Tokyo: The Manga Begins with the Funeral of Frilian

Ryota Onodera sat down next to the low table.

He pushed the already opened animation magazine in front of Yuma Kamiya.

"Keisuke Fujita. Forty-one years old. In the industry, he is known as the 'magician of images'."

Yuma Kamiya lowered his head.

My gaze fell on the photo in the magazine.

A middle-aged man with messy hair, wearing a wrinkled jacket.

He was standing in front of an animated poster.

Her eyes are bright, but she has heavy eye bags.

Three years ago, he directed an original theatrical anime film called "Winter Stardust".

Ryota Onodera flicked his cigarette ash.

"The animation, storyboarding, and color design were all top-notch, and it won the Tokyo Anime Award that year. But it flopped at the box office. The production cost was 800 million yen, but the box office only brought in 200 million yen."

  

"The investors withdrew their funding, his studio went bankrupt and was liquidated, and his wife took the children and went back to her parents' home. Now he is helping to grow Chinese cabbage in the fields of his hometown in Saitama Prefecture, and he just sold his house in Tokyo last month to pay off debts."

"Does he understand Frillie?"

"Kamiya Yuuma asked."

Ryota Onodera took a crumpled piece of paper from his briefcase.

Next, unfold the paper and place it on the table.

A letter written by a reader, sent to the editorial office three months ago.

The handwriting on the letter was extremely messy.

The sticky notes used are of the cheapest type.

"Dear Sir/Madam. I am a 41-year-old unemployed animation director from Saitama Prefecture. Last week, I finished reading Volume 8 of 'The Burial of Frilian' at a convenience store and stood in front of the checkout counter for twenty minutes."

"It's not because I don't have the money to buy it, it's because I've forgotten how to walk. There's something in this manga that I've been searching for in the animation industry for twenty years and haven't found—time. Not the time of battle, not the time of growth, but the time that continues to flow even after loss. If this work is ever adapted into an anime, please let me participate. Even just drawing the backgrounds would be fine. Keisuke Fujita."

After reading the letter, Kamiya Yuma folded it up.

Then he put the folded letter back on the table.

"Let him come."

.........

When Keisuke Fujita stood at the entrance of the Itabashi Honmachi apartment.

He looked even more destitute and impoverished than in the magazine photos.

The dark blue work jacket had turned somewhat faded from washing.

The cuffs of his trousers were stained with dried mud.

He was also carrying a canvas bag with a torn corner.

Her hair was even more disheveled, but her eyes remained as bright as ever.

"Mr. Fujita, please come in."

Shiori Shirakawa handed over slippers.

After changing his shoes, Keisuke Fujita walked towards the living room.

He looked around again and again.

He looked toward the narrow table in the corner.

That was Hoshino Rin's office.

There are halftone paper and dip pens on the table.

There was also an open reference book of demon skeletons.

Then he saw the wastepaper basket.

The wastepaper basket was filled with crumpled-up drafts.

He just squatted down like that.

Then he picked up a crumpled piece of paper from the wastepaper basket.

Then I unfolded it.

The drawing on the paper depicts Aura's undead army.

Several hundred skeleton soldiers stood on the scorched, desolate plains.

Each skeleton soldier has a different posture.

The faces of the people being controlled showed no obvious expression.

Every line seems to be screaming that it doesn't want to be here.

However, they cannot control their own bodies.

Keisuke Fujita's fingers began to tremble.

"Who drew this?"

"I."

Rin Hoshino came out of the kitchen carrying a tea tray.

The eyes are positioned above the mask.

"But that was actually a discarded draft. My master said it was too fragmented and not consistent at all. So I drew it again."

"Rejected draft?"

Keisuke Fujita picked up another crumpled piece of paper from the wastepaper basket.

Then unfold it.

Pick up another one, then unfold it.

He was positioned right in the middle of all those discarded drafts.

His hands began to tremble more and more.

"The perspective used to depict the depth of the wasteland is the three-point perspective method. The horizon is located at about one-third of the way down the picture, at the same height as Frilian's line of sight. This is not a background painting, but rather a way to convey a corresponding meaning through the background."

"This wilderness watches over all those who stand upon it. The scorched earth was created using six layers of dots, each with scratches in a different direction to simulate the marks left by flames at varying temperatures. And this..."

He held up a discarded draft in front of his eyes.

"These skeletal structures are not based on textbooks, but on actual human anatomy diagrams. The ulna and radius have angles of twist, the scapula has a sliding trajectory above the clavicle, and the direction of misalignment after a cervical fracture is all correct. This achieves the level of medical illustration. This is..."

His voice suddenly stopped.

He stuck that useless piece of scrap paper to his face.

His shoulders began to shake violently in an instant.

Tears seeped through her fingers, dripping onto the ink lines of the discarded manuscript.

The ink lines caused dark areas to bleed out on the halftone paper.

"I have been searching for a full twenty years. From the very first day I became a director, I have been searching for someone who can create paintings like this."

"A background isn't just a painting; it has to exist in the same world as the character and interact with them. I searched in Tokyo for twenty years, interviewing over three hundred background artists, but not a single one could simultaneously draw the correct skeletal structure and the correct emotions. And you? You actually did it from among the discarded drafts!"

He knelt on the ground.

He took out a train ticket.

He forcefully tore the ticket into pieces.

The scrap of paper fell into the wastepaper basket.

"Mr. Fujita, isn't that your train ticket back to your hometown?"

Baihe Shizhi asked.

"A one-way ticket in Chichibu City, Saitama Prefecture costs 2,300 yen."

Keisuke Fujita wiped his face and then stood up.

Her eyes were red and swollen.

"I originally planned to go back to my hometown after seeing you all today. My brother-in-law runs a rice shop in Chichibu, and they need someone to move the goods."

"I don't know how to farm or drive, but I can manage to move rice."

He threw the canvas bag on the floor in the entryway.

"It's no longer necessary."

Kamiya Yuma leaned casually against the drawing table, his hand tightly gripping a dip pen.

"How do you think Frillie should be filmed?"

"slow."

Keisuke Fujita turned around.

"It's slower than any other animation on the market. Each episode is thirty minutes long, and at least five minutes have to be reserved for scenes without dialogue."