This wave had propelled GAINAX to success and allowed Sega, an early investor, to reap enormous profits.
But where there are winners, there are also losers.
Other anime airing in the same or adjacent time slots faced a crushing defeat—a dimensionality reduction strike.
Takuya Nakayama closed his notebook and placed it back into the vault.
Sunrise Animation.
This veteran mecha anime studio was currently in a state of turmoil.
As a subsidiary of Sega Holdings, Sunrise's flagship project this year was After War Gundam X.
Premiering in April, they had hoped to reignite viewers' passion on television by relying on the legendary "Gundam" brand.
Instead, they ran head-first into the social-level craze sparked by EVA.
The audience's attention was completely drained.
Ratings plummeted, and commercial performance was disastrous.
Takuya Nakayama picked up the internal directory from his desk and flipped to Sunrise's contact page, but he didn't make the call.
According to industry custom, if a yearly anime series had aired more than halfway and its ratings and merchandise sales failed to meet targets, the sponsors on the Production Committee would step in and apply pressure.
The proposal to cut the number of episodes and bring the series to an early conclusion was probably already being fiercely debated in a Sunrise conference room.
As a major shareholder of Sunrise, Sega could not turn a deaf ear to this matter. Furthermore, the plan to acquire Sotsu required Sunrise's cooperation. If Sunrise's internal morale plummeted due to the failure of Gundam X, and its management became unstable as a result, it would be extremely detrimental to the subsequent copyright integration.
Takuya Nakayama grabbed his car keys and walked out of his office.
"No need to prepare a car, I'll drive myself," he told his secretary as he passed her desk.
In the underground parking garage, the engine roared to life, and the black sedan pulled out of the Sega Headquarters Building.
The autumn wind of Tokyo blew in through the half-lowered window, clearing some of the stuffiness from the car.
The traffic was relatively smooth from Ōta Ward to Suginami Ward.
Sunrise's headquarters was an unremarkable building. Takuya parked his car and walked straight to the main entrance.
There was no warm greeting from a receptionist.
The air was thick with the smell of cheap coffee and stale tobacco.
The animation department was dimly lit. A few key animators were catching up on sleep, slumped over their light tables. Those who were awake were merely flipping through their storyboards with mechanical movements.
Raised voices drifted from the conference room at the end of the hallway.
Through the thin wooden door, the sounds of an argument leaked out unabashedly.
"Ratings have plummeted below expectations! Asahi Television is under immense pressure. We need a decision this month."
This was the voice of the Asahi Television broadcasting representative, his tone uncompromisingly professional.
"Thirty-nine episodes," the head writer, Hiroyuki Kawasaki, countered. "Any fewer, and the main plot will never wrap up. We need time to develop Garrod and Tiffa's romance, and the Satellite Microwave Cannon's mechanics need a proper explanation."
"Kawasaki-sensei, this is no time to discuss artistic creation," the Dentsu representative said, rapping his knuckles on the table. "The sponsors are extremely dissatisfied with current merchandise sales. Bandai's model kit shipments dropped thirty percent last month. The Production Committee has reached a consensus: we need to cut our losses immediately. Who is going to bear the burden of the sunk costs?"
"Then thirty-nine episodes it is," Director Shinji Takamatsu interjected, his voice laced with a sense of reckless desperation. "Any fewer, and I'll just have the protagonist fly the Gundam straight into the moon in the next episode. We might as well cause a broadcasting accident and apologize together."
"Dragging the series out to thirty-nine episodes would push it into December. The network's year-end special programming is already fully booked. The maximum is thirty-eight episodes, and we must wrap up by the end of November. The marginal returns have already hit rock bottom."
Takuya Nakayama stopped in his tracks.
The production assistant assigned to receive him jogged over, his forehead glistening with sweat. He lowered his voice as he reported the situation.
"Executive Director Nakayama. As you can hear, they're still arguing over the episode count."
The assistant sighed, gesturing toward the animation department.
"This has been dragged out for nearly three weeks. With the higher-ups unable to reach a decision, the staff below can't do a thing. The key animators don't know which episodes to draw, and the episode directors don't know how to schedule. Everyone is just waiting for word. This state of limbo is worse than an outright cancellation."
Takuya Nakayama looked at the listless animators.
Animation production was an assembly line. When the script and episode count at the source were stuck, the entire downstream process ground to a halt. The longer this stalemate dragged on, the greater the internal drain on the company.
"Go knock on the door," Takuya Nakayama said, straightening the hem of his suit jacket. "Tell them I've arrived."
The assistant nodded, walked to the conference room door, tapped lightly twice, and pushed it open just a crack.
The arguing ceased instantly.
After a few seconds, the conference room door swung open.
The Dentsu representative plastered on a professional smile.
The Asahi Television representative straightened his posture.
Shinji Takamatsu and Hiroyuki Kawasaki stopped rubbing their temples.
"Executive Director Nakayama, please forgive our lack of a proper welcome."
The group ushered Takuya Nakayama into the room.
The long table was cluttered with storyboards, viewership reports, and merchandise sales data. The ashtray was overflowing with cigarette butts.
Sega's investment share in the Gundam X Production Committee was negligible. Logically, Sega should have had limited say in a meeting that decided the anime's fate.
But notably, no one was settling scores based on such considerations.
Over the past two years, Sega's influence in the anime industry had soared. They had brokered the sale of Japanese animation to Cartoon Network in the United States and established a distribution network for videotapes across the North American market. This strategic combination of overseas distribution had cleared the path for Japanese animation to go global.
More crucially, Sega held the keys to game adaptations. With the Jupiter console and arcade boards in their arsenal, any game Sega greenlit would generate revenue for every member of the Production Committee.
With viewership plummeting and merchandise sales stagnant, no one dared to slight Sega—their golden goose for overseas dollars and game licensing fees.
Takuya Nakayama pulled out a chair and sat down.
"Carry on, everyone." He tossed his car keys onto the table, his tone casual. "I'm curious to hear exactly what the difference is between thirty-eight and thirty-nine episodes."
The conference room fell silent for a few seconds.
The Dentsu representative cleared his throat, breaking the tension.
"Executive Director Nakayama, you're joking. We're simply considering the overall interests of the project. With the ratings falling short, the longer we drag this out, the greater the losses for everyone involved."
The secretary handed over a set of meeting minutes.
Just two thin pages.
They listed the viewership ratings curves and the shipment statistics for the merchandise. The red line trended steadily downward, and the numbers were disastrous.
The demands from Dentsu and Asahi Television were stated plainly: cut the original forty-nine-episode plan down to thirty-eight and exit to minimize losses.
On the Sunrise Production Team's side, Shinji Takamatsu and Hiroyuki Kawasaki were fighting tooth and nail to keep the thirty-ninth episode.
A single episode. That was what they had been deadlocked over in this conference room for three weeks.
Takuya Nakayama pushed the meeting minutes back to the center of the table.
"Everyone, relax." He leaned back in his chair, his gaze sweeping across the people gathered around the conference table. "I've been listening to you argue outside the door for half an hour. I thought this was some irreconcilable, principled disagreement. Thirty-eight episodes or thirty-nine—is this really what you've been fighting about for three weeks?"
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