Outbreak Company: Volume 4, page 6
part #4 of Outbreak Company Series
“Make that part of the production, too, then.”
Nowadays, every time some aliens or alternate-dimensional humans show up in a movie, someone makes up a language for them that the actors have to speak. Especially in pseudo-documentaries.
“But does this suggest that you intend to create... a theatrical feature?” Matoba-san asked doubtfully. “Isn’t there some concern about maintaining consistency?”
“Sure. But listen,” Minori-san said, “we don’t make a full movie, just a making-of thing. ‘Peek behind the scenes!’ That’ll convince people, and it will be a lot cheaper and less time-consuming than screwing around making an actual movie.”
“Then later we say that budget or rights or whatever killed the thing.” I grinned.
I’d heard (again from my light-novel-author dad) that that sort of thing was common enough. How many times have we seen people get excited because Hollywood said they were going to turn some anime or manga into a movie, only for the project to languish in production hell for years and years? If it happened one more time here, no one would be surprised.
“Matoba-san. Could you get us some film gear?”
“Hmm...” Matoba-san crossed his arms and made a thoughtful noise. “I’ll manage it somehow. If all we need is a little equipment, things should stay fairly cheap. If I tell the higher-ups that we’ll take care of the video problem, I don’t think they’ll raise a fuss.”
“Oh, and I need some voice actors, if you can wrangle them.”
“Voice actors?”
“You might have to pretend you need them to collaborate with the JSDF on something. That means maybe you’ll have to tell them that the production has the blessing of the Japanese government. And a government production might not get away with just subtitling the Eldant stuff. You wouldn’t have to bring the VAs over here or anything.”
I imagined Myusel or Petralka or Elvia being dubbed by this or that popular actress. Ahhh! It was enough to make me giddy!
Er... This definitely didn’t have anything to do with guilt. I was just really dedicated to finding the most effective way to make our video believable. I was definitely not taking this as an opportunity to shake hands with my favorite VAs, get their autographs, or whatever. Not thinking about that for a second!
...Okay, I know I sound kind of unconvincing at this point.
“Fine,” Matoba-san said. “I’ll work it out with my superiors.”
“Yes, please,” I said.
Yesss! At least we would have a way to film.
“But Shinichi-kun, what about a script?”
“That’s a very good question...”
Yes, it was just a making-of thing, but without a story, no one would know what to say. Try to improvise, and things always break down.
Still, that meant we basically had a week or so to go from story concept to finished script...
“Maybe you could write it, Shinichi-kun?”
“Uh, maybe not...”
I mean, yes, my dad was a light novelist. But I had never written a script or a book. I was a 100% consumer-side otaku.
I had seen my dad doing serious battle with deadlines more than once, and I had an idea that it wasn’t a lot of fun. That left me not very eager to try it myself.
Besides, writing a completely original story and writing something that cohered with an already existing video demanded different skills. (Something else my dad said.)
I mean, it was practically a derivative work, and—
“Hey...”
That’s right.
I knew the perfect person. Someone very close to me.
“It’s going to be all right, Minori-san.”
“Huh?”
“I have an ace up my sleeve.”
Then I gave her an exuberant thumbs-up.
It was the day after I had spoken to Minori-san and Matoba-san about the video problem.
Classes were over, and I was in the school library talking to my “ace.”
“Eduardo, have you ever felt like you’ve got a story inside you that you would love to write?”
“That’s a good question...”
Eduardo was sitting across from me. This is the guy I mentioned: the one who was totally obsessed with translating, to the point that he actually made the jump into fan fiction.
I had since realized that it had been less than a month since we had imported the anime and light novel versions of Order of the Dark Knights, which meant Eduardo had binge-watched the anime, read through the entire novel, and produced his sequel all within that time span.
That meant he had to be a pretty quick writer, right? That was what gave me the idea to let him handle the script for our “movie.”
Granted, no one person is good at everything, so there were no promises that he would be able to manage it.
“You know... I’d like to do something with magical girls.”
“A magical girl piece, huh?”
He was in deep.
“Like Rental☆Madoka or Prepure.”
“Ooh! Rental☆Madoka! Now that’s a great series!”
“Isn’t it? Madoka is such a go-getter!”
“Mikan’s adorable, too!”
“When Minami-san got her head cut off, I had no idea what was going to happen, but—”
“But bringing her back as an employee at the ghost company? What a twist!”
All of a sudden, we were just two excited otaku.
Wait. This wasn’t the time to be getting all moe about Rental☆Madoka!
“Uh, anyway. Any other ideas you’ve had?”
“I’d like to do a school series.”
Hm. Understandable enough.
“But you would want to set it in this world,” I said, folding my arms in thought. “I mean, there are plenty of school dramas that don’t actually show any school. As long as the main characters are students, I guess... Or would you have it so that there was a normal school over here?” I continued to ruminate. “I guess schools in fantasy settings are common enough these days. Meaning... you have a heroine who passes for a normal student, but in reality she’s a magical girl who fights bad guys.”
“Yeah, I see.”
“But during the fighting, the bad guy lays a trap, and uses this out-of-control magic to open a door to another dimension...”
“Mm-hm, mm-hm.”
“And the boy who appears from it...”
“A boy, got it.” Eduardo was writing down my ramblings as quickly as I could think them up.
“Behind him is an army no one’s ever seen before.”
“An army...”
“The magical girl thinks the army is a bunch of magic-users the bad guy summoned from another world or something, but she’s wrong. It’s actually the JSDF, and they’re not enemies. They just wandered into that dimensional door. They can’t communicate with the magical girl, so there’s a fight... But then the guy who came with them helps explain things and clear up the misunderstanding. Hang on... But then how is the guy communicating with her? Okay. So it’s the reverse. The boy and the magical girl come from the same world, but in the past a similar accident sent him to this other world, and now he’s coming home. That’s why he can speak the languages of both worlds. Yeah. That’ll work.”
“That makes sense.”
“The problem is the magical girl... How do you think she became magical?”
“‘Became’ magical? What you mean?”
“I know magic is normal in this world, but if she just uses the same spells everyone else can, then she’s not really magical magical, you know?”
“You’re absolutely right!”
“The magic a magical girl uses needs to be... How do I put this? Way, way more powerful and versatile than whatever a normal person can do.”
“That’s a great idea!”
“Oh, just to be sure, but we can have her be one of those magical girls who transforms in order to use magic and fight the enemy, right?”
“We sure can!” Eduardo nodded.
In the grand scheme of magical girl shows, serious, darker battle pieces were relatively new, sort of a branch of the genre. But we wouldn’t worry about that.
“Let’s see... Why is our magical girl special... Hmm...” Eduardo drummed the table with his fingers as he spoke. “I’d like to have her make some kind of contract in order to gain her powers...”
“Yeah, exactly. You’ve got to have a scene where she resolves to fight. We definitely want a contract to mark that out. For sure.”
“I know, right? But who or what does she make the contract with?”
“A contract... Contract... How about some dark corporation?”
“Wouldn’t that be pretty much the exact plot of Rental☆Madoka?”
“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” I said.
“Hmmm...”
Eduardo and I sat with our arms crossed, staring at the ceiling.
The way we were sitting there muttering was pretty much the image of a manga artist or a novelist with writer’s block, but unfortunately we were just amateurs. We could mutter all we wanted, and it wouldn’t bring us any ideas.
“How about a break?” I suggested at last.
“Yes. I’m just going to go wash my face.” Eduardo nodded, then headed out of the library, looking very tired. Watching him leave, I contemplated how hard it actually was to come up with an original story on the spot.
“Nothing less from you, Shinichi-kun.”
The words came from Minori-san, who was sitting a short distance away and had been keeping an eye on our conversation. She sounded vaguely amused.
“What do you mean by that?” I asked warily.
“Just listen to the talk pour out of you. Come to think of it, your dad is a light novel author, isn’t he?”
“Yeah, talk,” I said wryly. “We didn’t actually achieve anything.”
“You think? It sounded to me like you came up with an entire world and a general plot outline.”
“A world? Buh. We came up with some characters. Now we have to try to shoehorn soccer in there somewhere as a form of ‘diplomacy.’”
What we really needed was a story that could accommodate magic, fantasy, and the JSDF. There were only so many scenarios that could handle all those ingredients. The story that popped into my head was about a Japanese guy who got spirited away to this other world and yadda yadda yadda.
“I did see my dad hashing things out with his editor,” I said. What kind of story and setting did they want? What kind of developments would make it believable? And who would need to show up in it?
According to my dad, there were basically two types of light novel authors. You have the inspired types, who get an idea out of thin air and then hammer out a couple hundred pages, going mostly by feel; and then you have the ones who value skill and experience, building up a world and a story through logic and background.
My dad was definitely the second type.
That meant all my life, I had seen him on long phone calls, fleshing out details with his editor, trying to produce a new story. I admit I was pretty confused the first time I heard him blandly declare, “Okay, considering where we want to go with this, I’ll kill off ten or twelve people. Sound good?”
“I guess on some level, I’m imitating my dad’s working style,” I said. “So maybe it does make a difference that he’s a writer. But seriously, it’s just kind of monkey-see, monkey-do.”
“I only ever read, myself, I don’t write, so I think it’s pretty amazing.”
“Gee... I wonder.”
I’ve got to admit, it felt pretty good to be complimented. Especially by a gorgeous older woman like Minori-san. I felt the edges of my mouth tug into a smile.
“I’m sure if you tried, Minori-san you could—”
“If I were capable of writing word one, believe me, I would have done that story featuring you as a total bottom ages ago.”
..............................Thank you, God, from the bottom of my heart, that Minori-san only ever reads.
“Oh, hey, on a different subject...” Minori-san leaned forward slightly. “How are you going to handle costumes?”
“Huh? I figured I’d get Matoba-san to find something that looked about right...”
It was pretty easy these days to go to a store and get cosplay outfits.
“But you’re going to use them in an original production. Isn’t that asking for trouble?”
“Er... I guess you’re right.”
Most of the costumes sold in stores were based on popular anime and manga and games. In other words, if we used them as-is, we would just be ripping somebody off. Of course, it might be possible to do a few simple alterations to make them look new, but... supposing we botched it? The jig would be up then and there, especially in comparison with the convincing (because real) JSDF uniforms and Eldant outfits.
The chances of something going wrong seemed even higher with a magical girl show.
“Say, uh...” Minori-san looked at me beseechingly from behind her glasses. W-Wait a minute... When did she learn to do something so cute?!
As I sat there moe-ing out, Minori-san said, “Maybe I could—I mean, if it’s all right, maybe I could make the costumes.”
“What, you?”
“I don’t think I could handle all of them by myself, but maybe the ones for the main characters. The stuff that’s going to be on-screen a lot. You know how close-fitting the outfits in magical girl shows tend to be. They need to be tailored for the person who’s going to wear them, or they’ll look wrong.”
“Ahh... Yeah, you’re right there.”
“And think of all the problems we might have if we just used pre-made stuff. Girls’ school uniforms or whatever.”
“True enough.”
“Anyway, this is your big chance, right? Aren’t you just dying to dress Myusel in some Gothic Lolita getup, or Elvia in a shrine maiden’s robe?”
I caught my breath.
Here was a girl who knew what she was talking about......!
No, no, no.
But hey... there was an idea here.
I shuddered to realize the unplumbed depths of Minori-san’s otaku-dom. With her around, I (as general manager) could stick to general managing, and not have to get down into the weeds. Right?
But let’s put that aside for a second.
“Minori-san, are you...”
“Yes?”
“...a layer?”
“Uh-huh.”
She nodded assiduously.
Layer. That is to say, a cosplayer.
The term refers to people who like to make and wear clothing that looks like the stuff worn by characters in anime and manga. Now I remembered seeing a blog somewhere on the net that mentioned how some layers like to imagine dressing up other people, or enjoy coordinating outfits that others then wear.
“Shinichi-kun, does this mean you don’t do cosplay?”
“I can’t say I ever have.”
Think about it: What would be the point of a home security guard like me doing cosplay? Whatever else it might be, cosplay normally involves being seen by other people.
“Aw, it’s fun,” Minori-san said. “You can become someone else.”
She did make it sound kind of nice.
“Someone else...” I murmured.
Someone else. Someone other than who you are now. A temporary escape from reality.
An image of Petralka flashed through my mind.
“Cosplay is a good way to refresh yourself, too, right?” I asked. “To chase the blues away, you might say.”
“Sure,” Minori-san said. Then a bit of a pained smile crossed her face. “In fact, that was mostly why I did it.”
To become another person... to feel differently.
What if I were to suggest that Petralka try cosplay? It looked like she was having a rough time with the job of being empress, like the position was threatening to overwhelm her. If I could give her an opportunity to forget about her royal duties, even for just a little while, wouldn’t that be a good thing? Then again, it might be too much to ask Minori-san to do both the costumes for the movie and a cosplay outfit for Petralka.
Wait. So what if Petralka were in the—
“That’s it!”
“What’s it?”
“Er, nothing,” I said. I hadn’t meant to say anything about it out loud. “Speaking of becoming someone else, Minori-san, what kind of cosplay do you do?”
Her answer surprised me: “I do men and men only.”
Men only? Did she mean, like, male characters? With that chest?! And that face?!
“How could you waste such a golden opportunity?!”
She could’ve at least been a maid. But there were cat ears to consider. Gothic loli! Even a shrine maiden outfit! Or the evergreen “bikini armor”...
“I’m sure any of those things would look—”
“Oh, hey, I wanted to mention,” Minori-san said, interrupting me. “The girls’ school uniforms in the movie—I think red plaid for the skirt is definitely the way to go.” She clenched her fist to emphasize her point.
I imagined Myusel in a red-plaid skirt and almost reflexively clenched my fist in the exact same way.
But wait just a minute...
Huh? Did she just change the subject on me?
And... hadn’t this happened before?
Was I in danger of stepping on a land mine?
I was just giving Minori-san my most perplexed look when—
“Shinichi-sensei!”
Eduardo rushed into the library, excitedly calling my name. Sometimes the Japanese say “I’ll go wash my face” just as a figure of speech, but apparently he had really meant it, because he dashed back in with water still dripping from his hair. As if he had been in such a hurry, he hadn’t even had time to dry off.
What could have him so excited?
“What if the party to the contract and the thing that creates the interdimensional door are both the bad guy?!”
“Huh...? Oh... Oh, I get it.” It took me a second, but I quickly grasped what Eduardo was getting at. He was talking about our magical girl discussion. He must have had a flash of inspiration while he was busy washing.
