Zhu Chi glared at the chief animation director's assistant, hurried out of his office, and made his way to the other end of the company. There, he ran into Nakata Satoshi, who was leaving his office with a bag over his shoulder, ready to head home.
"Director, wait a moment." Zhu Chi quickened his pace and called out to him.
"Zhu Chi? What's up?"
Nakata Satoshi looked exhausted, with heavy dark circles under his eyes and greasy hair. He seemed as if he hadn't showered in days. For a typical TV anime, the director didn't oversee the actual animation. When it came to the drawings, they would usually only review the layouts, but that didn't mean they weren't busy. In fact, they were swamped. The director had to make decisions about almost everything, big and small, across the entire production.
Sometimes the director even had to worry about things outside the content itself.
Of course, some directors who had started out as key animators, or who had high standards for the visuals, would personally check the animation in important shots. But most directors didn't do that; they'd work themselves to death. And that was without even mentioning personally managing the production. The people directly in charge of an episode's content were still the episode directors and animation directors, while production assistants managed everything outside the content.
"It's about the outsourcing. I need to talk something over with you. Are we really going ahead with a recap episode?" Zhu Chi said as he walked into Nakata Satoshi's office. "The key animation for the B-part of episode eleven of Invasion has been coming in since the day before yesterday."
"They're only handing it in now? What good is that? There's no choice—we have to do a recap episode. I've already discussed it