1988 Retro Game Tycoon - Chapter 138



Only Noblemtl

Episode 138 – Animation Project

Filming Mike Jackson’s music video gave me a lot to think about.

Mike spent his own money to shoot a music video against the wishes of his record label in order to spread his music further, please his fans, and create another music video in a new style.

And he came all the way to Korea.

If it were absolutely necessary, he would not have hesitated to go to a remote area not yet reached by civilization, not even Korea. He was a true professional.

Although it was a short time, he was generous with advice on business matters.

“Namjoon, as an artist, doing what you really want to do is ultimately more helpful for your music and career. People’s advice is important, too. But in the end, the most important thing is the voice inside you. If you can’t hear that, you’re no longer an artist. I’ve seen many people like that. Even among my friends.”

Mike shook his head with a sad expression.

“People who don’t know me just think I’m doing this because I have a lot of money. Even my record label thinks so. That I’m an artist. But people underestimate the power of media. That’s right. I was popular even before music videos. I was so exhausted by the people chasing me. But after I made music videos, I became a musician on a whole different level. I became a real global superstar. I just don’t forget where I came from.”

He stressed to me the importance of media several times.

“Namjoon probably won’t be satisfied with just games. He doesn’t seem like the type of person who would be satisfied with this. I’ll support you no matter what you do. Try to be more active.”

When Mike told me to ‘be more aggressive’, I was a little shocked.

Up until now, whenever I suggested doing something, the response was always, ‘Can that really be done?’ and the look in their eyes was, ‘Why would you go that far?’

But Mike was urging me to move more and not stay still.

This music video was also just a matter of luck; it wasn’t a project I planned or executed on my own.

Although Sega is in charge of global game publishing, it is not the case that they will just sit back and watch.

We need to be more proactive in finding things that we can do, things that only we can do.

Since already had a music video by Jackson, I thought of a way to boost his next project.

There was one method that worked just fine.

“What if we made into an animation? We would hire a great director to produce it, and we would invest in the production costs.”

“Animation? Then is it produced in Korea?”

“No. That would be great, but unfortunately, Korean animation is not yet at a level that can compete with the world. Since we are making animations targeting the global market, we need the highest level of quality.”

“Then again, in Japan?”

I nodded.

Japanese animation occupies a unique position worldwide in terms of quantity and quality, to the point that it is called “Japanimation.”

Especially now, with sci-fi giant robot movies being so popular and there being so many great directors who are good at handling mechanics, it was the perfect time to make into an animation.

Promoting a game is a good thing, but if you do it well with just animation, it can become a huge hit.

Then, it can be expanded upon by making spaceship toys or figures based on it.

I already had an animation director and studio in mind, so I contacted them right away and flew to Japan.

The place I went to was Gainax.

This is the production company that created the anime , which caused a huge sensation worldwide in the late 90s and defined an era.

I sat down with director Hideki Anno, who was much younger than I had expected, with a curly perm and a beard.

Director Hideki Anno nodded and answered after listening to the game we were developing and my thoughts on the animation.

“There’s a game where you go into an enemy base built on the back side of the moon, and they make an animation of it. That’s cool. There’s an original work, and even the design looks good. But can you wait a year or a year and a half?”

“No. I would like to get started right away.”

“Well, then we can’t do it.”

“Is there any reason?”

Contrary to expectations, Director Hideki flatly rejected my offer.

Obviously, Gainax was short on money at the time, so I thought they would be really happy if I offered to invest in the production of the animation…

“This year, I can’t do anything else because I have an anime production project scheduled to air on NHK. That alone will take a whole year.”

Oh, that’s right. At this time, Gainax was in the middle of producing a TV animation called “Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water.”

This is an animation that I like, but I had completely forgotten about it because it was aired in Korea a few years later.

If this happens, I will have no choice but to change my plans.

Even if I demanded a higher production cost and Gainax was blinded by money and agreed, it would be impossible for Director Hideki to properly produce while directing Nadia.

“It’s a shame. I really like the director’s mecha directing···.”

“Have you seen my work? What did you like about it?”

“. Especially the scene where they launch the space rocket was really amazing.”

“Ah! I drew that part. You see? I had a really hard time making it. I drew each piece by numbering it, and I thought my eyes would fall out. But I was really excited about it at the time. Where on earth did all that energy come from?”

Director Hideki Anno got excited and started talking when his own work was mentioned. He seemed like a completely different person than when he listened to my story.

Anyway, animation production here is also a thing of the past. I sat down with a future famous director and chatted excitedly about animation for over an hour.

“Ha! This is really it. It’s really unfortunate that someone with such deep knowledge of animation came to us and we can’t do it. But there’s nothing we can do. In this industry, if you sign a contract with a broadcasting station and then just walk away, you’ll lose your head right away. Ah! Then how about I recommend a brother who can do it better than me? Um… Tomino-nii is always busy with Gundam. What is Oshita-nii doing right now? Just a moment.”

Director Hideki Anno made a phone call to someone and came back smiling brightly.

“Brother Oshita is resting right now. He’s really good at military stuff, so he’d be a better fit for this project than I am. I’ve explained it to you in detail, so let’s meet up.”

“If you say Mr. Oshita, by any chance···?”

“Yes! This is Senior Mamoru Oshita.”

If it’s Mamoru Oshita…?!

He is also the director who directed the century’s masterpiece animation a few years later.

I was worried about who to go to next if I couldn’t work with Director Anno, but luckily I was introduced to another master.

Before I left Gainax, I asked Director Hideki another question.

In fact, the reason I came to Gainax was not just for .

“But doesn’t Gainax also make games? What kind of games are they making these days?”

“Oh, you know that too? Hey, Tagami. The president of a game company from Korea is looking for you.”

Director Hideki arranged for me to meet Mr. Tagami, who leads game development at Gainax, on the spot.

“Oh~, you’re the CEO of Starbeat? Oh my! It’s nice to meet you. These days, whenever I go to the arcade, I always play .”

is now a fairly well-known game in Japan, and thanks to that, the game developer, Mr. Tagami, welcomed me warmly.

“What kind of games is Gainax making these days?”

“It’s not a common genre, but I’m trying to make a game about raising a daughter. Depending on how you raise your daughter, she could become a queen, a demon lord, a painter, or a dancer, and there are a lot of different endings to the game.”

“Oh, that would be so much fun.”

Gainax’s legacy to the world in the 90s isn’t just its famous animations.

They developed the PC game Princess Maker, which established a unique genre called nurturing simulation.

was also extremely popular in Korea, especially the second part.

“Once the development of the voice game is complete, will we be able to sell it in Korea? We are also considering distributing PC games by the end of this year or next year.”

“Huh? You have a really impatient personality. I don’t even know what the game will look like yet.”

“I think it’s going to be a huge hit. It’s going to be hugely popular.”

“Hahahaha! If that were really true, I would have no other wishes.”

“Then, please contact me when you’re done developing. The pace of PC development these days is frightening. In order to survive, you need to prepare in many ways.”

“If we ever sell this game in Korea, we’ll definitely do it with Starbeat. I promise.”

Tagami smiled and shook my hand.

Going forward, we will continue to focus on arcades and console games, but we must not neglect the PC market either.

We need to bring in famous foreign games while porting the games we make to PCs. It will be a difficult business to make a profit on since PCs cannot avoid illegal copying, but it is something that must be done.

After finishing my meeting with Gainax, I went to see Director Mamoru Oshita.

He had just finished working on the movie version of and was taking a break.

“A secret base on the invisible backside of the moon. This looks similar to the I worked on. Oh, of course, that’s a story about a moon colony and the resistance. But, this game is this···”

Director Mamoru Oshita looked through my plans and game-related materials.

I waited quietly, allowing him to examine the materials thoroughly. Director Oshita looked at the materials for a full 30 minutes without saying a word, and then suddenly raised his head.

“Oh, oh, oh. I forgot while looking at the contents. Sorry.”

“No, it’s okay. How are you?”

“I like some of the concepts. First of all, the invisible dark side of the moon, that is, the invisible enemy, right? The hidden enemy is targeting me, and it turns out that it was the distant ancestors of humanity. So, the story that this game wants to tell is that our enemy is always ourselves, but we live without knowing it. The more civilization develops, the more dangerous humanity becomes. Isn’t that the story?”

“Yes, that’s right. Those who are the ancestors of humanity, they devastated the Earth and fled, shamelessly claiming that it was their land. And they don’t even try to coexist with the humans who live on Earth. They are shameless, irresponsible, and greedy. Just like us.”

“That’s right. They do that because they are powerful and think that the strong can do whatever they want. There’s a lot to think about. It’s a critique of imperialism, a warning about environmental destruction, and I like how it contains a lot of the dark side of humanity. The background story at the beginning of the game is also like that.”

“In fact, the highlight of the animation is obviously going to be the battle on the far side of the moon, but I would like to see the background story that wasn’t properly shown in the game be properly explained. I want to show why humanity is in a difficult situation even though it can go to the far side of the moon.”

“Humanity promised to fight together against the sudden invasion of alien civilizations, but when the invasion actually began in earnest, the great powers broke the treaty and refused to help. Even though it was clear that their turn would come, they tried to protect only their own countries, and as a result, all of humanity was driven into a corner. In the end, humanity joined forces to build the last spaceship to protect Earth.”

Director Oshita read a summary of the game’s early story.

“I think this is what would happen if an alien civilization invaded right now. Anno was so excited that he told me to come and meet him, but honestly, at first I thought he was just making a promotional animation for a game where people beat up people and I was planning on giving him a lesson later.”

“Does that mean you’ve changed your mind now?”

“Yes, I’m interested. As I mentioned earlier, wasn’t properly finished. That was always a shame. If we do this, it would be better as a movie or OVA than a TV show. I don’t think it’s long enough to be made into a TV show.”

OVA stands for Original Video Animation, which is animation that is distributed only on videotape. It was very popular in Japan in the 80s and 90s, but soon died out due to the limitations of videotape.

“I would like it to be a theatrical animation. I definitely want to show it in Korea, Japan, and the US, and I hope it will gradually expand to Europe and other countries as well.”

“Then I guess we’ll have to look into a distributor. Do you have enough budget?”

“I’m thinking of something around 500 million to 600 million yen.”

“Is that so? The work I did before wasn’t even half of that, so I think I can work much more abundantly with that. I should also make the marketing more certain.”

Director Oshita’s face suddenly brightened.

The amount I suggested is roughly between 2.5 and 3 billion won in Korean currency.

It’s an amount of money that could be used to make a few more games, but right now our development team is working at full capacity and the cash in our company account continues to pile up.

It’s a lot of money, but it’s not a burden to us right now. It’s not good for money to just pile up without circulating.

And I plan to ask partner companies like Myungsung Electronics or Myungsung Capital if they are willing to invest some of the production costs. If becomes a huge success, it will benefit them too. Reduce the burden and share the profits.

“Overall, it’s good. But, there is one last and most important condition.”

Director Oshita looked straight at me and spoke seriously.

“If I were to direct the animation , it would be my work. I would watch the game content and settings as much as possible, but there may be some modifications. If I had to go through every single review during the production process, I couldn’t do it.”

“You don’t have to worry about that. I also think animation is a separate work. I trust the director’s ability and leave it to you. Just keep the basic settings and the minimum plot. In return, you have to create the best work you can.”

“Ah… I’m a little scared because it turned out like this. Normally, people would object and say, “How can you do that when we’re paying for it?”

“We share a worldview, but games are games and animations are animations. I think that a masterpiece can be created when experts in their respective fields can demonstrate their abilities to the fullest. A game developer can’t tell a director what to do just because he’s watched some animation, right?”

“If you trust me to that extent…. Alright! I’ll try my best too.”

“Thank you!”

After accepting the project, Director Oshita immediately returned to talking about animation.

“The problem with this project is that there is a setting, but no characters or story to fill in the content. First of all, there is no information about who the final pilot who will protect Earth is. If we were to figure out these things one by one, the preparation process could take longer than expected.”

“I think it would be better for the main character to be a bit more thoughtful rather than someone who is too upright. A character who is the best in skills, but is afraid when it’s time to leave, and who is passionate about returning alive even during a mission.”

“I don’t like heroes who are too one-dimensional. Should we develop them further?”

We had an in-depth discussion about the Dark Moon animation.

When I tried to create an animation, I finally noticed the empty space in the story that I hadn’t thought of when creating the game.

Director Mamoru Oshita will not only provide great visuals, but will also use his imagination to fill in the backstory that the game couldn’t show.

My heart is already pounding with excitement wondering what kind of work will come out of it.