You know what it is, right?
The sound club is selling their audio through this website.
Student Council
They seem to be raking it in, too.
And apparently, someone is taking a cut of these profits
as "rent" for providing the Sound Club with a base of operations.
Film
Our screening at the culture festival was a success,
Anime Proposal Boiled Tofu Club
Anime Proposal by the Sepak Takraw Club
which has resulted in requests from several clubs
who want a promotional movie like what we did for the robot club.
The boiled tofu group, the hula dance club,
the sepak takraw club, the choju-giga art restoration club...
The carbohydrates revolution has sent
us a proposal titled "It's Electro-Magnetic Amoeba World!"
That sounds great!
Let's do it! Let's accept them all—
But I turned them all down!
Have you lost your mind, Kanamori?!
Eizouken-Produced Robot Anime DVD Sales & Earnings Robot Research Club (Client) Earnings: 51,000 yen Eizouken (15%) Earnings 9,000 Yen Contract for DVD Production, Sales, other associated fees Eizouken- 10,120 yen 9,000+10,120 (19,120 yen)
The DVD of the robot anime sold 120 copies at a price of 500 yen apiece,
of which the eizouken only came away with 15%—9,000 yen.
This is because the rights to the film belong to the commissioning client,
the robot club.
Even with additional fees for our efforts,
we walked away with just under 20,000 yen.
But the fact of the matter is, at an hourly salary of 1,000 yen,
we put in enough labor to earn 1.8 million yen!
1.8 m-million yen?!
We're students, so it's ultimately fine,
but I consider it to be a major loss for our club.
That's rough.
Business done under a school's jurisdiction has certain pricing expectations
and budgetary constraints
which limit the individual unit price.
Add the limitations of doing a movie for an extracurricular group,
and that limits our potential even further.
Anime Proposal
Carbohydrates Revolution Group
Unless we're working for a particularly popular group,
that means the earnings are going to be thin.
So for the reasons I just explained, I turned down all the offers we received.
M-Makes sense...
To make up for our loss with this incident,
if we sold our DVDs at 1,000 yen a piece,
we would still need to sell 1,780 copies.
Well, that ain't happening!
Nope.
And yet, look at what I found.
"Self-Publishing Exhibition and Sales Event..."
Self-Publishing Exhibition and Sales Event
Comet A?
An event for the display and sales of manga and other self-published works
[Venue] Shibahama Land Sites A & B
Click here for more information
Shibahama Land Site
Shibahama Station
Latest News
What is Comet A?
The History of Comet A
Sales Catalog
Web Application
10 minutes away from Shibahama station on foot, 8 minutes by bus.
For those traveling by automobile, please use the parking lot to the left of the entrance to the venue. Parking Lot Hours: 24 hours a day/No holidays Pricing Information First hour: 400 yen For every additional two hours: 200 yen Capacity: 237 vehicles
For Attendees Guide for First-Time Attendees An Example of a Typical Show Floor MAP Information About Participating Circles A Note on Etiquette
About Us An Introduction Business Information Press Information Information Page Staff Application FAQ
You wanna sell stuff outside of school?
The eizouken needs money to survive!
It's time for a new project!
Let's sell the hell out of some DVDs, you dorks!
Episode 9 Aim for Comet A!
Keep
Your
Hands
Off
Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken!
That building looks like a piece of shortcake!
This leads to the mountain shrine, so I'd guess it was Main Street originally,
but the highway was headed in that direction, and cut it off!
This looks like a bridge, but there's no river.
Correct! There used to be a river.
That's part of why the roads meander so much.
Gives it a particular feel!
Behold! Those poles will split open, firing a missile!
Look at those! Like the top of tanks!
A colossus that no one can see!
Gigantic creatures!
Mobilize the gantry cranes!
I always used to imagine this stuff on the way home from school.
Scorching...
We're gonna get sunburnt.
The dimensional phase-shift vessel!
The water level's risen...
Must be from all the rain yesterday.
It acts like a natural refrigerator...
Stop dawdling, Asakusa. It's obnoxious.
Gotta say, I wasn't expecting you to suggest we go out of our way for lunch, Kanamori.
You'd normally say it's a waste of time.
You're up to something, aren't you?
Hey, what's that?
It's an offering. For kappas.
Kappas?
There are apparently legends about kappas having inhabited Shibahama.
Careful!!
Do not swim in or play
around the waterways
Scary!
Likely because of how pristine the water is here.
Shibahama Underground Shopping Mall
For Your Life In Town
Grilled Thai Cuisine Taitai Pavilion General Store Multi-Tools Grilled Squid Shiba-chan Vietnamese Spring Rolls Beer and Snacks Garden Shibahama Curry Gandala Dandan Noodles Shibajiro Udon-Soba Coin Locker
It's too damn hot, so let's head down there.
The underground! Very shrewd, Kanamori.
I didn't know this was here!
Shibahama gets snowed in during winter, so its underground is pretty developed.
It's just a run-down shopping district now.
Th-This...
Isn't it the legendary spiral staircase shopping district,
which is said to reach deep into the belly of the earth?!
Fruit Dandan Noodles
Let's eat here.
This week's Special: Fruit Ramen!
Star Fruit Dandan Noodles: 800 Yen
Banana Dandan Noodles: POPULAR
Pineapple Dandan Noodles
What the...
Passion fruit Dandan Noodles
Weekdays Only
One Free Substitution
Hey!
You came by!
Hello.
Tsubame Mizusaki
Huh...
That's right! I watched your robot anime at the culture festival!
I remember you!
And afterward, he sent a passionate note of praise.
So that's it.
Y'know, I watch a fair bit of anime, and yours was great! I was moved!
The combination of realistic robot design principles
with fantastical super robot action!
That's the kind of robot anime people like me have been waiting for!
It had the verisimilitude that makes you think
the creators knew their stuff!
And the monster seemed like it'd be right at home
He's actually praising the short.
in the Shibahama underground...
It's incredible you girls managed to pull that off while in high school!
I still feel like we've got too much to work on to accept it openly, though...
You're prodigies!
This is better than I thought.
Yeah, seriously! I didn't think fruit would go well with ramen.
Star fruit has a pretty mild flavor, so there's pear juice in this.
You could even call it pear ramen instead.
It goes to show that a dish can be good
even if the fruit used is barely noticeable, or bad if you notice it too much.
Although part of it being good means
demonstrating what's unique about the fruit used.
You never usually go that deep with your thoughts about food.
I think I get it.
Sometimes you need to smother the taste of the fruit for it to be good.
Welcome!
It's probably a little late to point this out, but this place is built on an angle, huh?
Right. Supposedly part of the reason the noodles are served without broth
is to keep it from spilling out.
One pineapple dandan noodles, and one dragon fruit dandan noodles!
Just between you and me, I've got an incredible idea up my sleeve.
For an anime!
I just have no idea how I'd ever get it made.
You wanna hear?
Uh, sure, sure!
The protagonist is an ordinary guy who works at a
dandan noodle place like this!
But he has a secret identity...
He's actually an agent with the secret police force that protects world peace!
He uses his red pepper bombs to fight off an alien invasion!
Coming!
Sounds good to me. Let's use that for our new project.
The Yoshidas' place is gonna be closing this summer, too.
It's getting more and more lonely around here.
Looks like our film club has a fan!
There are a lot of deserted storefronts.
Not a lot of customers outside of ski season.
Don't play in the river by yourself!
So what are we doing for our next project?
Are we gonna base it on one of Asakusa's concepts again?
Last time, we knew from the outset
it was going to be a robot versus a giant monster...
The first short had a setting from your back catalog of ideas, right, Asakusa?
That was just because we needed something fast, so we chose something simple.
And the second time around, we used the school.
What've you been doing there, Kanamori?
Making posts.
Having fun playing around on social media. Must be nice!
There is nothing fun about social media!
Wait, you're already doing publicity?
Right. It's better to attract eyes beforehand
than trying to get attention around the time of release.
Say butter.
Wait, what?
Is it all right if I post this?
Well, sure, if it gets us attention.
I've been conscientious about likeness rights so far,
but I'd like to set it up so that
only our followers can view the posts with your face in them.
That's fine. My parents handle my management anyway.
I really wish people would pay attention to our projects and not me, though.
I wouldn't worry about that.
The whole intent is to get people to pay attention to the eizouken's output.
We get them to develop an emotional attachment,
(Film) Merchandise in the Works
and stimulate their urge to spend money.
We're selling merch?
There's demand for merchandise.
What kind of Eizouken merchandise would you want? T-shirts Towels Pins Art books
That can be pricey to put together,
but if we measure demand correctly, we can avoid risk.
We can bust our humps working on a new DVD, and it might not sell at 1,000 yen...
But all we need is to stamp the club's logo on a
t-shirt and we can sell that for 2,000 yen.
Even if Tsubame Mizusaki is what got them in the doors,
@ACertainProgramDsAccount and 76 others liked your post.
the number of people who are genuinely interested in our work is increasing.
Part of our goal here is to ensure
Film
everyone who watched our last project picks this one up, as well.
The clips we post might go viral,
giving people an idea of the material we're working on...
Having a large digital footprint can help us in a variety of ways.
You're a social media master.
Wow! That's the Mizusaki bump!
I never realized how important advertising could be.
Long ago, I bore witness to the death of a liquor store!
Fukuya Liquor Store
Fukuya Brewery
Is this the liquor store you mentioned?
Seems busy enough.
My relatives ran it.
It was a drinking spot with a good reputation,
particularly among fans of Japanese sake.
But the owner had a high standard for quality,
which did him no favors with the locals
who just wanted to get hammered at a low price.
That's a shame.
The construction of the monorail
meant that the street trolleys were done away with,
and since people drove more, they couldn't drink as much,
Fukuya Liquor Store
leading to even fewer customers...
Which meant less of an emphasis on brewing,
Fukuya Liquor Store
and by the time my uncle was running it, they called it a general store.
It's a bit more run down, now.
An exemplary general store!
It's so cute!
Look!
Minimori!
What a hard worker.
I heard pensions weren't enough to get by anymore,
so I was trying to earn money apart from just my allowance.
This place looks a lot cleaner! Thank you.
Here's a little tip.
Thank you very much.
You should really wait until you're home to open it...
There's extra.
I wanted to add something special since you come by every day.
I'm gonna clean some more.
Old...
Closed
Hello.
Oh my goodness! You're covered in snow!
Did you walk here? That couldn't have been easy!
You're not going to open the store?
No one's gonna be out in this snowstorm.
Even the convenience stores are closed.
But people need to buy stuff all the time.
If we open up right now, we'll be the only place making money.
I saw footsteps in front of the store, too.
Okay, we'll need that snow shoveled, then!
Okay.
You ever notice the kinds of things she does?
She started shoveling in front of the vending machine, for instance...
That means we can start making money as soon as that bit of snow is cleared.
Hot drinks sell at times like this.
She really is thoughtful.
She's always got her little eyes open.
Did you know she has trouble with math?
When she's got such a mind for business?
Funny, isn't it?
Thing is, you can be a math wiz, but if you don't have a head for business—
the way I don't—it won't matter.
It's all clear.
Attagirl!
No tip this time.
Instead, you can have these. Sell what you've got, and make some money.
Man, it's cold.
Welcome.
Do you have any gloves?
I was thinking about shoveling, but all I had were thin rubber ones...
Oh, not like those.
I was looking for something nice and thick that the snow couldn't soak through.
If you put your rubber gloves on top of these...
Hey, yeah!
Thank you very much.
Already making a sale!
And you sold a single pair of working gloves for 100 yen,
when they're usually a dozen for 300!
Individual sales stack up.
Hey, you're open!
Welcome.
Hey mister, is the vacant lot across from you open?
We were hoping to park there for a bit.
Not a problem.
Is it all right if we eat in here?
Make yourself at home.
We have instant noodles.
Soy Ramen
That's perfect! You got hot water?
We do.
Hey, he says it's okay!
20 yen
Man, this is just what I needed!
Can feel myself warming up!
This is good stuff.
We set out to help folks stuck in the snow, but everywhere was closed!
Even the convenience store, and we were starving! I thought we might be done for!
I never knew a place like this was just across the way...
I'm coming here every week from now on.
I appreciate the thought, but we're actually closing this month.
What, really?
We've been in the red for a while...
Well, it's not the best location.
You're kinda out of the way and hard to notice,
plus there's a convenience store right over there.
It was better when the trains were still running, but...
They never finished that damn monorail, either.
How about you only open up on snowy days?
I don't think we could manage that.
Man, if I had known sooner, I would've told all my pals!
You let our nasty old cars park outside, and you let people stay and eat...
This is a great place.
But I guess since everyone going into the mountains uses the other road...
Thanks, come again.
...well, I guess not.
You're closing even though you could get customers?
You need money to even keep a store open.
Heating, repairs, taxes, insurance...
The money to buy stock and have it brought in,
which goes to waste if anything doesn't sell...
And since we're out of the way, customers just don't come by.
We've been spending all kinds of money, and only surviving off of what was left.
You can't keep a business open with only the odd customer here and there.
No one's gonna come to a store...
...that nobody knows about.
There's no point in focusing entirely on the quality of your product.
You need the right methods and products at the right time,
and you need advertising!
If you think a good product is all it takes to attract customers,
you're dreaming!
You can't do business without promotion,
but without a product, you can't even get started!
High standards aren't enough!
You also need to think about how to loosen people's purse strings!
And I'll make sure people hear about what we make.
About that...
Last time, we used the Shibahama High campus,
but this time, I'm thinking of basing the story in the town itself!
The bizarre terrain and constructions!
A town that's like a watery labyrinth!
Shibahama is a town where you can see the remains of trial and error
throughout history, which makes it fascinating!
It's a treasure chest of concepts! A 4D pocket dimension full of ideas!
The town comes under attack one day!
Zoom Screech Pow
Their enemies are UFOs!
Skeleton
Zap
Rising to the challenge is the anti-invasion weaponry installed
Whoosh Rumble
Fiber Laser! Powerful! Hypothetical scope
An armature was added to prevent the cord from wrapping around it and causing it to fall over, but it still does sometimes A wireless version would be ideal (Uses a cheaper battery and is smaller)
Sci-Fi Ray
Has a stabilizer like a camera that automatically corrects for the turret's shaking Prevents motion sickness, which I appreciate
throughout Shibahama!
Directed Energy Weapon
Its suspension absorbs shock
Generator
Uses two mirrors to generate a powerful laser
Light Generation
High Intensity Mirror
Low Intensity Mirror
Laser
The spiral shopping district rises from the underground!
It launches a fleet of steam tanks!
Can emit propulsion from any direction in order to maintain balance
This is where it's emitted
Looks like an exterior air conditioner but is actually hollow. Houses a ducted fan. Helps with propulsion. Inside will not actually be visible.
Is able to fly by emitting super high-pressure steam
Is able to absorb moisture from the air and convert it into steam. Effective in clouds.
Dips
Pressure Gauge
Some kind of piston
Sit here
Landing gear deployed when taking off/landing.
Ducted fan portion (Directs air inward)
Steam-propelled projected energy attack ship that camouflaged and stationed throughout the city.
Steam Tank
Enemy Fortress
Directed energy weapon (Fixed)
Wind-Powered
The town of Shibahama was outfitted with weaponry!
Directed Energy Weapons
Steam Tanks
Energy Weapon
That's kinda cool!
If we used the town for the setting,
do you think people who live here will be more invested?
Can you wrap this up in 30 minutes?
I'm still figuring out the details.
But regardless, we've got the premise and setting for our next project figured out!
The eizouken's next project...
is the Shibahama-UFO Battle!
123 Days Until Deadline !
Fruit Dandan Noodles
Fruit Noodles
Closed Today
By the way, I heard that the student council started taking the rent I'm paying.
Wait, are we gonna be okay?!
What about the budget for the new project?!
I just finalized a deal where the Shibahama Chamber of Commerce
has agreed to fully finance the short.
That's awesome!
How'd you do it?! Was it thuggery?!
Mr. Kashima from the dandan noodle shop lent his support.
He's the president of the Young Person's Association,
and has been working on local revitalization projects for a while now.
I pitched the idea of a local promotional anime, and they ate it up.
Revitalizing the town through animation!!
• Tsubame Mizusaki will be involved • Entertain kids • Make it an event for the shopping district • Voice acting auditions
Fun!
I didn't know Kashimacchy was into stuff like that!
That's a crazy coincidence...
Wait, Kanamori, did you take us to his shop knowing this would happen?!
All I did was help the two of you brainstorm.
How is the story progressing?
I'm getting there.
Where's Mizusaki?
Over there.
She said she was working on a new model of Adamski saucer.
Let me see the storyboard.
Here's what I've got.
This is all the direction you've given so far?
You're overdoing it again, damn it!
Quit making extra animation work!
It's already done! It'll be fine!
Get down here, now!
Might need a few adjustments, or there could be—
Your little R&D project is canceled!
It's just gonna get shot down by this thing, anyway!
Where's the beam? What about the laser?
Energy weapons weren't originally supposed to be
in the visible spectrum, anyway.
There's no type of light that just zips through the atmosphere like that!
And besides, there are different types of directed energy weapons.
It's not all about lasers, y'know!
And even with lasers, they fire light at speeds the eye can't track,
for only a fraction of a second,
so it's not gonna look like the spotlight at a concert!
Even if it was plasma, there'd be—
You might know what you're saying,
but normal people are going to be watching this.
D-Does it not work?
Wh-What the—?!
What's this sound?
I don't really get all the specifics,
but I was imagining this for after the gun fires.
You can hear fans and chains come in contact.
And the rumble is the excitation of an electric generator.
This really fits the way the concept is conceived.
Save the protracted analysis for the next time we're getting ramen.
Isn't it rattling a bit too much?
Maybe a bit...
What are you talking about?!
This is how it's supposed to sound!
That's not it, the sound is fine...
But I was thinking something more like...
Like that!
And what does that mean?
For the, "Pow!" part, it doesn't need any additional sound!
And then no sound after that!
Oh, so that's how you want it performed.
Performed?
What do you think of her take, Doumeki?
I'm not opposed to it.
That's it... It's a performance.
The reason the plane's interior was pitch black...
It was to demonstrate how vast and bright the sky was.
Everything I've been doing so far has been a performance.
It's been that all along...
To depict a vast, unknown world that you
could never grasp from the glimpse of a single image...
I've been choosing what to draw, and how, all along!
But I never realized that what I was doing was a performance!
Oh, what bitter fruit my ignorance has borne!
Construction and consistency!
The glory that these factors give rise to!
Performance will be how I demonstrate the greatness of the world I've imagined!
And with that being the case, I must consider the issue further!
I ain't drawing no lasers!
Down, girl. Let me explain.
Drawing a cannon that doesn't emit a beam is important to me.
Using this cut, you can make it obvious that the gun is what shot down
the UFO from their relative positions.
But that's not enough to resolve the issue.
You think there'll be dissonance if there's no beam or bullets involved?
Wrong!
Listen up, people...
"This is a directed energy weapon that doesn't project a ray!"
We have to make sure the scene conveys that clearly!
In other words, we add a cut that makes it obvious something was fired,
even if there was no beam!
We beef that sucker up with visual cues for a massive energy expenditure,
whether it was visible or not!
And we need sound, Doumeki!
I get how you want the scene performed, but what are the UFOs here for?
Hey, yeah. Who's in them?
That... I am not sure about, yet.
Actually, why was the town so heavily armed, anyway?
I'm gonna think that up later, too!
For now, our goal is to prepare for Comet A...
By creating the greatest world!
Illustration by: Mari Motohashi