Circus

Gu Xue took the copy of the script for episode 11 of Invasion, along with several design drafts, left Misawa Hiroshi's office, and returned to her seat.

Mihara was off to arrange the schedule and notify the other staff members.

It was ultimately decided that Misawa Hiroshi would draw the storyboards for the first half of episode 11 of Invasion, while the second half would be left open for Gu Xue to improvise according to the script, with Gu Xue also taking on all the key animation herself.

Gu Xue's task was not light.

Therefore, the first thing Gu Xue did upon returning to her seat was to take out her phone and watch the episodes of Invasion that had already aired, both to familiarize herself with the story and to get a feel for the work's overall style.

After spending about an hour or so, Gu Xue put her phone down.

In truth, the story of Invasion was not complex; it was nothing more than extraterrestrial beings invading from outside the universe, humans inventing mechs that only specific personnel could pilot, and then the high school protagonist getting selected...

It was a plot that had been played out to death.

The episodes that had aired so far mainly focused on small-scale invasions by the extraterrestrial beings, the protagonist's squad training, intercepting the aliens, and incidentally, having a romance.

Although the quality was decent, the entire story felt severely disjointed, and there was even a swimsuit episode...

Seriously, the planet is about to perish, and you're still going off to sightsee? Are you people thick-skinned, or are the human leaders in the story just that oblivious?

While watching, Gu Xue truly roasted the work from start to finish.

But these were things she couldn't change; she was only responsible for episode 11, and only as a key animator. Animation staff didn't need to consider the overall story, and Gu Xue only cared about it because she was well-versed in the medium.

As for episode 11 of Invasion, perhaps because it was nearing the finale, it abandoned the style that invited so much mockery and became much more serious.

It roughly told the story of the protagonist receiving a mission to rescue civilians in a dangerous zone, only to discover that the extraterrestrial beings hiding there had concluded that "humans pose no major threat" and had sent a signal to the alien mother queen far away in space. Upon receiving the signal, the mother queen led tens of thousands of extraterrestrial beings to begin a large-scale descent.

There was no messing around; it was a very serious setup for the coming war. It was likely that the final episode would feature a battle between the protagonist and the mother queen. Maybe a few people would die, but the high school protagonist would definitely be able to power up, kill the mother queen, save the planet, and welcome a happy ending.

It was a bit cliché.

But Gu Xue felt no resentment about drawing it.

If the extraterrestrial beings were about to launch a massive invasion and the protagonist was still flirting with the heroine, that would be what made Gu Xue feel awkward.

After all... the planet is about to perish!!

After carefully reading through the script, Gu Xue already had some ideas and visuals in her mind. However, since it was a mecha show, she had to look at the design drafts in addition to the script.

In a mecha show, besides character design, the most important thing is mechanical design.

After looking at them, Gu Xue couldn't help but sigh... the robot designs were truly cool.

Even if the plot was hard to describe.

Gu Xue had also thought the robot designs were quite good while watching the animation, but those were drawn by other animators, and with the tight schedule and likely modest budget of a TV anime, there were too many places where corners were cut.

The robot's complete form was only perfectly displayed in the mechanical design drafts.

The protagonist piloted a streamlined, giant robot. Next to the design draft were rough specs for the key animator's reference: the robot was nearly 80 meters tall and weighed 2,000 tons. The description noted that its speed and combat capabilities were high, and its overall appearance was somewhat like Gipsy Danger from Pacific Rim—very cool.

The other supporting characters' robots were also incredibly cool.

Whoever designed these machines must be very talented.

The moment Gu Xue saw them, she lost all resistance.

When she said she liked mecha anime and giant robots, she wasn't joking...

Even if her current identity and gender made saying she liked such things seem nonsensical and strange.

But she didn't care about other people's gazes.

Giant robots, after all.

Gu Xue flipped through the mechanical design drafts in her hands, unable to put them down, looking at them over and over again. As for the other design drafts, she glanced at them once and tossed them aside.

That stuff, whatever, it's fine.

The more she looked at the mechanical design drafts, the more ideas Gu Xue had. Eventually, she almost couldn't resist starting to draw, but fortunately, her reason stopped her.

Drawing robots is very difficult.

Not to mention the difficulty of conveying the sense of scale and the metallic texture of the robots, the complexity of the robot's construction alone was a headache.

For example, if you draw an egg rolling on a piece of paper, drawing its trajectory as it rolls to another position, that's simple, right?

A few circles and you're done; with a little practice, anyone can draw it.

Now, what about a person with arms and legs? The difficulty increases geometrically. And what if it's a robot? Giant! The construction is even more complex than a human's! And you have to convey the sense of scale and the metallic texture! That's simply not something an ordinary person can draw. Even those with experience in this field wouldn't dare claim they could draw it well or quickly.

This is also the reason why hand-drawn mecha anime are becoming increasingly rare.

Although Gu Xue had spitefully planned, before leaving Misawa Hiroshi's office, to draw episode 11 of Invasion to the standards of EVA, Tengen Toppa, and Gundam, to teach the outsourcing company a lesson and make them remember that whether outsourcing is done well or not is a double-edged sword.

But after calming down a bit, Gu Xue felt that doing so would also be sabotaging herself...

Moreover, taking her anger out on the outsourcing company was a bit unreasonable. The people Gu Xue should really be angry at were the executives of her own company.

Leaning back in her chair, Gu Xue tried to convince herself to draw an average storyboard and create an average scene, but she couldn't.

Even though she thought she shouldn't take it out on the outsourcing company, Gu Xue still wanted to do a good job...

Out of her love for mecha anime.

After considering it for a long while, Gu Xue decided to just let it go.

If you have the ability, then go ahead and take on the animation production for Invasion; if you don't, then just prepare to welcome the finale amidst the bored expressions of the audience.

If you dare to outsource an entire episode of a mecha anime, then besides being mentally prepared for them to turn it into trash, you also need to be prepared for the possibility that they might do a better job than you.

Have you never heard that water can carry a boat, but it can also capsize it?

The logic genius Gu Xue successfully persuaded herself in reverse. She put down the design drafts and, after a moment of thought, decided not to immediately pull out the storyboard paper to start conceptualizing. Instead, she planned to first refer to the script and draw some of the images in her mind onto key animation paper, slowly letting the story of the second half of Invasion episode eleven take shape.

After all, the frames on the storyboard paper were too small; it was hard to show off when drawing giant robots in such tiny boxes. Besides, Gu Xue was a key animator, and some habits were hard to break.

Pulling out a small stack of key animation paper and placing it on her workbench, Gu Xue began to flip through the script while organizing the story and visuals in her mind.

A good while later.

Gu Xue put down the script.

She glanced at the key animation paper on her workbench, her heart completely unmoved—she even felt a little like drawing some circus animation.