Praise Me Already

Besides showing concern, Gu Xue couldn't help getting a little lecture from Gu Rou.

Things like how girls shouldn't do this kind of work, how it was no good getting home so late, and how she wasn't eating properly.

Gu Xue couldn't think of a single thing to say in her defense, so the next day she made a point of getting up early. She planned to head to the company an hour ahead of time, so she could draw for an extra hour and get home a little earlier.

It might not help, but at least she'd be showing the right attitude: I'll get to the company early and try to be home by midnight! Believe me—when have you ever known your little sister to lie to you?

That was more or less the idea...

But getting up early was still pretty difficult for Gu Xue. A shower was enough to banish her sleepiness completely, but fighting her own laziness before getting out of bed was still no easy task.

Fortunately, Gu Xue managed it.

At three thirty in the afternoon, Gu Xue straightened her clothes and skirt, changed her shoes, and opened the door.

As an aside, Gu Xue still hadn't found a skirt that was a little longer. She hadn't had time to go shopping, so she'd rummaged through her things and found a pair of safety shorts...

If she hadn't searched through her memories, she wouldn't have known they were safety shorts. To her, they were basically just like regular shorts...

She'd made fun of the whole safety-shorts concept before, but now she had to admit they were actually pretty useful...

She took the train to the company.

Sure enough, there wasn't anyone in the animation department.

But it wasn't as if the entire company was deserted. Although most of the animation staff kept hours that were completely unnatural, people in departments like coloring worked pretty normal hours. They generally started at nine, though you never knew when they'd get off.

Gu Xue pulled out a chair and sat down. She was about to check the key animation she'd drawn the night before, ready to hand it over to Mihara Chisa, when she noticed that the two stacks of drawings were gone. All that remained in the compartment where she'd put them was a note.

"I saw that you'd finished filling out the dope sheet, so I took them to the episode director for review. If there are any issues, please contact me. This is my number: *******. Also, remember what I told you. If you can't, I'll come by every three hours from now on to check your progress. I hope that won't inconvenience you. —Mihara Chisa"

Holding the note, Gu Xue let out a dismayed "Huh?" and pulled a long face.

Scary. That was genuinely a little scary.

Mihara Chisa was a little too serious, wasn't she?

She hadn't given them to her yesterday because she was afraid Chisa had gone home... Was there really any need to check on her every three hours?

Come to think of it, Gu Xue hadn't gotten home until around five in the morning, and Mihara Chisa had still collected the drawings. It seemed she was working just as hard.

After considering how tough it must be for Chisa, Gu Xue let it go. She set the note aside and got started on the fight sequence.

Now this was a challenge.

A chaotic battle with five people was genuinely hard to draw. Even just figuring out where everyone should stand took Gu Xue quite a while.

She clipped the animation paper onto the peg bar, flipped through the storyboard, and thought it over for a bit before picking up her pencil.

In the end, she decided to take it apart piece by piece and work through it slowly. She'd start with the simplest burst of action, then gradually sort out the rest.

This sequence was roughly about the protagonist talking with the Four Heavenly Kings before they started fighting. In the storyboard, the camera first focused on A-Da, one of the Four Heavenly Kings. After a brief incantation, he charged at the protagonist. The episode director's instructions called for a powerful burst of force, with the speed of his charge clearly conveyed.

Gu Xue drew the initial incantation scene without doing anything unusual. Other than adding a motion where A-Da raised and straightened his arm as he chanted, along with a note for the camera to make the shot look a little more impressive, there wasn't much else worth mentioning. Next came the shot of A-Da charging at the protagonist—or, to be precise, straight toward the camera.

To convey power and speed, Gu Xue went with a very straightforward method: using something else to sell the effect.

In simple terms, dust.

A-Da went from far away to close up, his outline growing larger until he came to an abrupt stop in front of the camera. Hand-drawn dust effects burst into the air and swept toward the protagonist. It worked well, instantly giving the impression that A-Da had appeared right in front of them.

Then A-Da pulled back the arm he'd raised, clenched his fist, and swung at the protagonist. His fist grew larger until it blocked the entire screen—or, rather, the entire sheet of animation paper—and the camera cut to the next shot.

The next shot was from a slightly elevated angle, facing the protagonist. The fist entered the frame, and in the following drawing, the protagonist ducked beneath it. They grabbed A-Da's arm with both hands, one palm up and the other down, then turned and hoisted him into the air, flinging him to the side. They bent their right leg and drove a knee into A-Da's stomach, doubling him over. A ring of air exploded behind his back.

Then another of the Four Heavenly Kings entered from the side...

It only took a few hundred words to describe, but drawing it was another matter.

The knee strike was especially tricky, since the camera needed to shift as the protagonist turned. By the time Gu Xue had drawn from the moment she arrived at work until all the other animators had shown up, she'd only managed to draw the protagonist ducking the punch. Fortunately, no one disturbed her, and she kept getting faster. Once she'd sorted out the sequence in her head, everything else came together quickly.

The biggest problem with these few cuts was the episode director's wild instructions. It was a fantasy world, yet the director wanted the fight to feel realistic. But for the sake of spectacle, they also wanted some shots with superpowered combat. Add in the large number of characters, and the difficulty of the animation shot through the roof. That was what bothered Gu Xue most. If you wanted them to just fling their superpowers around, then let them fling their superpowers around—but why insist on realism, too?

Still, since she'd taken on the animation job, Gu Xue could only swallow her complaints and work hard to achieve the effect the episode director wanted. As she drew more and more key animation, the sequence became clearer in her mind, and she had to admit that Misawa Hiroshi was actually pretty capable. This approach really did manage to be both powerful and visually impressive.

At seven that evening, Gu Xue finally finished the first key drawing for that cut. The two Heavenly Kings and the protagonist clashed and immediately separated. The other two hadn't appeared yet. There were still cuts of the Four Heavenly Kings taking turns attacking and getting beaten up, followed by another of all four attacking together and still getting beaten up. It was going to be a long road...

After filling out the dope sheet for that cut, Gu Xue set down her pencil and stretched. That was when she noticed Mihara Chisa standing beside her.

"..." Gu Xue hunched her shoulders. "Do you know how scary it is when you do that?"

"Sorry." Mihara Chisa set the two key drawings from last night on Gu Xue's worktable. "They've passed review. There's almost nothing to fix. Are you sure you want to clean up the second key animation yourself? Do you have enough time? When can you finish?"

Gu Xue flipped through the drawings she'd gotten back. "It should be fine. How about this: I'll finish cleaning up the previous day's drawings each day, then work on new ones. If I can't keep up, I'll let you know. Or maybe I won't have to tell you—if I really can't keep up, you'll probably notice."

Mihara Chisa looked at Gu Xue skeptically. She didn't seem to believe Gu Xue would still have the energy to draw new key animation after cleaning up the second key animation. But since Gu Xue had said so, Chisa could only think it over for a moment, then nod. They'd just have to see how it went.

"...All right."

"Here, the latest cut, fresh off the press." Gu Xue could tell Chisa didn't trust her, but there wasn't much to explain. She picked up the drawing she'd just finished and held it out to her. It was practically no longer a hint; her face might as well have had the words "Praise me already" written all over it.

Unfortunately, Mihara Chisa didn't look at her face at all. The moment she took the drawing, she started flipping through it. After finding no problems, she said, "Sorry for the trouble," then turned and left.

Gu Xue stood there for a moment, her cheeks puffing out slightly.

A young animator nearby, drawn in by their conversation, happened to see the whole thing. His face instantly flushed red, and he looked like he was about to die.

Gu Xue came back to her senses, muttered to herself, wondering what she was even doing, then turned around—and caught sight of a carton of strawberry milk that had somehow appeared on her worktable.

She glanced up at the hallway. Mihara Chisa was already gone.

People like her were the most troublesome.

Gu Xue picked up the milk and sighed.

If she wanted to thank me, she should just say so! And does she have some kind of misunderstanding about what I like...?

If you're buying me something, get me coffee. Cola would be fine, too! I might not look it, but I can chug drinks, okay? Here, I'll show you. Who likes milk, anyway, especially strawberry-flavored? I'd never drink it.

A little over ten minutes later.

Hmm... It was actually pretty good.