Forty thousand in two weeks. Numbers that made any other release look small by comparison.
In the same season, among the productions airing in the region, the title that shone brightest after Voices was The Magic Swordswoman Charlene!. And even that… had sold just over six thousand in its first week. Not even a quarter of Voices of a Distant Star's performance.
The gap was far too wide to dismiss as "luck."
That was why the names attached to the production remained at the center of every conversation - Sora as director, Sumire as assistant director, Haruto as chief animation director. Even staff from departments the public usually never noticed, like the background art team, began to get mentioned. In only two weeks, Yume Animation had become an unavoidable topic in any professional circle in Tokushima.
And Sora… didn't waste time.
The moment he drew the new project from the system, he shut himself away and wrote the script at a speed that didn't match the story's careful rhythm - like he was trying to steal days before the calendar could move.
That afternoon, Sumire - one of the very few people who truly held the company together from the inside - sat with the pages in her hands, reading with a serious expression and a deep, steady gaze, as though every line carried a decision.
Natsume Yuujinchou told the story of a boy who could see spirits and creatures from the other side - someone who inherited from his grandmother an old notebook: the "Book of Friends," filled with the names of youkai she had once subdued. Because of that book, those beings remained bound by a rule they never chose. They sought him out. Some in anger. Some in fear. Some only… in longing.
And the boy, instead of using that power to feel important, did the opposite: he returned those names one by one, freeing each of them - and in the process, encountering stories too small to make headlines, and too deep to ever be forgotten.
It was the complete opposite of Voices of a Distant Star. No mecha. No space. Almost no action. It was daily life, silence, old wounds. And at the same time, it was the kind of story that left weight in your chest.
Sumire read with an almost unreasonable focus. With each new section, her expression shifted in ways so subtle they were nearly invisible - like she was trying to keep control of her face… and failing, just slightly.
Then one line in the script came down like a blade.
A creature, voice thin and trembling:
"Rin… you didn't call me today, either?"
Right after, another line:
"It's so lonely… lonelier than before."
And then the cry that sounded like an apology and an accusation at the same time:
"Give it back. Give me my name… If you won't call me, no matter how long I wait… then at least - give me my name back!"
Sumire's finger trembled for a moment.
It was only the first small tale. There was no music. No color. No animation to amplify the emotion. And yet the force was there, raw and clean. Because a truly good work didn't need ornament to strike. When it was real, it pierced paper the same way it pierced a screen.
Sora had given her the scripts for the first three episodes. It took Sumire nearly half an hour to finish reading them, and when she finally closed the pages, her pale, beautiful face was marked by a quiet sadness - softened by a subtle warmth.
She was good at hiding what she felt. So good that even Sora, seeing her every day, rarely managed to pinpoint where irritation began and where care ended. But when a story reached her, there was no defense. What she felt surfaced without asking permission.
And her love for animation was visible.
"So?" Sora asked, trying to sound casual, though tension was caught in his throat. "What do you think of the script for my next project?"
Sumire stayed silent for about ten seconds, looking down at the pages as if she were mentally placing every scene back into its proper position.
"I liked it… truly." Her voice was lower than usual. "I like this kind of story."
Relief hit Sora immediately, almost physical. If Sumire liked it, she would give one hundred and twenty percent during production. That was who she was.
But then she lifted her eyes, straight to him, and caution returned to her face.
"Only… will it sell?"
That was the question that separated passion from survival.
Sumire was mature enough to know her personal taste couldn't dictate the market. She hated those hollow anime that sold nothing but bodies, poses, and fetish dressed up as adventure. And yet the market was brutal: out of every hundred shows, an absurd number existed for exactly that purpose. They were cheap to make, didn't require careful writing, and as long as the character designs were "pretty," you could sell figures, keychains, posters - low risk, reliable returns.
Natsume Yuujinchou wasn't that.
And in Japan - at least so far - that kind of "quiet healing" barely existed in that form. Sumire knew what the script did to her, but she also knew that an audience raised on certain patterns might simply not have the patience for it.
"Before Voices of a Distant Star, nothing like that existed in our market either," Sora replied, firm. "And it still worked when it aired. That's what a market is - we create it. We don't chain ourselves to whatever sold yesterday."
It was the unknown that frightened people. A new project demanded serious investment, and Yume Animation had no room to fail. If they crashed one more time, it was over. There was no Plan B. Sumire, as a pillar of the company, had a duty to be careful.
But for Sora, Natsume wasn't unknown. He knew what it had been in another life. He knew it wasn't an empty gamble.
Even so, Sumire hesitated. Her fingers traced the edge of the script, as if she felt sorry to reject something that had moved her.
"I think you should ride the wave and make something similar to Voices. Space, mecha, battles… If you do that, the fans will buy it without blinking. The risk would be lower."
Sora let out a sigh that was almost a humorless laugh.
As if he didn't want to.
But wanting didn't purchase what he needed. The giant mecha franchises - the massive titles - he hadn't drawn them from the system. And redeeming them directly would require an absurd amount of emotions. A level he simply couldn't reach.
He met Sumire's gaze calmly, without dramatizing it.
"Inspiration isn't something I can control. Someday I might make that kind of anime. But right now… right now, all I can make is Natsume."
And deep down, he'd already decided the moment the name appeared on the screen.
"It's settled. Our next anime will be Natsume Yuujinchou," Sora said. Then he added, as if pinning down a deadline to keep his fear from growing: "And it'll premiere in October. The fall cour."
Sumire's eyes widened for a brief moment.
October?
It was already early May. That meant less than five months of production.
Hesitation flickered across her face - quickly replaced by reality. Because reality had numbers. And those numbers said salary, rent, water, electricity. Just to keep the company breathing, they burned through six figures in yen every month. There was no time to "polish slowly." No such luxury.
"I understand," she said, with the posture of someone who knew her place within that structure. She was there to discuss, to warn, to point out risks… but the final decision belonged to him. And once it was made, her responsibility was to support it.
Besides… she truly liked the script.
But Sumire didn't let the conversation drown in sentiment.
"And the budget?"
That was the question that decided whether this was possible - or merely beautiful.
She knew the company didn't have enough money now, and it wouldn't have enough in the near future either - at least not enough to sustain thirteen episodes.
Sora didn't dodge it.
"I'm projecting at least eleven million yen for the full production," he explained. "In another month or two, the revenue from Voices of a Distant Star will start coming in, but my debt comes due around the same time. One will cancel out most of the other."
He paused briefly, calculating.
"In the end, we'll still be short by about five million."
Sumire fell quiet. She didn't look surprised. She looked… confirmed.
And then Sora smiled faintly - not joking, not desperate either.
"Didn't you say you knew a few investors here in Shikoku?" he asked, his voice far too calm for the weight of it. "I want to ask you for a favor. Introduce me to them."
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