Animation Producer in a Fantasy World

Commonly, people who have seen ‘that work’ where humanity turns into orange juice in the ending part come to think like this.

Ah, so mecha works originally have such gloomy settings and worldviews.

A world where people die like cockroaches, aliens visit Earth as if going to a neighbor’s house, and Earth exploding is a common occurrence – such a messed up worldview.

Well, to be honest, this thinking can’t be said to be completely wrong.

Because not only ‘that work’, but quite a lot of mecha works have presented endings that make you wonder if it’s really a happy ending, a sad ending, or an ending meant to drive people crazy.

Of course, if you dig deep into why they made such endings, the creators have their own profound reasons, but.

From the perspective of viewers just watching anime while scratching their bellies in their rooms, it just looked that way.

But strictly speaking, most mecha works didn’t have such an atmosphere at all.

Love, friendship, hot-bloodedness, guts.

Most hardships and adversities can be solved with fighting spirit, and.

If you move forward with hot-bloodedness and guts, there’s nothing in this world that can’t be solved.

Although there are cheesy aspects, isn’t the essence of mecha works also having aspects that make men’s hearts flutter?

The work leading the way for such hot-blooded mecha works is precisely ‘that work’ Deneb mentioned, and.

No, is it possible to sum up ‘that work’ as just a hot-blooded mecha work?

Personally, I don’t think of ‘that work’ as a simple anime.

It’s a textbook.

It was a history textbook itself depicting the life story of a boy becoming a man.

In that sense, wouldn’t it be quite a good idea to spread ‘that work’ to the natives of this underdeveloped fantasy world?

“Um… Ragna?”

“Hm? What?”

“What my brother said just now… please don’t take it too much to heart. My brother sometimes has a habit of blurting out words without thinking, so let me apologize on his behalf-”

“No, I don’t think you need to apologize.”

I cut off Serika’s words midway and said.

“Because I’m thinking of making the Young Duke’s idea into an anime.”

“What? Seriously?”

Serika had a surprised look on her face, probably not expecting that I would really accept the idea Deneb had blurted out.

Of course, I was infinitely serious.

I mean, come on.

If I don’t make such an awesome work into an anime, what kind of work should I make into an anime?

But that’s just for next time.

For now, I should focus on making the anime I had originally planned to make.

Before starting the full-scale production of the anime, the first thing I prioritized was creating the setting.

The work that serves as the motif for the anime I’m going to make this time is an urban fantasy type work set in modern times, so there’s a need to change the setting somewhat.

Fortunately, this kind of work wasn’t too troublesome since I had done it once before with “Machine God Chronicles” and “Book of Life and Death”.

‘A ritual that mages undergo for wishes… I guess I should name it something like the Full Moon Ritual or the Wish Ritual.’

Well, to be honest, changing the setting isn’t that difficult.

The real difficulty could be said to start from now.

‘How should I design the characters… that is, the heroes?’

For reference, designing characters while preserving historical accuracy isn’t that difficult.

You just have to recreate the hero’s appearance as it is by looking at history books and such.

But if you’re thinking of designing characters that way, why would people bother watching the animation?

They could just go to a museum or look at actual portraits of historical figures.

Animation is not a documentary.

The essence of documentaries is to convey information to viewers as it is, but.

The essence of animation was to please the eyes and ears of viewers as much as possible.

In other words, it means that for the sake of viewers’ enjoyment, historical accuracy can be ignored to some extent.

Of course, even so, we should refrain from crossing the line too much.

‘Within the range of preserving historical accuracy as much as possible, we need to give viewers a sophisticated feeling rather than an outdated one.’

Or if not that, it might be fine to put modern clothes on heroes resurrected in modern times, or just put armor on top of that.

‘Should I put golden armor on our Empire’s founder? And considering the legend that he gathered all the treasures existing on earth when founding the Empire, the weapon to use would be….’

Just as I was pondering various things related to character design.

“Excuse me, Director.”

Kaya opens her mouth towards me in a somewhat careful tone.

“You mentioned before, Director. That this animation is a work where heroes from all eras and all regions are resurrected in modern times and fight to achieve their wishes.”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“Then have you decided which heroes will appear in this work?”

“…? No. I’m still thinking about it.”

I shrugged and answered like that.

“For now, it’s confirmed that the Knight King, the founder of our Empire, and one of the great mages who lived in the past will appear. But other than those two, I haven’t decided which heroes will appear yet.”

For reference, the idea of having a great mage from the past appear as a hero was none other than Master’s idea.

Master kept urging me that we need to show viewers the awesome activities of great mages a lot, otherwise people won’t flock to magic towers.

Well, to be honest, I was planning to include one great mage among the seven heroes appearing in the main story anyway, so I didn’t have any particular complaints.

I mean, no matter how crappy it is, wouldn’t the story development be quite lacking without a Caster class?

“But why are you asking that? Is His Majesty perhaps hoping for other heroes to appear in the anime besides the founder of our Empire?”

“No! That’s not it. His Majesty didn’t say anything other than asking to make the founder of our Empire strong enough to crush other countries’ crappy heroes.”

“…..”

Hmm.

To be honest, I think that’s a statement that could cause a lot of problems as an emperor of a country, but let’s lightly pass over that as a kind of twisted patriotism.

“Then why on earth…?”

“Well… do you remember? In the past, when we had various discussions with Prince Kaisel regarding the production of this animation.”

Of course I remember.

That was… around the time when we started full-scale production of “Book of Life and Death”.

Thanks to the Pokémon battle that took place between Kaya and Kaisel at that time, I came up with the brilliant idea of changing the Knight King to the King of Heroes.

“But it seems Prince Kaisel was very impressed by the concept of heroes from the past being resurrected in modern times. As soon as he heard the news that we had concluded ‘Book of Life and Death’ and started full-scale production of this work, the Rihard Kingdom side sent a contact.”

“…What kind of contact?”

“Well, that is….”

Kaya opened her mouth with a deep sigh.

“They asked if we could include a hero from the Rihard Kingdom in this work. The kingdom side said they could pay any price to the Empire. They even said they would be willing to cede Lugia Island to us if we wanted.”

“…What? Is that true?”

For a moment, I couldn’t hide my bewilderment at Kaya’s words.

Lugia Island is an uninhabited island located on the border between the Empire and the Rihard Kingdom, known to have considerable underground resources buried.

And now they’re saying they’ll cede that island to the Empire?

And that’s just in exchange for having a hero from their kingdom appear in this animation?

There should be a limit even to fandom, are they saying they’ll sell their country for the sake of being a fan?

That bastard Kaisel, was he actually someone like the Five Eulsa Traitors?

“But if there’s a bigger problem, it’s that it’s not only the Rihard Kingdom that has made such a proposal.”

“…Not only the Rihard Kingdom?”

“I don’t know where the information leaked from, but almost all countries bordering the Empire, from the Bersila City Alliance in the south, the Ider Kingdom, to the Silgea Federation in the east, have made contact. Of course, they all made similar demands as the Rihard Kingdom.”

“…..”

To be honest, I was just dumbfounded.

Even if we set aside that bastard Kaisel as an incurable severe otaku.

What on earth are the other countries thinking?

It’s just an animation at best.

It’s not containing any great ideology or philosophy, just sub-culture made purely for viewers’ momentary pleasure and dopamine.

To offer such massive compensation for having their country’s hero appear in such an animation, have they all collectively lost their minds?

Just as I was in extreme confusion due to culture shock.

Kaya made an expression as if debating whether to say this or not, then as if she had made up her mind, carefully opened her mouth.

“…And Prince Kaisel personally asked me to convey this message to you, Director.”

“A message to convey? What is it?”

“If you are willing to have a hero from the Rihard Kingdom appear in the animation…”

Kaya said while tightly shutting her eyes as if it was too horrifying.

“…He said it would be fine to change the hero’s gender as we please.”

“…Excuse me?”