The moment Kamiyā Yuu stepped out of Yosuganosora Animation Studio, he saw Akiyama Gojō, chief editor of Chiyo Bookstore's light novel department, waiting in front of an ordinary private car that was by no means luxurious.
With his arms folded and brows furrowed, Akiyama seemed to be thinking about something.
Kamiyā Yuu walked over with a smile and greeted him.
"Chief Editor Akiyama, I didn't expect you to really come pick me up yourself. I thought you'd have another editor do it."
The chief editor of a major publishing house was far busier than an ordinary editor. Normally, matters concerning anime adaptations of light novels were handled by the editor in charge.
Come to think of it, because of Kamiyā Yuu's unusual status, the 'Fate/zero' novel did not seem to have a clearly assigned editor. Usually, Akiyama Gojō himself was responsible for contacting Kamiyā Yuu.
"You're here, Director Kamiyā."
Akiyama Gojō opened the car door and said helplessly, "This has already been delayed for quite a while. Besides, I was the one who proposed the anime adaptation in the first place. If this keeps dragging on, the responsibility will fall entirely on me."
"Haha, if you put it that way, even if the anime turns out badly, I wouldn't have the right to blame you."
Akiyama Gojō gripped the car key and started the engine, sighing as he said, "It's great that Director Kamiyā thinks that way, but my superiors won't. And neither will the viewers of 'Fate/zero'. In any case, we'll first go to Sunrise Company and participate in the production meeting. After that, we'll head to the recording studio to greet the voice actors and confirm the quality of the dubbing. I know Director Kamiyā is very busy, but since this is your work, how about getting a little more seriously involved?"
"Don't worry. No matter how you look at it, Sunrise Company cares about this more than I do. I'm only the original creator, so I don't have that much say anyway."
"Director Kamiyā really is optimistic."
Sitting in the passenger seat, Kamiyā Yuu said awkwardly, "Combined with what you said before, that doesn't exactly sound like a compliment."
"Interpret it however you like," Akiyama Gojō said casually as he drove.
This time, Kamiyā Yuu was attending solely as the representative of the original work.
Generally speaking, animation studios rarely adopted the original creator's opinions.
How much influence the original creator possessed depended largely on whether the publisher participated in the production committee and, if so, what percentage of the anime's production costs the publisher had funded.
For the anime adaptation of 'Twilight of the Knights', Kamiyā Yuu had not joined the production committee as a sponsor.
If Chiyo Bookstore wanted to adapt 'Twilight of the Knights' into an anime, the first step would be to appoint a producer. That producer would then take the lead in forming an anime production committee.
Put simply, an anime production committee was something like a consortium of sponsors.
It provided the animation studio with the funding needed to produce the anime, and in return, the committee received the various commercialization revenues generated by the anime apart from things such as BD sales and broadcasting rights.
Taking the phenomenon-level anime 'EVA' from Kamiyā Yuu's previous world as an example, how had it managed to gather enough production funding back when no one knew about it?
The first step was to expand the work's influence and increase its commercial value.
At the time, when original-source works dominated the industry, manga artist Yoshiyuki Sadamoto began serializing the 'EVA' manga in a manga magazine half a year in advance.
'EVA' producer Toshimichi Ōtsuki then went around seeking sponsors to form a production committee, using both animation director Hideaki Anno's name and the growing influence of the work itself as banners.
Anno had previously directed 'Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water', which had a good reputation and had left a favorable impression on industry sponsors.
So using him as a selling point proved fairly effective.
Producer Toshimichi Ōtsuki successfully brought in a large group of sponsors.
It was also due to the influence of 'EVA' that the production committee system gradually developed within the industry and eventually matured into a standardized structure.
At the time, once an anime had been completed, there were generally two choices.
Either sell it to a television station, or continue having the sponsor-backed production committee pay for a broadcast time slot.
Most anime production committees preferred the latter, because it allowed them to maximize the work's commercial value and profits.
Choosing the former was usually a conservative approach taken because the production committee had little confidence in the work's commercial potential.
And the television stations were not fools either.
When the 'EVA' anime became overwhelmingly popular, it naturally became time to divide the profits.
At that point, the animation studio itself could only get a small share.
The lion's share—the anime copyrights and commercialization profits—belonged to the production committee.
First, the manga rights belonged to Yoshiyuki Sadamoto.
The licensing rights to the original soundtrack belonged to the music production company, one of the sponsors that was also responsible for producing the anime's music.
Toy and model rights belonged to a toy company, another sponsor.
Advertising slots inserted into the anime could either be sold externally or directly allocated to one of the sponsors.
Box-office revenue from theatrical films and overseas broadcasting rights belonged to the production committee as a whole.
In simple terms, a production committee existed to maximize the commercial value of an anime while spreading out the risks.
Animation was a high-risk, high-return industry.
The birth of anime production committees could be considered an inevitable result of the industry's development.
This was the most important reason Kamiyā Yuu had insisted on establishing his own animation studio.
He clearly understood the potential of the anime works he created.
As far as risk was concerned, it was almost irrelevant.
He had no desire to work himself to the bone making something only for others to reap all the benefits.
Even if most of the rights ended up gathering dust in his own hands, he still did not want to give them away.
By now, Yosuganosora Animation Studio had grown to several hundred employees, with more than half working in operations-related divisions.
Kamiyā Yuu was responsible for animation production, while Morishita Aoi handled the business operations surrounding the works.
Although their expansion and exploitation of anime-related copyrights could not match what most production committees were capable of, at the very least they would not allow the influence of their works to go to waste.
Yosuganosora Animation Studio barely had enough time to fully exploit the commercial potential of its own anime, much less participate in works produced by other animation studios.
As for forming a production committee for 'Twilight of the Knights', that was extremely easy.
First, the 'Fate/zero' anime was currently airing and was the most popular series of the July season.
Second, 'Twilight of the Knights' ranked among the most influential light novels of the moment. An anime adaptation was virtually guaranteed not to lose money.
Third, the author of 'Twilight of the Knights' was Kamiyā Yuu, a famous animation director within the industry with considerable influence of his own.
Any one of those factors alone would have been enough to make countless industry sponsors fight for a place on the anime's production committee.
In other words, with the work's commercial value assured, the funding provided by the production committee for 'Twilight of the Knights' was equivalent to that of a major anime production.
No matter how he looked at it, there was no need for Kamiyā Yuu to worry about the quality of the animation.
Any animation studio that possessed ample production funding yet still failed to produce good anime would have long since been eliminated from the industry.
And that was also the main reason Kamiyā Yuu could take such a relaxed attitude toward 'Twilight of the Knights'.
In terms of priority, there was first the animation studio, then the anime production committee, and only after them came Kamiyā Yuu, who was merely the original author.