Awkward Personality

"Do you know there's a law called the Act on the Protection of Women's Rights and Interests? And that sexual harassment can occur between people of the same sex?" Mihara Chisa covered her chest with one hand. Compared to embarrassment, she was far more annoyed.

"I was thinking about the key animation and got distracted..." Gu Xue said sheepishly.

"You already used that excuse just now. Sit down!" Mihara Chisa pointed at her seat, expressionless.

So where exactly was the gentleness...

Gu Xue grumbled inwardly, then obediently returned to her seat. She had more or less finished planning things out anyway, and now that she had been interrupted, her burst of inspiration had faded. Even if someone told her to keep monkeying around, she could not do it anymore...

Mihara Chisa followed Gu Xue over to the workstation. Once Gu Xue sat down, she took a small USB drive from her pocket and gently set it on the desk.

"These are some fight videos I found. I searched for them online based roughly on the direction notes in the original storyboard, and there are also some movie clips. I also applied for a computer for you just now. I'll bring it over later, so refer to these as much as you like. Once the episode director confirms your revised storyboard, immediately begin drawing the L/O and first key animation. Once you finish one cut, bring it to me right away or let me know."

"Also." Mihara Chisa's gaze shifted slightly downward, falling on Gu Xue's long, pale legs pressed together. "Watch your behavior. You're wearing a skirt. This is the company, not your room. If you truly need to act out the scene in your head while surrounded by men, change into long pants. Don't make others uncomfortable, and don't make things awkward for yourself."

"That's all. I'm going to get the computer."

After rattling off that long speech like a machine gun, Mihara Chisa ignored the disappointed and hostile looks from the men around her, turned, and prepared to leave.

Huh...?

Was that her way of showing me kindness and concern? Wasn't that pretty gentle...

Watching her back, Gu Xue could not help asking, "Do you need help carrying the computer?"

Mihara Chisa abruptly turned around. "Are you that free? It seems you haven't even drawn a single L/O yet. Instead of helping me carry a computer, start drawing immediately."

Gu Xue: "..."

So it really was an illusion.

After watching her leave, Gu Xue withdrew her gaze and glanced at the coworkers sneaking looks at her. She did not care much.

Though she had gotten a little carried away during that burst of inspiration, Gu Xue had remained clear-headed. She knew perfectly well that she had not made any excessively inappropriate movements. As for being watched, she had already developed quite a high level of awareness.

It wasn't like she would lose a piece of flesh.

Like she said, looking was fine, but if they wanted to take things any further, this lady would smash their dog heads!

No, it should be Ore-sama...

Still, Mihara Chisa's words had reminded Gu Xue that she really ought to wear skirts with longer hems, even if it meant sacrificing some comfort in the heat.

The skirts she wore now were all clothes from her high school days. Since Gu Xue had attended a private high school, its rules had been extremely lax. Skirt hems could be as short as they wanted, and even slightly vigorous movement would send them flying. It was not bad enough to expose underwear, but it still attracted a lot of attention, which was rather disgusting...

That was why! A school should act like a school! Make the skirt hems longer! Even if the people wearing them did not care, didn't they realize it would affect the male students' learning efficiency...?

After briefly complaining about her alma mater, Gu Xue put those matters aside, took a deep breath, and entered the L/O and first key animation stages.

As mentioned before, the L/O stage was essentially composition. Based on the storyboard, it determined the characters' movement paths, camera angles, perspective relationships, and so on.

Key animators generally did not need to draw backgrounds, since those were handled by the background team. But during the L/O stage, the scenery within a cut had to be established. The moving characters, meanwhile, were usually drawn quite roughly; only the general forms and paths of their movements needed to be sketched out. Only after a round of review, corrections, and approval would the work formally enter the key animation stage.

This was the traditional animation production process.

But the schedule was extremely tight now, and the production team could no longer hold on. During the animation meeting just now, both the episode director and director had hoped Gu Xue would combine the L/O and first key animation and submit them together once finished.

Gu Xue did not refuse.

It was a very helpless, yet perfectly normal, decision.

Combining the first key animation with the L/O meant carefully drawing the contours of the body and changes in movement and form during the composition stage. That way, after review and corrections by the episode director, animation director, director, and chief animation director, it could go straight to Kiyo-Nigen. Once that was cleaned up, it would count as finished.

Skipping one step saved a great deal of time and greatly improved efficiency. Of course, if a key animator without sufficient skill did this, it could lower the overall quality of the work. After all, revising L/O and revising key animation were two different things. But this was still a necessary compromise.

Since she was submitting the L/O and first key animation together, Gu Xue could not make the work too rough. Otherwise, she would be the one suffering. She had asked to handle the Kiyo-Nigen herself; if she drew her first key animation as stick figures, never mind whether it would pass the episode director's inspection—she herself would be exhausted to death.

The final image could not simply use stick figures. If she drew stick figures, then during Kiyo-Nigen, she would have to turn those stick figures into the protagonist. Just thinking about it made her want to vomit blood...

In other words, the more detailed the first key animation was, the easier Gu Xue's work would be afterward.

So Gu Xue went all out.

Although the slightly revised storyboard had not arrived yet, she could already draw the earlier cuts that she had no objections to.

What she was drawing now was the cut where the protagonist spoke with one of the Four Heavenly Kings under the Demon King. To keep the final battle smooth as a whole, Gu Xue had voluntarily taken these two cuts. Building the atmosphere before the battle was important too. Since she had accepted this insane workload, she would do her utmost to make it as good as possible.

She started with the protagonist.

The figure's outline quickly took shape beneath Gu Xue's pencil. There were many small details in the movements. Though it was only an outline, that taut tension came through immediately.

Once she finished the protagonist, Gu Xue began drawing one of the Four Heavenly Kings in the same shot.

When different characters appeared in the same shot, drawing them on separate layers was the best approach. It made revisions easier as well. If all the characters were drawn on the same sheet, a necessary revision could end up forcing the entire key animation to be redone. That was a pain no content creator could bear.

Gu Xue had no desire to experience that pain, nor was she confident that her key animation would require no revisions or corrections at all. So she obediently worked in layers.

Holding her pencil, Gu Xue moved her wrist rapidly. She drew at astonishing speed, and she rarely flipped back to check the previous key animation sheet. Usually, she only checked the previous one after finishing the current sheet, to see whether the character's movement had any problems.

Partway through, Misawa Hiroshi came over to Gu Xue with the storyboard, told her there were no problems with it, and silently watched her draw for a while.

Gu Xue did not know when he left. She vaguely seemed to hear him ask whether she was interested in joining some project, but Gu Xue had been fully focused on drawing at the time and ignored Misawa Hiroshi. After he left, she cared even less. Her rhythm had returned, and the more she drew, the better it got. She did not want to waste that state.