Yamaura set down his teacup and looked at the young man before him, his eyes filled with deep respect.
"Executive Director Nakayama, if you hadn't made the call back then, this series would have absolutely been left unfinished," Yamaura said, his tone tinged with genuine gratitude. "Those sponsors only care about their immediate financial reports; they couldn't care less if a project dies. For Sunrise's animators, it's a blessing to have an executive like you—someone who understands the creative process, has the guts to act, and is willing to put real money on the line to protect us."
Takuya Nakayama smiled and waved a hand dismissively, joking, "President Yamaura, flattery won't work on me. I'm not going to give you a raise." His voice remained calm, carrying the cool rationality of a capitalist. "Sega is a commercial company; cutting losses is our duty. I was willing to pour money into Gundam X to keep it alive because the drafts Shinji Takamatsu and his team presented were rock-solid. The project had a strong foundation, meaning it could turn a profit if saved. If it had been some hopeless mess of a script, do you think I would have spent a single cent? I can be very stingy."
Yamaura froze for a moment, then burst into hearty laughter.
"Exactly! A rational capitalist!"
"Alright, let's call it a day," Takuya Nakayama said, standing up and re-fastening his suit jacket. "Once Director Tomino's twenty-year anniversary project takes shape, notify me immediately. Sega will help celebrate Gundam's twentieth birthday in style. When the time comes, we'll figure out how to scale this project up and make a killing."
"You can count on it," Yamaura said, rising to his feet. His face was flushed with excitement as he escorted Takuya Nakayama to the door.
Bandai Headquarters, top-floor conference room.
The air conditioner's vent emitted a monotonous, dull hum, sounding like a dying old man gasping for his last breath.
A group of Bandai's core executives sat around a rectangular mahogany conference table. Before each person sat a cup of Shizuoka Gyokuro tea, meticulously brewed by their secretaries, yet no one had touched theirs.
The tea had long since gone cold, a thin, unappetizing film of scum forming on its surface.
Makoto Yamashina sat at the head of the table, his face ashen. He gripped a thin sheet of faxed paper so tightly that his palm's cold sweat had soaked through the edges, leaving deep creases in the parchment.
The intelligence had been delivered just half an hour ago by the General Manager of the Merchandising Division, who had burst into the room without even knocking, drenched in sweat.
Bandai and Sotsu had partnered for over a decade, with billions of yen in licensing fees flowing between them annually. The two companies had a cozy relationship, with numerous individuals on both sides maintaining close personal ties. Several Sotsu section chiefs, for instance, had long been "sworn brothers" with Bandai officials, frequently accepting entertainment funds for lavish drinking parties and golf outings.
Yet it was these very "sworn brothers" who had relayed a message that threatened to bring Bandai's world crashing down: recently, five of Sotsu's core founding shareholders, accompanied by representatives from Daiwa Securities, had traveled to an upscale ryokan in Atami.
There, Kiyoshi Hattori of Sega had personally hosted a banquet for them.
The news had struck Bandai like a depth charge detonated in a still lake, leaving everyone's ears ringing with the shock.
Makoto Yamashina took a deep breath and slammed the crumpled fax onto the table with a heavy thud.
"Read it," he rasped, his voice as dry as if he'd swallowed a handful of sand. "Sega has made its move. That little fox Takuya Nakayama has finally stripped us of our last shred of dignity."
The paper passed among the directors like a hot potato. With each hand it touched, the tension in the conference room sank a little lower.
One man pushed up his glasses; another tugged at his tie. No one dared to meet Yamashina's gaze.
After reading the fax, Chuta Mitsui snorted and shoved it back to the center of the table with two fingers, as if disgusted.
"Daiwa Securities brokered the meeting, and Kiyoshi Hattori hosted it personally," Mitsui said, crossing his arms and leaning back heavily into his chair. A sneer twisted his lips. "The five old bones at Sotsu rushed over there in the middle of the night. Let's stop kidding ourselves—this isn't a 'preliminary meeting.' They're negotiating the price of their own surrender!"
No one replied.
Everyone knew exactly what this meant.
Sega had already seized control of Sunrise. Now they were going to devour Sotsu.
Bandai's pride and joy—and now its only remaining cash cow—the Gundam model business, would no longer even be able to touch the licensing threshold in the future, unless they begged Sega for mercy.
"President." The General Manager in charge of the toy division finally broke the dead silence. He pulled out a handkerchief and desperately wiped the cold sweat, which was rolling down his forehead like soybeans, from his brow. "If Sotsu is really acquired by Sega, then our upcoming merchandising plans—the financial report for the second half of the year—"
"Stop all of it!" Chuta Mitsui interrupted him mercilessly, his voice shrill. "Are you still worrying about your financial reports? As long as Sega holds up the approval process, they can find any excuse to delay you for three months, and your production lines will have to shut down. The workers will have nothing to eat but the northwest wind! By then, forget the financial reports—the bank's payment notices alone will drown this building!"
A few suppressed, guilty coughs echoed in the meeting room.
In fact, as soon as the rumors of Sega making a move on Sotsu first surfaced, there had already been a stir within Bandai.
At that time, some middle managers who were already leaning toward merging with Sega had already begun to network privately.
They felt that Bandai no longer had any leverage. Before the situation deteriorated completely, they needed to restart merger negotiations with Sega and secure the best possible terms—so they could at least keep their jobs under the Nakayama family's new regime.
These whispers had even reached the Board of Directors.
But today, when the pretense was finally shattered and Sega's "supply cutoff" blade was held firmly to Bandai's throat, the conference room fell into an eerie silence.
Japanese companies have an invisible, intangible force that can crush a person to death.
It's called "the air."
Why had Bandai refused Sega before?
Because a large portion of the upper management had adamantly opposed the merger. They believed Bandai was a venerable industry giant with Dragon Ball and Gundam in its arsenal—it had dignity, a legacy, and could never become Sega's vassal.
Back then, the "air" in the conference room was one of "defiance to the death."
Now, the facts had proven that this path was disastrously wrong.
Sega hadn't cared about Bandai's "backbone" at all; instead, they had turned around and blown up Bandai's supply lines.
This meant that everyone who had slammed their fists on the table in opposition to the merger was completely wrong.
Who would bear the responsibility for this catastrophic failure in judgment?
In the Japanese corporate world, admitting a strategic blunder is akin to ritual suicide. It means you must resign in disgrace, effectively ending your career and forfeiting your pension.
That is why, even with the blade already buried in their flesh, no one is willing to step forward and say, "We were wrong. Let's go beg Sega for mercy."
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