"Kawata-senpai mentioned that you and Kanzaki-sensei are old classmates," Amasaki asked curiously. "So, Sensei, aren't you going to the reunion? These are friends you haven't seen in years. Besides, with everything you've accomplished, it'd be a waste not to show up and enjoy it a little."
If Amasaki ever became a manga artist, he would absolutely go back to his hometown and make every person who'd ever looked down on him bow in awe.
"Hehe. Hehe." Imagining it, Amasaki giggled to himself.
Kai glanced at him, feeling deeply helpless.
"You sound like you're asking 'Master, what is your job?'"
"So?" Amasaki blinked blankly.
"I need to draw manga!" Kai said firmly.
Kanzaki Studio could be short an assistant, but it absolutely could not be short the manga artist himself.
Some manga artists handed off character drawing to their assistants to lighten their own load. Kai would never do that.
He didn't want shortcuts. Take too many of those and you'd lose the drive to work hard entirely. In the end, you'd be left living a numb life of just counting money.
Beyond that, Kai also felt that since he'd plagiarized someone else's work, the least he could do was see it through with his own hands.
"Oh! I get it!" Amasaki slapped his palm, the realization finally hitting.
Majima glanced at him. "Stop messing around. Kawata-senpai isn't here today, and we've got a lot of work."
"Yes, Majima-san." Amasaki nodded.
He tucked the envelope with the 500,000-yen bonus away safely, then picked up the half-finished manuscript Kai had drawn and got to work.
Kai gave Majima a thumbs up.
Wild on the outside, solid on the inside. That was Majima.
After that, the room fell quiet. It didn't last long before his phone rang.
The caller was Heishi.
Kai didn't want to disturb the assistants, so he stepped outside to take the call.
"Yo, Group Leader Heishi." Kai twisted his toe against the lawn as he spoke.
"Hahaha." Heishi laughed. "Fujin, please stop teasing me."
Ever since his promotion, he'd been riding so high that he'd slipped up and shown off in front of Kai a couple of times.
Now he had no defense against the teasing.
"Did I interrupt your work?" Heishi asked.
"Of course you did." Kai pressed his toe harder into the grass, unconsciously tearing it up. "So what's up?"
"People from Kyoto Animation want to meet you." Heishi didn't beat around the bush. "It's about an anime adaptation of Death Note."
"Anime adaptation?" Kai frowned. His foot dug deeper into the lawn. "Already?"
Animating a manga was like publishing it in a magazine. It was another form of advertising for the original work. As long as the anime sold well, the source material's sales would follow.
Plenty of manga with mediocre performance had turned things around thanks to the boost from a popular anime adaptation.
The most famous example Kai could think of was Demon Slayer.
So an anime adaptation was one of the things manga artists looked forward to most. It brought recognition, prestige, and enormous profits.
But Kai wasn't particularly excited. Something felt off.
An anime adaptation of Death Note was inevitable. That wasn't the issue. It was just that this had come too early.
Only twelve chapters of the manga had been released. The story had barely started.
"Editor-in-Chief Torishima only hinted at the possibility," Heishi replied.
"So Kyoto Animation came to you on their own initiative?"
"Exactly. Do you want to meet them?"
"Meeting them is fine," Kai said.
It couldn't hurt, and it would expand his network. He had no reason to refuse.
Besides, Kyoto Animation. Kai still had a warm impression of that studio. He'd always loved their work.
CLANNAD, K-On!, Tamako Market, Nichijou.
However... Kai looked up at the sky.
'In 1997, Kyoto Animation doesn't have the experience to produce anime entirely in-house yet, right?'
...
"Yes, I'm currently working at Studio Pierrot."
In a private room at a restaurant, five people sat together, chatting happily.
They were around the same age, but their attire was all over the place. Some were dressed up. Others wore whatever they had.
This was a high school reunion. Years after graduation, being able to meet in Tokyo felt like a small miracle, and the mood was warm.
"An animator?" Kazuo Furuta asked.
"Yeah." Hasegawa stiffened slightly. "Does Furuta know about this stuff too?"
"Of course. I work security at Shueisha, so I've picked up a thing or two." Furuta smiled bitterly.
"What?! No way!"
"You're joking, right?"
The other classmates exclaimed.
"Furuta was the one with the best grades in high school." They didn't mock him one bit. Instead, they showed real concern.
Yuta Kawata sat with one leg crossed, quietly drinking sake.
Kai had told him about Furuta's situation already, so he wasn't surprised.
"What can I say? I studied civil engineering in college. The economy tanked, and there's no future in the field, even with seven million people working in it."
"Being a security guard is stable enough. Forget it, let's not dwell on this." Furuta steered the conversation back to Hasegawa.
"Animators have it rough. A single drawing isn't worth much." He blinked and did some mental math. "After a full month of grinding, the income is probably a little over 100,000 yen."
From the outside, working in the animation industry looked glamorous. Your name appeared on screen. But anyone who actually understood the business knew the truth. Low pay, brutal hours. It was truly working for the love of it.
Without passion, surviving in this industry was nearly impossible.
"Come on..." Hasegawa tugged at the collar of his rented suit. "I'm about to be promoted to key animator, so my income isn't that bad. Let's not talk about this. Cheers."
"Cheers!" After clinking glasses, Furuta sighed.
"It's good that your salary is decent. Otherwise you could always go find Fujin."
"I remember in high school, you, Fujin, and Kawata were all drawing manga together, right, Kawata?"
"Yeah." Yuta nodded.
He was dressed plainly. He hadn't been in Tokyo long, and he only had a measly 500,000-yen bonus in his pocket. He really didn't have money for expensive clothes.
With this cash, he'd rather spend it supporting the young ladies braving the cold night air.
"It's just that Hasegawa quit pretty early on."
Hasegawa said nothing.
A high school manga group was just kids playing around. How could something like that possibly lead anywhere?
He wanted to spend his time on things with real potential. Honing his drawing skills. Working toward becoming a key animator.
After all, people who aspired to become manga artists were basically gamblers. Only one in a hundred thousand ever made it.
He didn't want to be that kind of fool.
Letting go of unrealistic dreams and chasing paths with better odds was what a rational person should do.
He didn't feel guilty about it.
"True," Furuta nodded. "Nobody could have imagined that 'Manga Artist Fujin,' the kid we all used to tease, would actually become a real manga artist."
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