Anime rating game

"Mmm." Yui Hirasawa nodded repeatedly. "I feel like I'm not in good shape and I'll probably forget the lyrics. Mio is also too nervous, so she definitely won't be able to sing well."

"How did you handle similar situations in the past?" Masamune asked thoughtfully.

“Performing on smaller stages, you can easily get away with making things up without anyone holding it against you, but this is the biggest stage in the country, where every mistake will be magnified…”

"That's true."

Masamune fell into deep thought. Replacing them with the second-best performer would certainly not be well-received by the audience and could also damage his reputation.

Since the problem is forgetting lyrics, it's best to address that aspect, such as choosing a song with relatively simple lyrics and melody.

The next moment, a thought suddenly popped into Masamune's mind.

"How about chou-dango daijiazou? The anime PV is already out. It's uploaded online, so you can play it directly. The lyrics are simple, and you won't easily forget them."

"Is it alright? Let us sing this song," Hirasawa Yui couldn't help but ask.

"Of course you can. When I asked Mio to help improve it before, I said that you would have permanent rights to perform this song. Moreover, performing this song can also serve as a simple form of promotion for the anime."

"Thank you. If it's this song, I'm confident I can sing it well."

Because I really like this song, I often hum it, so the possibility of me forgetting the lyrics is zero.

Yui Hirasawa is full of confidence about this.

"In that case, you may proceed to the stage."

Masamune then took out his phone and began contacting Watanabe Jun, who was directing operations backstage.

"Watanabe, K-On! has decided to sing Dango Daikazoku. Contact the company immediately and send over the Clannad anime PV to project onto the big screen."

“No problem, I’ll contact Director Kinoshita right away. He should have a backup. It should take about 4 to 5 minutes. Please tell Hirasawa Yui that whatever you say, you must buy her 5 minutes of time.”

"it is good."

Masamune hung up the phone and turned to look at Hirasawa Yui:

"It will take about 5 minutes to prepare, to think of something to say on stage, in order to buy time."

"Thank you, I will do my best to stall for time."

"You're welcome. I'm the one who needs to apologize. This situation arose because we didn't emphasize the necessity of preparing a second song to you."

"No, the president has done a great job. We didn't take the influence of animation seriously and underestimated ourselves."

As they walked from the audience seats onto the stage, under the spotlight, Yui Hirasawa and her five companions took out their instruments from their bags, and staff members immediately came on stage to help them adjust the equipment and wiring.

In less than a minute, all preparations were complete.

However, because the screen projection was not yet ready, Hirasawa Yuya took the microphone and began to stall for time.

Hello everyone, we meet again!

"We actually watched the performance from the audience after it ended."

"Today's Christmas party was fantastic; it's the most memorable day of the year since the New Year."

"We were all surprised to get first place, thank you everyone for your support!"

"Looking back, last summer, no one could have imagined that we would be standing on the stage of the Tokyo Dome like this..."

Because she was in a high mood all night, after briefly explaining the situation, Hirasawa Yui completely forgot about her earlier promise to delay the time and began a long speech as if she were giving an acceptance speech.

"Thank you so much everyone, we're so fortunate to be where we are today..."

At that moment, upon hearing the notification sound from her headset, Nakano Azusa turned around and saw that the screen had switched to the PV for the anime Cl. She quickly reached out and tugged at Hirasawa Yui twice.

"Senior, this isn't an awards ceremony, there's no need for so much talk, let's start singing."

"What are you singing?" Hirasawa Yui asked instinctively.

"Yes, senpai!" Nakano Azusa couldn't help but raise her voice a few decibels.

Hirasawa Yui paused for two seconds, then quickly realized what was happening, her face showing sudden understanding. She then gave a sheepish smile and apologized.

"Sorry, I remember now! Let's begin."

"Phew... I'm really worried about Yui-senpai's future."

"It's starting. One, two..."

The next moment, the song "Dango Daikazoku" started playing, and the Clannad anime PV began to play on the big screen behind them.

Since the animation promotion has not yet started, Cl's PV is in the pre-release stage, and many viewers who do not play the game are very unfamiliar with it.

But the moment the song begins, it still captivates countless people.

As the songs echoed through the venue, the evening gradually came to an end.

"Thank you all for your support! We don't have any major work scheduled for the next few days, so see you next year, everyone!"

"Senior, this isn't a concert, there's no need to say so much."

"Azusa, Mio, Ritsu, Tsumugi, thank you for always accommodating me and tolerating my willfulness."

"Yui, it's getting late, it's time to end this." Kotobuki Tsumugi noticed her lingering desire for another song and smiled helplessly.

"Hehe... I've been seen through."

"Let's go."

"Ah."

At this moment, cheers erupted from the audience, accompanied by shouts of "One more song!" which caused the group to stop moving.

Yui Hirasawa, who had already turned and headed backstage, turned around, put her index finger to her lips, gave a soft "shh" sound, and said with a smile:

"It's already late, you can't be willful."

This scene became one of the classic moments of the evening.

Amidst cheers and farewells, K-On! left the stage, and the lights in the Budokan were turned back on, becoming exceptionally bright. This also signified the official end of the event, with no encores.

"Zong-kun, Mom is very disappointed."

"What's wrong? Are you still upset about not voting earlier?"

"No, that's all in the past. What I regret is that you didn't get to sing on stage. I was looking forward to it for days."

"Haha... This is the first time we've held an anime musical, so everyone is a bit inexperienced. I've also been quite busy lately. But I might participate next year."

"Great! Then Mom will wait patiently."

Chapter 256 Right of First Choice

The following day, many employees were still in high spirits from the previous night's party when they went to work.

"Yesterday was amazing! It felt like we experienced a major event."

"That's right, the online reviews are all very good, and our Musashino's reputation has increased even more."

As he entered the conference hall and listened to the casual conversation of the crowd, Masamune thought for a moment and decided to simply take a vacation.

Today is December 26th. Last year, the holiday started three days later, but this year we finished producing two animations early, so it doesn't seem to matter if we get a holiday right away.

"President, there are three main topics for today's morning meeting. The first is for Director Kinoshita to explain the production progress of CL and the schedule."

"Alright, let's begin." Masamune nodded slightly.

"Hold on…"

Seiichi Kinoshita opened his notebook and began to read as he spoke:

"Because it's a long series of 50 episodes, we adopted a group production model during production."

"Of these, the storyboards for 37 episodes have been completed, and we have officially entered the first key animation stage. The progress of the other 13 episodes is uneven, but we expect to finish them before the end of the workday next Monday, the 28th. After a final check, we can move on to the next stage."

"Considering the issue of annual leave, let's leave it at that for now and move on to the next stage after the annual leave is over."

"Starting in January, we will ask voice actors to dub the animation, and we have made a simple schedule for the time."

"Excluding the revision phase, the total recording time was 70 days, which was basically three episodes every two days, or one episode per day."

“Okay, that's settled then.” Masamune turned to Yuka Okitsu. “What's the next topic?”

"Financial report on yesterday's year-end gala."

Yuka Okitsu picked up another prepared report and began to introduce it carefully.

Although there are many confidential matters in the financial statements, the parts that can be made public are read aloud at the morning meeting to reassure everyone.

To this day, this has become a tradition in Musashino.

"Because of our live streaming format, we can only insert a few commercials during the transitions. Compared to last night's viewership, advertising revenue wasn't much; the bulk of the revenue came from overseas copyrights..."

"With a quarter of the tickets already given away, plus the CDs and other gifts that are being produced and prepared for mailing, as well as the appearance fees for each group, the expenses are just too high."

"The revenue figures haven't been finalized yet, but I'd estimate that advertising revenue should be around two billion..."

Overall, we made a small profit and barely broke even.

"It's good that we didn't lose money," Masamune said with a smile. "After all, our goal in holding this party wasn't to make money."

"Understood. Thanks to last night's event, Musashino's reputation has spread throughout Asia, which will boost overseas sales for rights, broadcasting, and other related matters. Next, I'll introduce this week's anime sales..."

As Yuka Okitsu continued her explanation, Masamune fell into deep thought.

The CL production team still has three days of work to do. It's not that we're worried about scarcity, but rather about inequality. It seems we can't take the annual leave early, so we'll set it for the afternoon of the 28th.

We had dinner at the hotel that evening, and then had an eight-day holiday.

"Next is the third topic. President, since about two weeks ago, we have been receiving resumes in our company mailbox."

"And after the party ended last night, our company's public email inbox was flooded with electronic resumes."

"Have we published a recruitment notice to the public?" Masamune asked in surprise.

"No."

"They're not even hiring, yet so many people want to join?"

"Yes, I looked through some resumes while I was having breakfast this morning. There were employees from animation companies that had just gone bankrupt, recent graduates who were passionate about animation production, and artists who had given up on pursuing a career in comics."

Are there any available workstations upstairs?

"Many offices are too empty. If we bring in a new batch of computers and desks and organize each floor, we should be able to add about two hundred more workstations."