Teaching You How to Make Animation

Hearing Gu Xue ask about the outsourcing work, Misawa Hiroshi's eyes lit up, and he secretly breathed a sigh of relief.

The words he had just spoken were indeed intended to play the pity card.

It was true that he said he wouldn't force Gu Xue to help him and Mihara Chisa finish this outsourcing job, but that didn't mean he didn't want her to participate. After all, not just him, but even many of the key animators below him knew that eighty percent of the credit for the buzz surrounding the final episode of Ore-sama belonged to Gu Xue.

Without her, no matter how strictly Misawa Hiroshi inspected the key animation submitted by others, Ore-sama would have barely reached a watchable level and ended in mediocrity.

While checking the key animation for Ore-sama, he had marveled more than once at how a girl like Gu Xue could draw such powerful, high-impact scenes.

An animator like Gu Xue is truly someone no director or storyboard artist can resist.

Right now, not many people in the industry know who Gu Xue is; they only know the lead animator for the final episode of Ore-sama is named Gu Xue, but they don't know what she looks like, and few have her contact information.

In a little while, production teams looking for her to take on work will surely reach out, and Misawa Hiroshi estimates there will be quite a few.

Now that Gu Xue is willing to help finish this outsourcing work, it really is the best possible outcome. The Anime Mirai project shouldn't be delayed, and the eleventh episode of the collaborative production Invasion will likely be completed perfectly...

Seeing Misawa Hiroshi's expression, Gu Xue knew what he was thinking and said with disdain, "I'm doing this for Mihara-san. If it weren't for her, I wouldn't have participated at all. Playing the pity card won't work."

Smart girls are really troublesome...

Misawa Hiroshi wore an awkward smile.

"Sorry," Mihara Chisa said softly.

"You don't need to apologize," Gu Xue turned her head, her smile as bright as a flower.

If Gu Xue guessed correctly, the standoff between Mihara-san and Misawa Hiroshi just now was likely Mihara-san telling him not to pressure her into taking on the upcoming outsourcing work.

In the end, Misawa Hiroshi hadn't bowed to beg her, he had just played the pity card.

Gu Xue was quite touched by Mihara-san's actions.

Mihara-san was indeed the main reason she was helping, though the Anime Mirai project was also a factor. After all, she had promised Mihara-san she would try her best to win the Gold Prize, and since she had already kissed her, Gu Xue couldn't go back on her word...

Watching them both get dragged into the mud by this outsourcing job while the Anime Mirai project was repeatedly delayed, all while she stood by and did nothing—that was something Gu Xue couldn't do.

Besides, if the Anime Mirai project didn't leave her enough time, she wouldn't dare claim she could produce a good work, unless she made up her mind to burn the midnight oil every day and animate the entire project by herself. But that was impossible. It wasn't a matter of ability; although there was enough time, this was a government-backed project meant to train newcomers. If she pulled a "one-man animation" stunt, wouldn't she just be being difficult?

Misawa Hiroshi sat in his chair, watching the smile Gu Xue showed Mihara-san, then thought back to the look of disdain he had just seen, smacked his lips, and felt a bit sour.

He felt like he'd eaten a lemon again.

However, Gu Xue didn't let him stay sour for long; she quickly turned her head and asked:

"What's the deal with Invasion? Why did they only think about outsourcing when they reached the eleventh episode? Shouldn't something like that be decided back in the planning stage? If they knew their company didn't have the capacity, what were they doing earlier... Wait, isn't the scale of CDD Animation Workshop quite large?"

Misawa Hiroshi shook his head. "I don't know the specifics."

"I only know that the episodes of Invasion that have already aired are quite good, at least a few grades higher than Ore-sama. Although it's not a massive production, it's considered one of the noteworthy anime of the season. Their main office is currently producing the final episode, and they've tasked us with the penultimate one. The requirements are quite strict, but they've given us a fair amount of creative freedom. They only gave us the script and didn't even provide finished storyboards. They only had a clear requirement for the final cut: it needs a large-scale explosion to facilitate the transition to the final episode."

"...What kind of god-tier operation is this?" Gu Xue was speechless.

They outsourced it without even providing storyboards? Weren't they afraid someone would mess it up?

Misawa Hiroshi: "I heard through the grapevine that someone has given up on life..."

Gu Xue: "..."

"But that's not our concern. The most important thing is to do a good job on this episode. Their requirements are very strict, and we can't rule out multiple revisions, so it's best if we reach a level where they have nothing left to say."

"What is the story actually about?" Because of the work on the final episode of Ore-sama, Gu Xue hadn't watched any new anime this season for a while and really didn't know what kind of story Invasion was telling.

"Extraterrestrial beings invading—you can simply understand it as aliens—and the protagonist, a high school student, pilots a mecha to fight them... After the buildup of the first ten episodes, the eleventh episode finally features the aliens launching a full-scale invasion, and the twelfth, the final episode, begins the decisive battle. The episode we're responsible for needs to build up that atmosphere before the final showdown."

Gu Xue: "That's really cliché..."

"Did you forget what you just said..." Misawa Hiroshi gave a wry smile.

"Sorry, that was a fantasy story. Even if it's cliché, it doesn't have the 'save the world' trope. High schoolers saving the world? Please, find a proper adult for that, you jerk."

"..." Misawa Hiroshi's mouth twitched. "We can't fix the story, so let's just try our best to do our jobs. The plot of the eleventh episode: the first half is drama, and the second half is the alien invasion. There are quite a few battle scenes, and finally, the protagonist has to resist the aliens alone, followed by the explosion scene to set the mood."

"My idea is this: I'll handle the final explosion, and I'll draw the storyboards as soon as possible. As for the battle cuts, I'll leave them to..."

Before Misawa Hiroshi could finish, Gu Xue interrupted him.

"Please leave the battle storyboards blank; I'll draw them, and please let me handle the explosion as well."

Misawa Hiroshi: "..."

"I don't mean anything else by it," Gu Xue explained. "I just want to finish this job as quickly as possible. If I compose and storyboard the battle cuts myself, the speed will be much faster—a lot faster. As for the explosion, just consider it me doing it for the sake of flow."

Misawa Hiroshi pondered for a moment and nodded.

Although he felt a little slighted, the feeling quickly vanished.

He was very interested in mecha anime, but he had witnessed Gu Xue's drawing speed, and thinking about his own sluggish pace, no matter how he looked at it, he shouldn't insist.

Besides, it wasn't too much to ask for Gu Xue to decide the composition and storyboards for the battle cuts she was responsible for, as those were the most troublesome parts of the entire episode.

However, he didn't understand why Gu Xue also wanted to draw the explosion cut herself. He glanced at her, feeling a bit puzzled...

Gu Xue ignored Misawa Hiroshi's puzzled gaze.

She wasn't lying; she really did want to draw the storyboards herself for the sake of speed, but there was another purpose as well.

Outsourcing, right? Setting the mood, right?

Then I'll show you what it means to just smile, what a 20W limited edition EVA is, what the first-ever "burning" anime in history is, what it means for my drill to pierce the heavens, what it means to say "my father never even hit me," and what a nuclear explosion really is!

I'll see how you manage to wrap up the twelfth episode then...