Takuya Nakayama offered his advice. "Wait for the next generation of consoles. Once the polygon count and storage media take another leap forward, you might be able to make this a fully 3D, interactive cinematic game. When that time comes, you won't have to make any compromises."
Hideo Kojima stared at the storyboards on the table, his brow furrowed into a tight knot. Once a creator's desire to express a vision is ignited, it is hard to suppress.
"Or, we could take a different path," Takuya said, shifting his tone as he glanced at Mamoru Oshii, who was smoking nearby. "If your main goal is simply to tell this story, and you're not so set on the interactivity of the player's direct control, why not just make it an anime?"
Kojima snapped his head up.
"Sega could fund it and set up a dedicated animation project team," Takuya continued, dangling the bait. "Release it as an OVA. And you can be the director."
"I've never directed an anime before," Kojima said, rubbing his hands together, his voice betraying an irrepressible eagerness.
"We've already got a master right here," Takuya Nakayama said, jerking his chin toward Mamoru Oshii. "You two were just discussing storyboards together. Putting together a production team won't be hard. Director Oshii will act as your executive producer and oversee the project, handling all the technical issues. You just focus on cramming your Hollywood-style storyboards and script into it."
Mamoru Oshii blew a smoke ring. "My fees aren't cheap."
"Sega can afford it," Takuya Nakayama replied, then turned to Hideo Kojima. "But there's one condition. Budget control has to be written into the contract. You can't pull the same stunt you do in game development—spending two weeks with the whole team obsessing over the bloom effect for a single cutscene. Every frame of cel animation is money."
Kojima nodded repeatedly, his mind already sketching out the opening shot of the first episode.
"One last thing," Takuya Nakayama said as he stood up and straightened the hem of his jacket. "When you make a game, players buy it for the gameplay. When you make an OVA, you need to figure out what's going to make people spend money on a videotape, beyond your hardcore sci-fi shell. Don't make it too obscure. I don't want a repeat of Shochiku's disaster last year."
Mamoru Oshii crushed his cigarette butt into the ashtray and let out a rare laugh.
"Rewrite the proposal and submit it to me," Takuya Nakayama said, pausing at the door to glance back. "By the way, I've booked a table at that izakaya in Shinjuku for tonight. I've included Gabriel in the count."
The door closed again.
The hallway lights were bright.
Takuya stretched his arms wide and headed toward the elevator.
Dragging a cinephile, who's been held back by the limitations of game hardware, into the world of animation—this kind of cross-disciplinary experiment might just spark a unique chemical reaction for Sega's IP portfolio.
As for whether Hideo Kojima can make a name for himself in the anime industry, that's a problem for the budget report to worry about.
In a private booth at the Shinjuku izakaya, the three of them sat around a low table.
Gabriel, as usual, was sprawled at the edge of the tatami mat, occupying his designated territory.
Takuya had ordered three portions of Wagyu, fulfilling the promise he'd made last time.
The owner personally brought the dishes over, adding an extra plate of un-ordered pickles as a courtesy to a regular customer.
Hideo Kojima sat against the wall, an untouched glass of sake before him. His eyes were fixed on the tabletop, but his mind was clearly elsewhere.
"You've lifted your chopsticks three times since we walked in, only to put them back down each time," Mamoru Oshii said, dipping a slice of Wagyu into soy sauce before popping it into his mouth. "If you don't eat, the meat's going to get cold."
"I'm thinking about the project," Hideo Kojima finally said, picking up his chopsticks. But after grabbing a piece of beef, he paused with them suspended in mid-air. "With an OVA, I can control the narrative pacing completely. I won't have to worry about the player's controls. The first five minutes—the panoramic shot of the space station, the close-up of blood droplets floating in zero gravity—these are visuals that static CG in a text adventure just can't convey."
He stuffed the beef into his mouth, chewed twice, and started talking again.
"But the problem is the locked-room murder in the third episode. I'd originally designed an interactive sequence where the player examines the evidence themselves. If I change that to animation, the audience becomes passive recipients of information. The suspense will be diminished."
Takuya Nakayama took a sip of his drink without interrupting.
When Hideo Kojima entered this state, external interference was pointless.
"What if we do both?" Kojima's eyes lit up with a new idea, his chopsticks tracing a circle in the air. "Release the OVA first to establish the world-building. Then, release an interactive version that lets players build upon the OVA's plot—"
"Budget," Takuya Nakayama said, his voice a mere two syllables.
Kojima shut his mouth.
Mamoru Oshii reached for the sake carafe and filled Kojima's cup to the brim.
"You have the exact same flaw I had when I was young," Mamoru Oshii said, setting the sake carafe back on the table. "You want to experiment with every medium, push every frame to its absolute limit. Then you realize the budget only covers one of them, and you still have to cut a third of the shots."
"So how did you make those choices back then?" Hideo Kojima asked, lifting his glass.
"I didn't. I just forced it. And then the people at Shochiku smashed a glass."
Takuya Nakayama nearly choked on an edamame bean.
Oshii, unfazed, poured himself another drink.
"That's why I'm box-office poison now. It's not exactly a glowing endorsement of my track record."
"But the tapes sold very well in North America," Kojima defended him.
"That was Executive Director Nakayama's credit, not mine." Oshii raised his glass and gestured toward Nakayama. "I was only responsible for filming it. How it's sold, who it's sold to—I've never concerned myself with those things. For a creator to worry about distribution channels is an insult to their own professional competence."
"If the people at Shochiku heard you say that, they'd smash another glass," Nakayama said, shaking his head.
"They have plenty of glasses in stock."
Kojima burst out laughing, spilling a few drops of sake on the table.
Taking advantage of his lowered guard, Mamoru Oshii refilled his glass.
"Take your time. No rush," Oshii said, picking up a skewer. His tone was casual. "Planning is one of those things—the more you rush it, the worse it gets. Drink up. Sometimes you can figure things out when your brain is a bit fuzzy that you just can't when you're clear-headed."
Hideo Kojima found the logic sound.
He lifted his glass and drained it.
Oshii refilled it.
Kojima drained it again.
Oshii kept pouring.
Takuya Nakayama watched this cycle repeat four or five times and felt the need to intervene.
"Director Oshii, are you trying to get him drunk?"
"I'm helping him relax," Oshii replied, his expression unchanged, the sake carafe in his hand steady. "A creator's biggest enemy isn't the budget—it's anxiety. Right now, his mind is consumed by the choice between the OVA and the game. Decisions made in this state of mind are almost bound to be regretted. It's better to let the brain shut down for now and reboot tomorrow."
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