Balmung and Excalibur

Back home from Itsuki’s apartment, Haruto turned on his computer and checked out the initial episode one feedback on the net. It wasn’t great. In fact, between “Shitty” this and “It makes no sense” that and “Totally worthless” and “I’m one-and-done on this one” and “Is this like a practice anime for new voice talent” and “Over practically before it began,” it was downright depressing.

A lot of people bashed the director, the scriptwriter, and the production company. Fans of the original books were particularly virulent in their hate for the anime staff, going all the way up to threatening violence.

I wish I had someone to hate for this, too, he thought. It’d be nice if I could innocently paint the anime staff as the bad guys and come to terms with my own feelings.

Between signing on for the anime and this moment, he had met with and spoken to the director, the scriptwriter, the producer, the cast, and many other people involved with the show. He went out for drinks with some of them. He didn’t dislike any of them at all—it’s hard to really hate someone once you know their face. Plus, even if he hadn’t met anyone at all, it’s not like anyone on the team was thinking “Let’s make this anime as shitty as possible.” That much was easy to understand. He knew nobody had evil intentions, so he couldn’t hate anyone for it.

Even the main voice talent, cast due to motives almost wholly unrelated to their talent, had worked hard to exploit the opportunity they’d been given. He knew that. When the very worst rookie member of the cast came up to him during the episode one recording sessions and said, “Thanks for giving me this chance, Mr. Fuwa,” he could feel the appreciation, the passion, the fretfulness. It was undoubtedly the real thing. And even the producer who forced this cast on him did so because he thought it’d spice up the live events—that wasn’t a lie.

Nobody in this industry didn’t give a hundred percent. Nobody didn’t struggle, with everything they had. They were shedding their blood, sweat, and tears out there, constantly being afraid of getting run over, consumed, and stepped on without any mercy. So why doesn’t it turn out well sometimes?

Before going to bed, Haruto decided to call his editor, Kawabe. It was the middle of the night, but he answered.

Kawabe had needed to duck out of today’s anime viewing party at the last minute because he was off to Kyoto, where OKINA, illustrator for the book series, lived. As he put it, when OKINA watched the white-box disk, he shouted, “I didn’t work so hard on these books for this piece-of-shit anime!”, so Kawabe had felt obligated to travel to Kyoto to soothe his damaged ego.

It was funny, but hearing that made Haruto happy. OKINA really cared about this thing, too. He was a veteran, having handled mech designs on a number of robot anime. Haruto heard that he was reluctant to take on book illustration work for a brand-new author. He could be moody and hard to please. Haruto had only met him once, at a book signing when the anime was first announced. Hearing how angry he was about all this…oddly reassured him.

“…Mr. Kawabe, why did the anime wind up like that?”

“Well,” Kawabe replied, “this isn’t one-hundred-percent confirmed information…”

Then he let him in on what he knew.

It turned out that the production company animating Chevalier of the Absolute World was producing two other shows for this TV season at the same time. One of them was based on a big-name light novel series from a large publisher, and apparently it had been pretty tough progress on that one. Screwing that project up would have put the company’s future in serious jeopardy, but none of their production lines really had the free time to help out with other people’s projects. If someone had to jump to another series, the series that lost that personnel paid for it in quality. With Chevalier in particular, the art director, more familiar with the books than the director himself, wound up leaving midway, leading to things like dialogue getting cut which absolutely shouldn’t have been—that kind of thing.

Again, Haruto found himself wondering what went wrong. Was it that large rival publisher? Was it the big-name title they were pushing? Was it the staff on that project, unable to take the heat by themselves? Was it the board of directors on the production company, willing to abandon their other projects for the sake of one big one? Or was it the whole company’s fault for taking on three anime series at once, something they clearly weren’t capable of handling?

…Or is it my fault for writing a series that couldn’t take priority above that big title?

No answer immediately came.

It was about ten days since the episode one broadcast. Haruto still hadn’t fully recovered. He had locked himself in his room, unable to write or even read. Instead he was doing stuff like bashing up armies of foot soldiers in Warriors-style games, binge-watching Shirobako and whining about how “this isn’t the anime production company I know” and “If I had Aoi Miyamori showrunning on Chevalier…” and other nonsense. That, and engaging in long conversations with Siri.

Even his sister, usually griping at him about something or other, could read the writing on the wall. She was leaving him alone, and any anime that made even his sister care about his well-being must have been very shitty indeed.

He had held out some hope that things would improve in Episode 2. They didn’t. The production company was focusing all its resources on the big-name title they had to make good on. There was little to no chance of a sudden massive upswing in quality at this point. The first anime adaptation of Haruto’s work was a failure.

It was worth mentioning, by the way, that the net gestalt about the big-name title wasn’t exactly rosy, either. Haruto wasn’t sure whether to say “You had it coming, bitches” or “Come on, guys; if you’re using my anime as a springboard, you gotta work harder than that.” It was tough.

So as Haruto sat there agonizing in bed, he received a sudden call on his smartphone. It was from Itsuki. They hadn’t spoken for the past ten days, where before they’d usually hang out once every three. It felt like forever.

“Hey.”

“Haruto?”

“Yeah.”

“Come with me to Akihabara today.”

“Huh?”

“I’ll meet you by the Electric Town gate at two, got it?”

“H-hey, wait a—”

Then Itsuki hung up on him.

“What the hell’s that about?” He sighed as he reluctantly got up and prepared to leave the house for the first time in a while.

A bit past two p.m., Itsuki and Haruto were standing by the light novel corner of one of Akihabara’s many shops that cater to otaku audiences.

The shock of the whole anime ordeal had made Haruto totally forget about it, but today was the launch date for Chevalier of the Absolute World, Volume 13. Copies of it were stacked up in the store’s new-release section up front. There were other new books around it, but Haruto’s Volume 13 had a far larger stack than any other release. A little ways away, in the light novel department, Volumes 1 through 12 were on display with their front covers fully visible, all blaring “TV Anime Airing Now!!” on the obi wrap over the cover.

Being Saturday, the store was packed with customers. As the two of them milled around the new-releases section, they spotted several people picking up Volume 13 and taking it to the checkout line. Over in the rear shelves, a kid around middle-school age grabbed a copy of Volume 1.

“…Somebody watched that anime and it actually inspired him to buy my book?” Haruto softly whispered.

He couldn’t tell if the kid actually liked the anime. Maybe the plot was so hard to follow, he wanted to buy the book to catch up. But whatever the reason, Haruto thought from the heart, it’ll be nice if he likes my story.

“…Thanks for inviting me, Itsuki. I’m glad I got to see this.”

“Mm? Yeah.”

Itsuki seemed oddly distracted by his heartfelt thanks.

They went on to visit around seven bookstores in the Akihabara area. All of them had Chevalier of the Absolute World on conspicuous display in the shop, and they spotted people making purchases at each location.

For an author, getting a work made into anime was maybe a once-in-a-lifetime event. The damage from having the results fall apart in front of your eyes wouldn’t be repaired that easily. But witnessing all these readers before him, Haruto felt deeply, from his soul, that he had to try again. His passion was starting to burn once more.

…Meanwhile, almost in inverse proportion to Haruto’s soaring spirits, Itsuki was clearly growing angrier with every bookstore they visited.

He must have invited Haruto to Akihabara to cheer him up. It was his way of saying: See? Look. Maybe the anime’s shitty, but it’s served its purpose. It’s advertising your novels. The anime launch is making all the stores push your books as much as possible, and that’s paying off with all the new readers you got. Isn’t that great?

Getting dragged over here and really seeing all these new and old series fans buying his novels had done wonders for Haruto’s disposition.

But though today marked the release of Volume 13 of Haruto’s Chevalier of the Absolute World, it was also the launch date for Volume 5 of Sisterly Combat.

Haruto’s and Itsuki’s new volumes were generally both in the new-release stacks of the stores they visited, but the Chevalier stacks were overwhelmingly larger. Just a couple minutes of waiting at any store rewarded them with the sight of someone making a Chevalier purchase; it took several times that to spot a Sisterly Combat buyer.

It wasn’t that Itsuki’s new volume was a flop. It just meant that Haruto sold a hell of a lot more novels than he did. But seeing the difference play out so physically like this was still a cruel sort of frustration.

“Well, we both know how the anime turned out, but—hey, an anime’s still big news. It means they’ll print more copies, and that’s bound to boost any series, you know?”

After three hours on their feet, running around bookstores, they were at a diner for supper and a little rest. Itsuki was downright disgruntled by this point, and now it was Haruto trying to smooth things over.

“…I’m aware of that,” Itsuki growled. “But…it still pisses me off.”

There was little Haruto could do. He knew logic couldn’t do much to stem the frustration at times like these. So he opted not to pursue it any further.

“…My latest volume is my greatest masterpiece ever,” Itsuki whispered, his voice low.

No volume before had been this grueling for him, but none before had excited him this much. He was absolutely positive that this was the greatest piece of work to ever have the name “Itsuki Hashima” attached to it… And why stop at comparing it to only his own work?

“…I mean, really, I think it’s the most incredible story in the universe.”

“…Really?”

“…Better than Bladedance of Elementalers, better than Ben-To, better than Oreshura, better than The ‘Hentai’ Prince and the Stony Cat, better than Jinsei, better than My Youth Romantic Comedy Is Wrong, As I Expected…and I haven’t read Volume 13 of Chevalier yet, but better than that, too! Sisterly Combat, Volume 5 beats ’em all!”

“Better,” of course, was all in the eye of the beholder. Trying to build an absolute ranking was absurd—something Itsuki was fully aware of.

But my novels are still the best. They’re the best out there, so I want the most people reading them that I can get. That’s what I think.

“…In the universe, huh?” Haruto chuckled at the brutal challenge Itsuki laid at his feet.

“Pfft,” Itsuki replied, still disgruntled. “…I’ll win someday.”

“That’s what I should be saying to you.”

“…?”

Itsuki gave the honest reply an odd look. He had no idea how much Haruto envied his talent.

A waitress delivered their food right at that moment, giving Haruto the perfect chance to defer the subject with a smile. “Well, let’s dig in. You helped me feel a lot better, so I’ll pay for dinner.”

“Whoa, really? Shit, I’m gonna get a hamburger steak, then.”

It was like flipping a switch. Joy spread across his face as Itsuki called the waitress back.

“Oh, by the way, Itsuki, I wanted to ask you something.”

“Hmm?”

Stabbing a fork into his salad, Haruto tried his best to make the question sound as casual and direct as possible.

“Is Miyako, like, seeing anyone right now?”

(The End)