At the beginning of March, production on the movie version of 'RWBY' at the 'Yosuganosora' Animation Studio had finally entered a stable rhythm. However, Kamiyā Yuu realized he had accidentally laid the tracks a little too far ahead. As the train that was the 'Yosuganosora' Animation Studio slowly advanced forward, he himself was already sitting bored at the terminal station, yawning.
The work of an animation director was both complicated and simple.
Complicated because constructing the storyboards for an animation was an extremely mentally taxing process. Setting aside plot conception, things like character dialogue, overall movement, background characteristics, and more all required the participation of the animation director. It heavily tests one's so-called "mental visualization" abilities. Once a director entered a "creative block" state, the resulting frustration and anxiety could make anyone miserable enough to cough up blood.
Many famous directors usually delegated portions of their work to others to reduce their own pressure. Unfortunately, Kamiyā Yuu currently had no such people around him.
However, he possessed abilities no animation director in this world could compare to: consciousness-space simulation and access to the internet knowledge of his previous world. The "mental visualization" process that was most complicated for animation directors could be effortlessly completed within their consciousness space. The range of his thoughts could far surpass that of ordinary directors.
For a normal director, conceptualizing storyboards was like free-climbing a mountain barehanded. Before climbing, they had to carefully examine every detail of the cliff face, searching for every safe foothold. A single mistake in judgment could leave them awkwardly stranded halfway up the mountain with no path forward. At that point, retreating the way they came would already be difficult.
And during the process of free-climbing, anything could happen—losing one's grip, exhausting one's stamina, grabbing onto a rotten stone, and so on.
Kamiyā Yuu's situation, on the other hand, was more like that of a professional climber with excellent physical conditioning carrying specialized climbing equipment. Situations that would leave free-climbers in utter despair could all be resolved through extraordinary physical ability and professional tools. Even if he lost his grip, climbing ropes could still guarantee his safety.
With unimaginable abilities paired with his passion for completing his work, he had already reached the summit in an extremely short amount of time. The only thing left for him to do now was watch eagerly as the other "climbers" continued scaling the route he had carved out, occasionally pointing out mistakes in their movements.
Now that he had free time, Kamiyā Yuu felt restless all over, like he hadn't had his "energy drink."
When he stayed in the office, Morishita Aoi, Uehara Etsuki, and Yūki Chinatsu all looked completely absorbed in their work, making him too embarrassed to interrupt them and start conversations.
When he inspected the other offices, Miyauchi Ema and the others were so focused on the computer screens that they didn't even notice he had been there, leaving him extremely depressed.
Overall, the members of the 'Yosuganosora' Animation Studio were exceptionally capable. Whenever they encountered something they didn't understand, they immediately discussed it with Uehara Etsuki or Yūki Chinatsu. As for those two professional-level animation creators, their abilities were impeccable. With the experience they had accumulated from producing the promotional animations for 'RWBY', combined with their own outstanding skills, there was basically never any need for Kamiyā Yuu to personally step in and explain things.
...
"The storyboard drafts are all finished, the rough structural diagrams for the eight scenes have all been handed over to the teacher, the 3D production department has sufficient manpower, and as for Aoi... interfering with her work rashly would only cause her trouble."
Lying sprawled on the lounge sofa in the classic "Ge You slouch" position, Kamiyā Yuu muttered to himself as he reviewed everyone's assigned responsibilities. After thinking it over, the only place where he still had room to interfere was Uehara Etsuki's side.
But long ago, when it came to environmental illustration work, Morishita Aoi had already perfectly arranged for outsourced key animation studios to help share part of the burden. Kamiyā Yuu had missed the best timing to get involved.
Completely collapsing onto the sofa, Kamiyā Yuu grumbled:
"So boring... I'm basically a useless person now..."
What else could he do next?
Most questions regarding the 'RWBY' movie version could already be resolved during the weekly meetings. Both the progress and quality had reached Kamiyā Yuu's standards of satisfaction.
Draw key animation frames? Fan art for 'RWBY' was already everywhere on the 'FakeBook' forums, so there was no longer any need for him to personally draw illustrations for promotion.
Plan out the next project, 'Magical Girl Nanoha'?
Honestly, there weren't many areas in that classic magical girl genre that required changes. Besides, while Kamiyā Yuu liked finishing work ahead of schedule, he had no desire to complete excessive extra work.
"Find something to do. Preferably something that matches my interests and can also bring in profits."
He wanted to find something to fill this free time of his—something he could treat as a hobby during breaks from work. Compared to watching anime or playing games now, Kamiyā Yuu preferred creating things himself.
"Drawing manga? Compared to making anime, that's even more boring, and it requires way too much energy."
Illustration and manga were different things. If Kamiyā Yuu wanted to draw manga, he would first need to study manga illustration methods within his consciousness space.
"Novels? I could do that, but it still feels inferior to making anime. Visual media really is better."
When novels came to mind, the first thing Kamiyā Yuu thought of was publishing 'Fate/Zero' in advance, while also building popularity for the future anime adaptation.
"What about making a side-scrolling beat-em-up game for 'RWBY'? I could look up frameworks for similar games from the previous world's internet, so I wouldn't have to rack my brains designing everything myself."
"Pass. Too time-consuming, and the profits would be too small. At the very least, after the company develops further, making a large-scale game like 'Devil May Cry' would better showcase the charm of the setting. Speaking of which, Mr. Kojima seemed to mention making a side-scrolling action mini-game for 'RWBY' to test the market."
"Then is there a game that's fun, easy to make, within my area of expertise, and also has the potential to become popular? Something like that can't possibly exist..."
"Wait."
Kamiyā Yuu's eyes suddenly lit up. He sat upright on the sofa and muttered excitedly:
"How did I forget one of the Three Great Heretical Cults—' Kantai Collection'?"
"Back then, I was basically an Asian Admiral too. Man, that's nostalgic. Making this kind of card collection game wouldn't be difficult. I can draw the rough character designs myself, then have Morishita Aoi pass them to a professional outsourced illustration company."
"As for setting up servers and programming the game systems for 'Kantai Collection', it'd practically be effortless. The development difficulty is infinitely close to zero. Even tiny studios like X Moe managed to make it back then."
"Should I do it?"
Kamiyā Yuu was a director driven by personal interest. As long as it was something he liked, and it wouldn't significantly affect his own situation, he could impulsively decide to do it.
For now, the gaming industry wasn't a field Kamiyā Yuu particularly wanted to be involved in. But 'Kantai Collection', as one of the Three Great Heretical Cults of otaku culture, was different. It even had its own anime adaptation.
More importantly, aside from the illustrations, the development difficulty of the game itself was ridiculously low.
It could both serve as a hobby to help him pass the boring hours and recreate a game he loved from his previous world.
A win-win situation like that—why not?