Chapter 19 – Beginning of a long process

"THIS ISN'T GOOD, the eyes look sketchy, the female lead looks like an Edo period princess and the male character looks like a samurai, did you forget what we are making, 1 POINT, no 0 points, redo, redoooo".

"This one thinks you DON'T know what you are talking about, these characters look beautiful…"

And it is here. After writing the script and it being accepted by Kira and Joshua, they also got a green light from the original mangaka and the publisher.

Currently, the whole cast was in the midst of doing their jobs, the animators were preparing to start doing their magic, while our scriptwriter, who is also a director was checking all the details. And that also means yelling at Yamato Shoda for making characters for a samurai anime, really, this was all like usual.

"Hmm, this doesn't look that bad, though, the characters lack muscles."

Here and there a chirp from one of the animators was heard, with Nikola being the one obsessed with muscles. 

"OK, this one is going to change it but don't think I agree with you…"

A couple of days after the first start in the rebranding of the studio, other than the written script, Kira also managed to negotiate a favourable deal with a couple of freelancers who are going to provide sound effects for the first part of the anime, while the rest is going to be dealt with by the studio's animators, even if it is not their speciality. Naturally, the freelancers will do their job in the post-production so they weren't required to come to the company just yet.

While we are talking about the production, let your narrator tell you a couple of details about creating an anime. The first step is planning and development, which means developing a concept for a story, either from an original idea or adapting an existing manga or light novel, and as you know in the case of Nexus Animation it is a manga adaptation. This also involves creating a script and designing characters, so the crew is still in the middle of the first step, while Toma Yuu with the help of others also needs to storyboard the scenes and they need to decide how every episode will look like and what it will contain.

The next step is pre-production which contains creating detailed character designs, backgrounds and animatics, it also includes deciding on a budget for the production, something that Kira and Toma Yuu already discussed.

After that, production and post-production come into play. In production it will be a start of creating animation, this process also includes drawing key frames (A/N – A keyframe is something that defines the starting and/or ending point of any smooth transition. That something can be a drawing in animation or a particular frame of a shot when dealing with film or video. Any shot, animated or live-action, is broken down into individual frames.).

Backgrounds and special effects are also part of production. As Nexus Animation doesn't have people who are specifically experts in these fields, the hired freelancers will be designed to deal with the first six episodes, while the rest is going to be the job of the staff. The ever-fiery boy Shiba Ryo is the one chosen to bring his fire into the anime as a person who is well-versed in special effects. The background is going to be the job of a sleepy guy Noya Katsu.

Post-production includes all the other stuff that an anime needs to have, voice acting, sound effects, and music.

The last part is distribution and you all should know what that means; distributing anime through various channels, such as television, streaming services, etc…

From all these, Kira and Joshua, with the help of the production team have it covered, but not everything is rosy, as they still don't have a specific music that is going to be used in the anime and what about the opening and ending? A good opening can elevate the anime and it is also a good piece of promotional material to be used.

Well, knowing Kira, he is going to figure out something.

Let us return to Toma Yuu, who was looking for the second time at the characters designed by Yamato Shoda and this time he was nodding, seemingly looking like he was satisfied.

"Hmm, hmm, these characters look good Yamato-san, 7 points", clap, clap – "Listen up people, prepare yourself, in two days the production for the anime 'Kuu Neru Futari Sumu Futari' is going to start, let's give it our best…"