Tokyo. Minato Ward.
Genesis Entertainment headquarters.
Top floor. The president's office.
Seiji Fujiwara sat behind his desk, leafing through a freshly delivered financial report.
Genesis Entertainment had risen meteorically over the past year, riding a streaming platform and a string of content that seemed to predict market trends before they happened. Capital markets were already calling it the next unicorn. But to Seiji, it wasn't nearly enough.
"Too slow."
He closed the report. His fingertip tapped the desk in a measured rhythm.
We've got the edge online, but when it comes to traditional production... large-scale variety shows, live-action series, the logistical muscle to pull them off... we're still green.
It was like commanding a guerrilla force armed with cutting-edge weapons. Capable of winning battles, sure, but lacking the institutional depth and systematic power of a standing army.
To build a media empire no one could shake, he needed talent.
Specifically, a veteran who understood content, production, and connections. Someone who knew how to navigate political minefields without breaking a sweat.
Otherwise he'd be stuck transplanting hit works from his previous life forever, and the workload alone would kill him.
A knock at the door.
"Come in."
The door opened.
A tall man in a black overcoat and black fedora stepped through.
Jin Kurosawa.
Current HR Director of Genesis Entertainment and one of Seiji's most trusted operatives. He oversaw all talent acquisition and internal purges across the group. His methods were ruthless, his efficiency terrifying. The industry had taken to calling him "Genesis's Cleaner."
"Boss." Jin stopped before the desk and dipped his head, his voice low and gravelly. "You wanted to see me?"
"Sit."
Seiji gestured to the chair opposite, then pulled a file from his drawer and slid it across the desk.
It glided to a stop in front of Jin.
No title on the cover. Only a photograph clipped to the upper right corner.
The man in the photo was in his fifties. Balding, thickening around the middle, but with eyes that carried a sharp cunning and no small amount of pride.
"Doi."
Seiji said the name with a smile.
"Deputy Director of TBS Television's Production Bureau. Also their ace producer. Single-handedly created three nationally beloved variety shows. They call him the Magician of Primetime. And right now, he's the frontrunner to be named the next Production Bureau Chief."
Jin glanced at the photo. His brow creased slightly.
As HR Director, the name wasn't new to him.
"Boss, are you saying..."
"Poach him."
Seiji leaned back in his chair, his tone as casual as if he were suggesting a coffee run. "I want to hire him as the first-ever bureau chief of Genesis Entertainment's Production Division."
Silence settled over the office.
Even Jin, renowned for his composure, let a flicker of surprise cross his face.
"Poach... Doi?"
He studied Seiji, checking whether the man was joking. "Boss, with all due respect, this can't be done."
"Oh?" Seiji made an open-palmed gesture. "Walk me through it."
Jin stood and reached instinctively into his coat for a cigarette, then caught Seiji's glance and put it away.
"First, there's the status gap." His analysis was measured, clinical. "Doi is an entrenched beneficiary of the traditional broadcast system. In the eyes of old-guard media people, the Big Five networks like TBS are the establishment. The royal court. Genesis Entertainment might be on a tear right now, but to men like him, we're still upstarts. Barbarians at the gate."
"Asking him to abandon a bureau chief seat that's nearly in his hands, to walk away from decades of network connections and jump ship to a company his peers view as a plague... to someone like him, that's treason."
"Second, the money." Jin walked back to the desk and tapped the photograph. "Doi pulls a massive salary and bonus package at TBS, plus all the grey income that comes with the territory. More importantly, he wields enormous power inside that system. Countless talent agencies and performers live and die by his favor. That kind of feudal authority isn't something we can offer."
"And last, the most critical factor: pride." Jin's voice hardened. "These old-school television men carry a near-religious devotion to broadcast. They wear it like a badge of honor and look down on streaming as cheap entertainment. Asking them to bow their heads... you might as well ask them to die."
Airtight logic. Flawless reasoning.
Any rational boss would have heard enough and backed off.
But Seiji smiled.
Not only was he not annoyed, he looked delighted.
"Kurosawa, your analysis is perfect." He gave a slow, appreciative clap. "But I wouldn't be sending you if I didn't have an angle."
He reached for the file and turned to the first page.
"You're only seeing the polished surface. The Doi who's deputy director at TBS. But have you looked at the Doi who's a creator?"
"Have you checked the status of the projects he's supervised in the past year?"
"Have you looked into the personnel shifts in his inner circle?"
Jin paused.
This was granular intelligence. The kind of internal detail that even the best headhunter couldn't access without paying a steep price.
Which meant no one had been looking. Without a whiff of opportunity or profit, headhunters didn't dig that deep.
"Boss, you're saying..."
"Doi is an establishment man, yes. But he's also someone with real talent and real ambition." Seiji's gaze sharpened. "For men like that, the greatest suffering isn't poverty. It's watching their talent wasted by idiots. Watching a production system they built with their own hands get hollowed out by incompetents, piece by piece."
"TBS isn't a royal court to him anymore."
"It's a sinking ship."
"He still sits in that chair, still keeps up appearances. But in the small hours, when he sees another brilliant proposal thrown in the trash, when he watches another bootlicker get promoted over him... that kind of gap between what he is and where he's stuck? That eats a man alive."
Jin looked at the young man before him, brimming with confidence and insight that bordered on omniscience.
That familiar unease surfaced again.
He's barely in his twenties. How does he read people with the instincts of someone who's done this for decades? How does he know the inside of a closed network like TBS as if he drew the map himself?
It was like watching someone play a game with a god's-eye view of the board.
But as a subordinate, he knew which questions to ask and which to swallow.
"Understood."
Jin drained the glass of liquor on the desk, his expression settling back into cold resolve. "I'll begin investigating Doi's real situation at TBS immediately. If things are as you described..."
"Not if."
Seiji cut him off. Absolute certainty. "They are."
"Yes, sir."
Jin said nothing more. He bowed deeply, then turned and strode toward the door, the hem of his overcoat sweeping behind him. At the threshold, he stopped and glanced back.
Seiji stood at the floor-to-ceiling window, his back turned, looking out over the whole of Tokyo.
Fujiwara-sensei...
Jin caught himself thinking it.
What a mystery you are.
...
...
Outside the office.
Jin pulled out his phone and dialed an encrypted number.
"It's me."
His voice was flat, all business again. "Run a background check on TBS's Deputy Production Bureau Chief. Doi."
"Right..."
"Focus on his projects and interpersonal dynamics..."
"Mm. Doesn't need to go too deep."
He gave his instructions and hung up.
In the elevator's mirrored doors, Jin caught his own reflection staring back.
A small, involuntary smile had crept onto his face.
Recruiting a shogun's general to serve the revolutionaries...
If he actually pulls this off, it'll be something to see.
...
...
Late that night. Akasaka.
The beating heart of Tokyo's broadcast industry. The TBS Television tower blazed with light even at this hour, signals streaming out from its transmitters to weave the information network that blanketed all of Japan.
Beneath that gleaming surface, rot was spreading quietly.
An unremarkable black sedan sat in the shadows across from the building.
Jin occupied the driver's seat, a freshly obtained investigative report in his hands. The window was cracked open just enough for the cigarette between his fingers to pulse orange in the dark.
"The boss wasn't wrong..."
He murmured it, unable to fully mask his shock. "This ship really is taking on water."
The report in his hands was a scalpel, peeling back the glossy exterior of "Deputy Bureau Chief Doi" to expose the raw, bleeding truth underneath.
[Investigation Record 01: The Stillbirth of TBS's "Future Reform Initiative"]
Three months ago, Doi had submitted a two-hundred-page reform proposal to the network. Its core vision: dismantle the outdated producer-centric hierarchy, introduce flexible project-team structures, aggressively expand into streaming, and reallocate budget from underperforming legacy variety shows to younger creative teams.
It was a genuinely forward-thinking plan. Had it been implemented, TBS might have seized the initiative in the internet revolution reshaping their industry.
Jin turned to the approval page.
A single stamp in harsh red ink: REJECTED.
One line of annotation beneath it: "Too radical. Inconsistent with the network's policy of steady development. Impacts senior producers' interests. Requires further deliberation. — Office of the Station President."
"Steady development?"
Jin let out a cold laugh.
More like waiting around to die.
He turned the page and read on.
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