Tokyo Literary Godfather

"What?" Kei Fujiwara frowned at the assistant and asked, "Did Otomo Keiichi say this himself?"

"Yes, President."

"Did you say it in private or..."

"It will be a semi-public occasion, with media reporters present," the assistant said. "Supervisor Otomo said he wants to retire."

"Alas..." Kei Fujiwara rubbed his temples with his fingertips.

What's going on? It's only been a year and a half since I invested in Ghibli Animation Studio, and the founder of the studio seems to have given up. What a big deal, isn't it just a loss of the movie... …

It is a foregone conclusion that "City of the Deep" will lose money. It was released for more than 20 days and only made 1 billion at the box office. If this is a very low-cost film, this box office is still a success.

It's a pity that the investment in animation is relatively high among Japanese movies. It is often several times that of many live-action movies. In particular, Otomo Keiichi shoots hand-drawn animations, which are so detailed that every frame is so detailed that any original painting can be sold for a high price in the collectibles market. Labor costs are even higher.

Although Otomo Keiichi's street lamp pendant is already squeezing painters as much as possible, Studio Ghibli is almost restless, painting with bright lights day and night, and reducing costs as much as possible, but the production cost is still high.

The production budget of the entire film is 580 million yen, which is several times higher than the 120 million production budget of the movie "Confession".

The production budget for Ghibli's two animations was even 2.5 times that of the other three films produced by Mizunami.

Therefore, the production cost of the entire film is very high. Although it is not as good as Hollywood special effects blockbusters, it is still very expensive in the Japanese film market. Therefore, in order to share the pressure and risk, Fujiwara Kei found many investors. Mizumi was not even the main investor, but Dongzhen. So to some extent, Shuibo is not a heavy loss.

Because of the rapid progress of the first two films produced by Shuibo, many people in the film department have unprecedented self-confidence and feel that there is no need for senior executives to find investors. You can bear the cost yourself. If the profits from the first two movies had not been distributed to other investors, then Shuibo Productions would have been able to devour tens of billions of profits. Not only would it have made a lot of money, but it would also have become fully capable.

The senior management is too cautious!

But the box office failure of "The Deep" brought them back to their senses. The movie market is really unpredictable... The market was obviously so optimistic before the release, but it turned out to be shockingly cold after the release.

However, the reviews for "Liang Gui Liang" are extremely good. It has a tendency to make this film a masterpiece of art. Otomo Keiichi is even praised as an animation master rarely seen in decades.

If you think this movie is good, you should go see it! But the fact is that the box office of this movie is so low that it cannot even recoup its original cost. It has only been more than half a month, and the film schedule has been greatly reduced, and many theaters have even begun to cancel the film in advance.

It’s really confusing...

Therefore, the previous impetuousness disappeared instantly, and the cruel environment kept people awake.

At the same time, he also admired Kei Fujiwara even more. What caused headaches for other senior executives was that the personality cult that pervaded the entire company became even stronger. Because everyone feels that this movie failed because Kei Fujiwara had almost no creative intervention.

Otherwise, once President Fujiwara takes action, the box office will easily reach tens of billions!

The box office failure of "City of the Deep" also disappointed investors. The higher the expectations, the stronger the disappointment. Investors don't care how high the reputation and historical evaluation of this film are. They only see that their investment has been wasted.

But no one complained about Kei Fujiwara. After all, no one can promise that the movie will make money 100%, and there is no such thing as a profit-making project. What's more, although Studio Ghibli has a stake in Mizunami Production, its operations are relatively independent. It would be inappropriate to vent this disappointment to Mizunami Production.

But there is still a follow-up impact, that is, investors have become less trusting in Studio Ghibli as a whole, even including the upcoming "Your Name". One of the investors, Dongying, decided to withdraw its investment.

Fujiwara Kei didn't bother with them. The missing funds were directly filled by the headquarters, and Shirai Eiji came in at this time. I don't know where the information came from. He heard that Toei divested its investment in "My Name". After that, he immediately requested to increase investment in the film on behalf of Nippon Animation Pictures, just to make up for the missing share.

"Aren't you afraid?" Kei Fujiwara looked at Eiji Shirai and said with a joking smile, "After all, the market's evaluation of Ghibli has dropped a lot, and it also no longer trusts the animation business produced by Mizuha."

"This is not the first time the market has made a mistake." Shirai Eiji said, "Those fools have been in business for a long time, and they have begun to have strange fantasies about making only profits but not losing money. How can there be such a business in the world? What are they doing? Everything is risky, take bigger risks and make more money.”

Eiji Shirai said, and suddenly added: "By the way, you are one of the main creators of the movie "Your Name", right?"

"…Yes. I'm the writer and art director."

"Then I'm relieved, I will definitely invest more!"

At the same time, "Your Name" director Oshii An himself was lying on the toilet vomiting frantically.

And his newlywed wife was standing behind him, holding out her slightly bulging belly, stroking his back with her palms to help him calm down.

The bride looked at her husband with helpless eyes, then looked down at her belly and sighed.

It seems that he is the one who is pregnant...

Oshii-an took the time to get married during the production of "Your Name". The object was a female painter who escaped from the Toani Building together. The two were not in the same working group, and they were not acquaintances, let alone They dated, but because they experienced a catastrophe together and witnessed the death of their companions, they felt sympathy for each other.

Later, Oshii-an and Otomo Keiichi founded Ghibli, and when they were looking for painters, this female painter applied, and they became close to her over time. But this boy Oshii-an was really careless and got the woman pregnant. Because Oshii-an entered the religious order, he did not want to have an abortion, and he also felt that the woman seemed suitable to accompany him throughout his life, so he asked Otomo Keiichi to be the witness, and held a simple wedding in an emergency, planning to wait until "Your Name" was officially released. , and then hold a formal wedding.

However, as his wife's pregnancy became obvious, Oshii-an himself began to suffer from morning sickness. He vomited almost every two or three days, and the vomiting became more and more frequent.

His wife joked that he also had one in his belly, but in fact, with the box office failure of "Deep Sea City", Oshii An felt more and more mental pressure.

Especially Otomo Keiichi came to him for a drink one night. When talking about the failure of this movie, Otomo Keiichi said with some sadness: "The failure of this movie was beyond my expectation. I didn't expect to lose, let alone... I thought I would lose so miserably..."

"I thought that the good days of Japanese local films had come, and I could easily copy the success of Kei Fujiwara. But now it seems that this person is indeed extraordinary, and I am not as good as him."

"I plan to retire. After I retire, Ghibli's future will depend on you. Your "Your Name" must be a success..."

As soon as he finished speaking, Oshii-an felt a strong pressure in his chest, which made it difficult for him to breathe. Then, the pressure was transmitted to his abdomen. He couldn't help but vomited everything he had just eaten. Come out!