I just want to quietly draw manga Chapter 351

At Evermark

After finishing Code Geass, everyone in the studio had gotten a one-week paid leave. Now they were all back, adjusting to a normal pace again.

As Haruki passed through them on his way to the studio after some time,

Shiori knocked on the office door. Haruki’s voice from inside responded, “Come in.”

She stepped inside.

Haruki looked up from his notes. “How’s the learning curve going?”

Shiori nodded with a small smile. “It’s going well. At the pace we’re moving, the team should be ready to start animating the second season.”

“That’s good to know,” Haruki said. He paused for a moment, thinking. “And there’s something else I wanted your opinion on. I recently went to Studio Bones, and seeing their staff made me think… if we ever want to make multiple anime at the same time without reducing quality, we might need more people. What do you think?”

Shiori took a breath. “Well… that’s why I also wanted to tell you something. We spent almost all our money on Code Geass. We even went over budget for the last two episodes by fifty million. So now we need money until the Code Geass funds arrive.”

Haruki heard that and sighed internally. Do I really have to do the signing event this early? “How much do we need?”

Shiori answered, “At least five hundred million.”

“When do we need it?” Haruki asked, hoping it wasn’t soon.

“Early December,” Shiori said.

Haruki stared at the desk. I have two hundred million. There is no other way.

Shiori added, “Haruki, if we don’t have money, we can always take a loan.”

“No, it’s not that we don’t have money. We can get it… but for that I need to do something.” Haruki’s face lost color as he imagined thousands of fans swarming him.

Shiori frowned slightly, noticing his expression. “Is it something bad?”

“It’s not bad per se,” Haruki said. “I’ll have to do a signing event. I was going to do one anyway, but now I’ll have to do it this month.”

Shiori knew exactly what that implied. None of Kazuya, David, or Wes had ever made this type of appearance. They all stuck to private promotions, and even stage events were stressful for them.

Haruki exhaled, trying to convince himself. “No, no, I’ll do it. I’m not going to be afraid of my fans anymore.” Determination settled on his face.

Shiori said seriously, “I’ll tell the team about your contribution. After your sacrifice, we’ll have a bigger budget, so we can increase staff if we plan to run multiple projects. But releasing big anime simultaneously might hurt our profits, awards, market share, all of that. If you keep writing more high-quality anime like Code Geass, it could actually work against us. With this level of quality, even one anime a year is already huge.”

She continued, “But yes, we should hire more people so the production team has more breathing room and pre-production can start earlier.”

“That’s pretty much what I was thinking,” Haruki said. “I’ll ask Kazuya what he thinks. I’m sure he’ll agree. Our studio isn’t built for profit. It’s built to make unforgettable anime. So focusing on one anime and putting everything into it might be the best route.”

Shiori looked thoughtful. “Haruki… recently I’ve heard a lot of people talking about your JoJo manga being adapted. Many studios are interested. Don’t you want to animate it at Evermark? If we make it here, you’ll have full control over how it’s animated.”

Haruki blinked, realizing he hadn’t even considered it. “I didn’t think of that. It could work, but the problem is… if we’re only making one anime a year, I don’t think it fits. This studio, when Kazuya and I created it, was meant for original, bold ideas. I didn’t think about adapting my own manga here. And you know how anime is another way for me to tell more story. I don’t have time to handle more than two serializations, so anime becomes another gateway. "

And adapting it myself would also cut into the world point system gains.

Shiori nodded slowly. “I just brought it up because it’s your work. I thought maybe you'd want to animate it yourself and avoid worrying about another studio ruining it. And honestly, JoJo’s style fits our studio, bold, creative, and different.”

“Well, it could work,” Haruki admitted. “But now that so many studios are interested, it might not be that bad. And we don’t have the resources to animate JoJo anyway. Echo should handle it. It’s the number one manga in their magazine, they won’t do anything careless.”

Shiori folded her hands. “So should I start looking for more animators? Now that we have a successful anime under our banner, a lot of people want to join.”

“Do the initial screening,” Haruki said. “But wait for the final decision until Kazuya gets back. I want to hear what he says.”

Shiori said quietly, “You’ve come a long way, you know. You don’t jump between projects like before.”

Haruki looked at her. “Did I really change that?”

“You did,” Shiori said. “Back then you were always rushing. Now you actually take your time.”

Haruki blinked once, almost surprised. “I… didn’t notice.”

Shiori gave a small nod. “I did.”

Haruki let out a tired laugh. “Well, back then I didn’t know anything. Now you guys have taught me more.”

“That’s my job,” she said. She hesitated for a second, like something was sitting on her mind. “Actually… about what you said earlier. After Code Geass ended, you’ve been hinting that your next anime will be one you direct yourself. The staff have been talking about it a lot.”

Haruki looked away for a moment. “It’s a surprise. And I think everyone will be shocked when they realize I’m the one who wrote this kind of story. It’s my way of rewarding all my fans.”

He said it while looking at the drawing. “I still need time, though. Probably around the midpoint of the Code Geass Season 2 release, we’ll start the initial work. By then I should have the art style perfected. Then we can start for real.”

Shiori nodded. “Okay, so I’ll start early screening for animators.”

“Thank you,” Haruki said.

Shiori stood up and left the office.

Haruki leaned back in his chair for a few seconds before he turned back to his desk and resumed perfecting the art style for the anime he would be directing.

[Note: I want to keep things vague so you can’t guess the project easily, but you can still try narrowing it down. Write your guesses in the comments.]