Keep Playing Ostrich

Back then, Yamashina Makoto had still been calculating that Bandai could preserve its independence and only spin off its game division.

Now every card in their hand had been seen through.

Sega was singing triumphantly through the 32-bit console war, with Virtua Fighter 2 and Gundam Battle Operation raking in money until the bowls were full and the pots overflowed.

Even Demon Samurai had won players' favor with its distinctive style and stunning combat system.

What could Bandai possibly use to negotiate with Sega?

"If we go talk now, we're meat on the chopping block," Mitsui Chuta sighed. "Sega's audit team only needs to take the slightest look at our books to see the decline in our toy business. When the time comes, the merger plan they offer will very likely be extremely harsh. We won't even have room to bargain."

"Then we just don't talk?" someone asked.

"If we don't talk, do we wait to die?"

The argument produced no result.

A sense of confusion spread among Bandai's senior management.

They had neither the courage to break the cauldrons and sink the boats with internal reform, nor the wisdom to produce a merger plan favorable to their side.

Time passed day by day in this tangle and silence.

Inside the office building of Bandai Headquarters, people still came and went every day.

Employees clocked in and out by the book, discussing where to go drinking over the weekend.

In the executive offices, Yamashina Makoto looked each day at sales reports that kept sliding downward, smoking through pack after pack of cigarettes.

He knew that the young man Nakayama Takuya was certainly somewhere, quietly watching Bandai's great ship struggle in the mire.

Once Bandai exhausted its last shred of strength, Sega would descend in the posture of a savior and