Chapter 64. Inner Defenses Have Fallen
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"Wuu wuu wuu..."
After Mitsuishi Kotono returned, she couldn't help but sob at her seat.
Her senior colleague Hayashibara Megumi was shocked and quickly went over to inquire about the situation.
"Kotono-chan, what's wrong?"
She pulled over a chair and sat beside Mitsuishi Kotono, gently rubbing her back with her hand.
With this, Mitsuishi Kotono couldn't hold it in anymore and directly laid on the desk, crying loudly.
When asked what happened, she wouldn't say anything.
Hayashibara Megumi suddenly remembered Mitsuishi Kotono's work schedule these past few days—
Voice acting for a company called Pokeni.
Her eyes narrowed involuntarily, burning with anger.
Damn capitalists, they must have taken advantage of Kotono through unspoken rules. Otherwise, she couldn't possibly be this heartbroken.
In a country like Japan, although it couldn't compare to the chaebols in Korea, there were still quite a few cases of unspoken rules.
She just hadn't expected that Pokeni's President would be such a terrible person.
"Kotono-chan, let's call the police." Hayashibara Megumi said.
"Eh?" Mitsuishi Kotono was completely stunned.
...
Because Mitsuishi Kotono had already voiced characters twice for Pokeni's Onmyoji series, she could now be considered pretty much Pokeni's dedicated voice actress.
Although the voice acting parts weren't that extensive, she had successfully made players remember Mitsuishi Kotono, and they expressed great gratitude that she could voice Yuuki Rei and Asakura Reimu in the sequel.
Originally, she had been embarrassed to mention "having been a voice actress for galgames," but hearing players' evaluations, Mitsuishi Kotono was still very moved.
The Onmyoji series had even changed her view of galgames.
She had originally thought galgames were low-end games meant to satisfy men, but Onmyoji made her feel effort and care comparable to, or even surpassing, anime production.
She personally really liked the characters and even bought two sets of Onmyoji and Onmyoji 2 cartridges with her own money.
When she occasionally reminisced at night, she still felt exceptionally moved.
After Arts Vision agency had cooperated with Pokeni several times, this time the other party specifically requested Mitsuishi Kotono to voice Suzune, the CV for the new work Mermaid's Heart.
When Mitsuishi accepted this job, she was genuinely happy from the bottom of her heart.
But she never expected that after reading the script, she felt terrible.
What kind of...
heart-wrenching story was this!
Voice acting wasn't like other jobs—even though you were only contributing your voice, you still had to fully immerse yourself, merging your emotions with the character. Only then could you provide first-class immersion for players and audiences.
But she never thought she'd encounter such a script.
She was immersed, all right.
Moreover, Mitsuishi Kotono felt that this game was more than capable of stirring people's emotions. She didn't even need to force herself much to easily enter the role.
But...
Precisely because of this, after she finished voice acting, she found it unbearable.
That feeling of inner turmoil was like being stabbed.
Even now, after returning to the company, she still hadn't recovered.
Not only did she feel terrible about voicing such a frightening and heart-wrenching script, but she also felt terrible for Suzune in the script.
Hayashibara Megumi's gentle words of concern directly broke through her defenses, and so she started crying.
"Ah~ So that's what it was,"
After hearing Mitsuishi Kotono's explanation, Hayashibara Megumi finally breathed a sigh of relief.
I wrongly accused Mr. Kiyoshi Yuuma. I'm really very sorry.
"I will never voice game CVs produced by [Tsubaki Furuhara] again."
"It's truly cruel.
It causes physical discomfort."
Mitsuishi Kotono sobbed while wiping her tears with tissues, condemning the evil [Tsubaki Furuhara].
"Eh?"
Hayashibara Megumi was very surprised.
Although she said this, she had actually become even more curious about [Tsubaki Furuhara].
What kind of game is it exactly? This is the first time I've seen one that could break down a voice actress like this.
...
In fact, Mitsuishi Kotono still hadn't met what [Tsubaki Furuhara] actually looked like.
The person in charge of supervising the recording booth for Mermaid's Heart this time was Mikami Shinji.
His quality requirements were quite high.
By the voice acting stage, they were actually already entering the final phase.
The total recording time didn't exceed 3 days. After recording was completed, the sound effects team made some minor adjustments and quickly integrated it into the game.
On May 5, 1991, Mermaid's Heart was finally fully completed.
After spending a week fixing bugs, it had reached a standard ready for release.
So Kiyoshi Yuuma sent the game cartridge to Nintendo for review, while also submitting it to the ratings board for evaluation.
...
At the same time, Nintendo was holding a high-level meeting.
Yamauchi Hiroshi, now 64 years old, still looked robust in appearance. Wearing a black suit with his hair neatly combed, he sat with perfect posture.
He wore a pair of tea-colored glasses, and judging from his energy and spirit, he didn't look like someone in his 60s at all—more like a middle-aged man in his 40s.
None of the people present dared to look directly into his eyes.
This was the legendary game tyrant.
"Since the SFC launched last year, we've experienced countless difficulties. Up until now, we've finally managed to find a glimmer of hope from the cracks."
Before Nintendo's SFC launched, the Famicom market had lost considerable ground, mainly due to the impact of Sega's Mega Drive and NEC's PC Engine—both 16-bit consoles.
Fortunately, they had finally turned things around. Otherwise, if they had let their competitors continue developing like that, Yamauchi Hiroshi felt things would have gone very badly.
In the first week after SFC's release, sales broke through 550,000 units.
In March this year, Nintendo released Super Mario World, an SFC exclusive game, which immediately pushed sales to 3.3 million.
According to Nintendo's own internal statistics, SFC sales in Japan had now exceeded 6 million units.
They had finally caught up with Sega Mega Drive's numbers.
It had to be said, Sega really gave Yamauchi Hiroshi a headache.
Fortunately, the SFC had gained a firm foothold—otherwise, who knew what would have happened in the future.
Thinking about this, Yamauchi Hiroshi couldn't help but feel a bit frightened.
"Our previous strategic direction needs some adjustment. I want everyone to value game quality while also taking the hardware aspect seriously."
Before the SFC came out, Nintendo had relaxed its approval system somewhat, so some games that originally couldn't have been released on the FC had appeared.
Now that the SFC had achieved great success, the company naturally needed to return to its original track.
"In January this year," Yamauchi Hiroshi looked down at his notes, "there was a galgame on the SFC called Street Pickup 2."
"The impact it brought was actually not good. Many players complained that we were condoning the release of low-quality products on the SFC, which led to quite a bit of negative feedback."
"So, it's time to clean things up."
"I want everyone in the review department to strictly examine the quality of third-party games going forward. I'm counting on you."
Yamauchi Hiroshi said.
"Yes, President!"