After Lin Zhiyan left, Akiyuki Shinbo and Watanabe Satoru also stood up to pay the bill.
Once they were outside the cafe, they couldn't help but start discussing:
"I don't know if Mr. Hayashi is telling the truth or not. Completing the planning, script, and character design for a half-year anime in less than a month... it just doesn't seem possible."
"We'll have to assume he started planning and designing characters on IG. Even so, finishing the script so quickly is unbelievable. It's as if he didn't need any script conferences or discussions with the script supervisor."
"I wonder... could he have written the script himself?"
"Has he ever written a script? I know his art skills are exceptional, but I've never heard of him writing scripts."
"Who knows? Maybe their animation isn't meant to be as serious or high-quality as our Soul Hunter. If they're not aiming for such high standards, maybe it's just barely doable?"
"I can't figure it out. We'll have to wait until October when his anime airs to find out."
Lin Zhiyan, of course, was unaware of their conversation, otherwise he would have struggled to suppress a laugh.
After all, the "Dragon Child" was responsible for Soul Hunter, the anime that forced Akiyuki Shinbo to adopt the pseudonym Minamisawa Juhachi and start producing adult animation to make a living. Despite such "serious" and "high-quality" efforts, the anime ultimately failed.
Of course, this was a matter of a different timeline. In this timeline, events hadn't yet unfolded, but unless Lin Zhiyan intervened, Akiyuki Shinbo would likely still end up working in adult animation.
What Lin Zhiyan really wanted to say wasn't about future collaboration opportunities, but rather: "When you start making adult animation in the future, please don't bring Shin Oonuma, that incompetent fool, along. The Minamisawa Juhachi persona was exposed as Akiyuki Shinbo, and it was linked to two people: Takeuchi Oriya and Shin Oonuma. The latter was involved in producing adult animations as a director, using his real name in the staff credits without any concealment. While the former didn't use his real name, he wasn't exactly hiding either, going by 'Takeuniku Tetsuya'—any fool could see it was him."
However, in this timeline, Takeuchi Oriya was already working with Lin Zhiyan and was unlikely to get involved in Minamisawa Juhachi's animations again. So if anyone was going to mess things up, it would most likely be Shin Oonuma.
Regardless, Lin Zhiyan had no intention of participating in the Soul Hunter animation.
Upon returning to the company, he resumed his daily work while beginning to ponder a problem—the voice actors.
There was no need to worry about the production schedule.
Except for the final two episodes, the storyboards and scripts could be copied verbatim.
The keyframe animation team adopted for this production was completely different from the original in the other timeline. However, this wasn't a major issue. With Lin Zhiyan personally overseeing the process, the final visual presentation would likely differ little from the original—and might even surpass it.
The only area where a close approximation wouldn't suffice was the voice acting.
In the original timeline, Yagami Light was voiced by Mamoru Miyano. However, Miyano, born in 1983, was still with the Himawari Theatre Group at this time. He wouldn't officially debut as a voice actor until 2001, when he participated in the dubbing of an overseas drama.
While it wasn't impossible to find Miyano in 2000, he hadn't yet officially debuted as a voice actor. There was no way they could cast someone like that in the lead role.
L's voice actor, Yamaguchi Morihei, had already debuted and accumulated considerable fame over a decade. However, he was the voice actor for the male lead in Inuyasha, which also premiered in October 2000.
It's not that a voice actor can only voice one animation per year, but only if their schedules don't conflict.
If two animations require voice recording on the same day, Yamaguchi Morihei would definitely be unavailable. After all, Inuyasha was an anime adaptation of a popular manga, while Death Note in this timeline was an original animation. Anyone would choose to voice Inuyasha over Death Note.
Of course, it's still uncertain whether their schedules will conflict. There's only a possibility.
The voice actress for the female lead, Misa Amane, was originally Hirano Mio, the same voice actress who voiced Haruhi Suzumiya. However, this Hirano Mio was younger, born in 1987. Although she joined the Tokyo Children's Theatre in 1998, she didn't debut as a voice actress until 2001, like Mamoru Miyano.
Similarly, someone like her couldn't be cast as Misa Amane.
For the shinigami Ryuk and Rem, the former's voice actor, Shido Nakamura, is a film and television actor who began with Kabuki performances. While he had transitioned to films by then, he had never even taken on a leading role and had never voiced an anime. As for Rem's voice actress, Keimiko Saito, Lin Zhiyan didn't know her well, only that she hadn't debuted yet. He wasn't sure when exactly her debut would be.
These were just the voice actors for the main characters; finding replacements for the minor roles would be just as difficult.
In other words, he would have to recast almost every character himself. Although the sound director at the studio would offer suggestions, it would still be a considerable challenge.
Fortunately, animation voice actors were different from film and TV actors. While a lack of voice actors would leave the animation soulless, they were more replaceable. At most, people like Lin Zhiyan, who had heard the original voiceovers, might feel a bit strange listening to other versions due to their preconceptions.
"This is tough," he thought.
"Even being a plagiarist isn't that simple."
As he pondered this, Lin Zhiyan couldn't help but sigh.
Knock, knock~
A knock sounded at the door.
The door was ajar, and Lin Zhiyan looked up to see Nanase Mayumi.
"Senior," she said, entering the President's office and addressing Lin Zhiyan. "Wakatake-san has responded. He's agreed to be our animation's sound director. He wants us to schedule a time to bring him the audition script and character design materials."
Wakabayashi Kazuhiro is a sound supervisor who has worked with IG on multiple animations and was the sound director for Hayao Miyazaki's Spirited Away.
His real name is Hayashi Kazuhiro. He added the Japanese character "若" (waka), meaning "young," to his surname because there was an older colleague at work with the same surname, Hayashi. Thus, he became known by his stage name, Wakabayashi Kazuhiro.
The audition script and character designs were naturally prepared to inform the voice actors about the upcoming audition.
Lin Zhiyan nodded. "Understood. Please organize the materials for me. I'll find time to visit personally."
"Okay."
Nanase Mayumi agreed.
However, she didn't immediately leave. Instead, she stared at Lin Zhiyan's face for a moment before saying with concern, "Senior, you look a bit tired. Work is important, but please make sure to get enough rest."
"Hmm, I'm getting enough rest. I just ran into a tricky problem."
"What kind of problem?"
"Nothing major. It'll be resolved soon."
"If there's anything I can do to help, please, absolutely, tell me. Don't be shy."
"Alright."
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