Age Twenty
Age Twenty
On a day in early July, an advance screening was held for the live-action film adaptation of The Silvery Landscape. It had a big-name director—the winner of internationally known prizes—and it starred a talented actor hailed as the number-one talent in his age class. That drive for quality extended all the way across the film’s staff list; it was one of the bigger projects to come from Japanese studios in the past few years.
Nayuta invited Itsuki, Haruto, and Miyako to watch from the friends-and-family seats, and they all agreed—the film did an excellent job of visualizing the unique atmosphere of the original.
“Nayuuuu! That was great! That was so great!”
Tears were welling in Miyako’s eyes as she sang the movie’s praises at a café afterward.
“Weh-heh-heh… Well, you know, as the creator, I wasn’t sure about a couple of things in it, maybe…but I think it’s safe to say they gave it a good treatment.” Nayuta was never going to sign off on everything, but there was a satisfied-looking smile on her face.
“A lot of live-action adaptations,” Haruto said, “turn into these cosplay things that don’t really hit the mark, but The Silvery Landscape was awesome. You could say it was ripe for adaptation anyway, but they really did a great job of capturing the essence of the characters—not just copying their looks and clothing. The staff really understood the book, and they optimized it for the film.” He nodded to himself. “…I guess a good piece of work has a way of attracting good people, huh? Like, having a series where the staff actually respects it… That takes power.”
Itsuki thoughtfully considered this. “…Now I’m farther from her than ever,” he blurted out.
“Oh? But your anime’s…” Haruto stopped before going any further.
He had only seen Episode 1 so far, but Itsuki’s All About anime had actually turned out pretty well. A far cry from his own Chevalier of the Absolute World, for sure. But it wasn’t going to console Itsuki at all. Knowing that some multimedia deployments just didn’t work out well, or that it was stupid to compare two different projects with massively different production budgets, did nothing to cheer up the original creator. It was a matter of the heart—and if the creator thought he lost in the heart, all the impartial excuses in the world still made it hard to cover for that.
A few days later, Episode 1 of All About My Little Sister finally debuted on late-night TV. Itsuki had holed up in his apartment with Kenjiro Toki, both of them feverishly working their respective computer and phone to examine the response. The results:
“Faithful to the original books.”
“Sexy.”
“It was fun. I’m looking forward to Episode 2.”
“For a low-budget anime, I feel like they put in a good effort.”
“I came in knowing nothing, but it was pretty good.”
…Pretty positive impressions overall.
Once the episode ended and the real-time feedback died down, the two of them let out simultaneous relieved sighs.
“…Well, so far so good, huh?”
“Yeah…”
Itsuki nodded at Toki. Having watched the advance copy, he knew as the creator that it was well done, but until it aired and he saw how viewers reacted, he really couldn’t afford to relax.
“Hopefully, we get some fans of the anime to pick up the books,” Toki said, phone in hand. “But I’m not seeing any change in your Amazon ranking yet.”
The anime reviews were important, yes, but to a book publisher, the big question was how much the anime boosted the popularity of the original work. Certainly, a well-reviewed anime often connected to better book sales, but sometimes you’d have an anime get trashed by fans of the original books, only to have novel sales explode anyway. That or the opposite—a series praised by longtime fans and the general public alike, but causing barely a blip in book sales. A variety of complex factors besides anime quality affected this performance—airdate, time, advertising, broadcast network, market trends, the economy, the impact of other series in the same season, demographic differences between readers and viewers, and much more. It was impossible for anyone to guarantee that an anime adaptation would help popularize the original stories.
Right now, it was impossible to say whether it’d help All About’s popularity at all. But one thing was clear.
“…All we can do is make the latest volume as engaging as possible.”
Toki gave Itsuki a satisfied smile. “See? You get it.”
“Hmph. Of course I do.”
“Well, to be exact, make it as engaging and publishable as possible.”
“Y-yeah…”
The seventh volume of All About My Little Sister was due to hit shelves in October, the month after the anime series ended its TV run. Volume 6 had just gone on sale last month, and that was the rule of thumb in this business—you needed one new volume just before the anime debut, and another new one either during or right after its run. The more other stuff you had to keep up the energy—a new volume of the comic adaptation, or any other kind of related book launch—the better.
There was no guarantee an anime would help popularize the books, but if you’ve got nothing to sell in the bookshops, you’re setting yourself up for failure. Thus, for a publisher, all they could do was launch books, expand their presence in the shops, and give their all to push the series, trying to attract as many eyes as possible.
“…How’s Volume 7 going, by the way?”
“Oh, um, going great, of course,” Itsuki said, stammering a bit.
“Really? Great, then.”
Toki didn’t press any further before leaving.
A few more days passed, and then it was the night of July 10. Itsuki was in his apartment, sharing the dinner table with Nayuta. Between them was some seafood lasagna, meat pies, fried shrimp, Caesar salad, and potage. Aoba had made dinner tonight, but she left right after Itsuki ate, before Nayuta showed up—by the looks of it, she wanted to leave the couple some alone time.
Today was Nayuta’s twentieth birthday.
“Nya-ha-ha! This looks really good. Ao is so impressive.”
“Yeah,” Itsuki told the smiling Nayuta, “it’s a little more extravagant than usual…but are you sure you don’t mind doing this at my place?”
He had suggested they reserve a table at a high-end restaurant somewhere, but Nayuta preferred to have dinner here alone.
“Of course not, Itsuki. Let’s have a toast already.” Nayuta brought her glass toward Itsuki.
“All right.”
He slowly poured beer into it. Nayuta was now twenty years old, and by the laws of Japan, that meant she was legal to drink beginning today. The beer was Hoegaarden Forbidden Fruit, featuring a label modeled after Rubens’s The Fall of Man that featured a nude Adam and Eve sipping beer. Nayuta had picked it out of the fridge herself—“Because of the sexy label,” she said.
“Well,” Itsuki declared as he poured it into his own glass, “happy birthday.”
“Thanks.”
They clinked their glasses together and took a chug. Hoegaarden Original White from the same brewery was a major brand in Japan, but unlike the fruity, refreshing White, Forbidden Fruit had a strong sweetness and heavy spice—tasty, but not for the beer beginner.
“Hwaahh… It’s like my mouth and nose all got elevated! Elevated!” Nayuta used her hands to express it, gleefully smiling. “So this is what beer’s like?”
She sloshed it around in her glass, staring at it.
“You know,” she said, her voice full of emotion, “I’ve always dreamed of getting to drink with you like this.”
Being underage, whenever she had a meal with Miyako, Haruto, and the rest, it’d always been with some kind of soft drink. The root beer she encountered in Okinawa changed her life, but still she felt excluded from the gang because she couldn’t have alcohol with them.
“I really feel like a grown-up woman now. We can try all kinds of different drinks, Itsuki.”
“Y-yeah… You’re right. I look forward to it.”
That sincere, heartfelt smile made Itsuki blush, and he took another drink to distract himself.
Aoba had exercised the full extent of her skills to make all this food, and they enjoyed all of it along with a variety of beers. Nayuta seemed to enjoy things like Forbidden Fruit a lot—something heavy and sweet instead of tart and refreshing. Such beers were generally high-ABV, and Itsuki, matching Nayuta’s drinking pace, soon began to feel inebriated—but Nayuta seemed unfazed, except for a bit of red on her face.
In time, Itsuki reached his limit, falling back and lying on the floor.
“Mmmmmngh…”
“Uh-oh…”
Approaching Itsuki—who was moaning with his eyes closed—Nayuta kneeled down and placed his head on her lap. “Are you okay, Itsuki?”
“Mmmm, I’m fiiine…”
“…Guess I can hold my drink pretty well, huh? My dad’s Russian, so I figured I probably could, but…”
Nayuta laughed at the joke. “Nya-ha-ha… I think we’ll have to postpone our post-dinner bedroom session for another night, huh…?”
“…Sorry…Kanikou…”
“Please, don’t worry about it. I’ll more than make up for it another day.”
But apparently Itsuki wasn’t replying to what Nayuta had just said, exactly. “………Sorry…” His voice was in a low, near-delirious mutter. “……Sorry I’m so lame…… I keep making you wait……”
“…!”
Nayuta’s eyes opened wide. Tears began to form.
“Itsuki…!”
“……But someday… I swear… I’m gonna…”
She gave him a soft smile, gently speaking to him. “…That’s okay. I’m happy enough as it is now. I’ll wait as long as you need.”
Itsuki began lightly snoring. But Nayuta stayed there, lovingly watching his face.
