Hoshiimo

Hoshiimo was an illustrator active in the light novel and dating sim fields for the past five years. He was male, age twenty-seven, and lived in Mie Prefecture, a good six-or-so hours by car from Tokyo.

He had a reputation for drawing fully nude girls, with particular praise given to the feel of his hips and rear ends, and that very talent was what drove GK Bunko to pick him to do the illustrations for All About My Little Sister. Apart from girls, on the other hand, he had some weaknesses—difficulty drawing adult males; questionable designs for mechs and fantasy elements with no real-life counterpart; monochrome art that wasn’t as nice as his color work. In terms of his overall rep and popularity, he was a notch below Puriketsu.

Still, Hoshiimo had two overwhelming advantages over Puriketsu—speed and consistent quality. He always submitted illustrations with the desired quality, and he always made his deadlines. Few things were more appreciated when requesting work from freelancers, and it meant Hoshiimo enjoyed an extremely good reputation within the industry. Someone like him saying “My heart is broken. I can’t draw anymore” was completely beyond comprehension.

The moment Toki read the e-mail, he called him. There was no answer. He kept trying every ten minutes, the unease mounting in his mind, and Hoshiimo finally picked up on the sixth call.

“…………Hello?”

“Hoshiimo! I read your e-mail. What’s going on?”

“……It’s exactly as I wrote. I learned about the leak as I was working on the commemorative illustration for it, and it… It just broke my heart, you know…?”

“Well, I’m truly sorry about all that. It was completely my fault.”

Toki bowed his head, even though there was no way Hoshiimo could see it.

“…I mean, really, all it is, is…like…I think it’s this assignment that gave me the final push off the cliff.”

“…How do you mean?”

Hoshiimo’s voice was barely above a whisper as he explained.

As Toki surmised from the fact that the anime-launch commemorative art wasn’t done yet, the illustrator’s schedule was already pushed up against the wall. Before year’s end, he had the artwork for All About Volume 5, illustrations for the GF Bunko merchandise at the winter Comiket (along with his own doujinshi he was selling there), and art for novel series from other publishers as well. Now, in the New Year, he was committed to drawing back-page art in the All About manga volumes, crafting original art for Comic Gifted magazine, doing the jacket art for the Blu-ray and opening-song CD release, even contributing designs for the figures slated to go on sale. For All About alone he already had several dozen different assignments in the works, and these were all but guaranteed to expand over time.

Even Toki, as his assignment giver, was concerned that he was overloading him, but Hoshiimo was excited about being involved with an anime for the first time, and he simply figured Well, I’m sure he’ll find a way.

“…I’m thinking about taking this chance to reconsider my schedule. I’m sorry about this.”

“…Right. I think that’s a good idea.”

That was all Toki could offer to the crestfallen illustrator.

They talked for a little while longer and eventually agreed to cancel the commemorative art assignment, which was slated to appear on the official anime website.

“I’ll tell the anime side about it, okay?”

“I’m sorry… I’m sorry… I’m sorry…”

“No,” Toki said to Hoshiimo, profusely apologizing and sounding close to tears. “I’m the one who should say sorry to you…”

“Phew…”

Off the phone with Hoshiimo, Toki let out a deep sigh.

…It could be hard, as an editor, to hear backlash (“If I can’t draw it, I can’t draw it, okay?! I can’t do anything about it!”) or a harsh lecture (“This is your fault for making such a dumb mistake!”). But having someone apologize over and over to him like that was just as painful, in a way. When work isn’t going well with writers or illustrators, the results could unfold in several different ways, but all of them presented serious challenges.

“Something up, KenKen?” Godo asked as he passed by. When Toki gave him the news, Godo scrunched up his mob-boss face.

“…All right. I understand. Hopefully Hoshiimo can get back on his feet…”

“Yeah.”

“But the more dedicated a person is, normally, the more time it takes for them to recover once things go awry. Keep a close eye on him, okay?”

Toki felt a chill down his spine. “Um, all right. I’ll take some time to visit him and apologize.”

“…Thanks. Providing mental care for our creators is part of an editor’s job.”