The calendar was inching toward June, and Tokushima was already starting to feel summer rise under the skin - the kind of heat that made the air heavier, the hallways stuffier, and the studio's routine that much more exhausting.
It was in that atmosphere that Yumi showed up at Yume Animation.
She wore a long emerald-green dress that drew attention without begging for it, light high-heeled sandals that clicked softly against the floor, and a neatly set beret that felt like her personal signature. Her legs were bare - fair, straight, carefully kept - standing out against the building's practical, unglamorous atmosphere. She crossed the studio with the ease of someone who didn't need to ask for space. After all, that office belonged to the shareholders, and whether anyone liked it or not, she'd invested enough money to have the key.
Next door, in an improvised meeting room, Sora Kamakawa was running a briefing with the entire staff.
The Natsume Yuujinchou project - Natsume's Book of Friends - had finally left the realm of talk and entered real pre-production. And "pre-production," in practice, meant alignment, schedules, task distribution, and that invisible weight that appears when everyone realizes at the same time that the real work is about to begin.
Twenty minutes later, Sora stepped into Yumi's office with Sumire right behind him, her arms loaded with a stack of documents that looked far too big for someone so slender.
"Sorry, Yumi-san…" Sora offered a polite smile, his mind still half-stuck in the meeting he'd just left. "We've already kicked production off, so things got a little hectic."
He had no reason to dislike her. As an investor, Yumi was… surprisingly manageable. At least so far, she hadn't tried to control content, demand random changes, or "give input" the way someone does when they buy a toy and suddenly think they understand engineering because they paid for it.
Sora had seen that kind of hell before - people who insisted on swapping episode directors, changing animation supervisors, replacing voice actors, rewriting the entire tone of a work… like anime was a catalog item you could customize to match your personal taste. Yumi, for now, seemed to understand the basics: creators couldn't do their job with someone breathing down their neck every second.
"No need to apologize." Yumi replied calmly, but her eyes were sharp, assessing the two of them like she was reading a market chart. "Stay busy. That's why I'm here."
She looked at Sora first.
Simple T-shirt, track pants, the kind of ordinary student look you'd pass on the street and forget five minutes later. And yet, behind that normal appearance, there was something that didn't match his age: the posture of someone already used to making decisions under pressure.
At first glance, no one would guess that this eighteen-year-old was the most talked-about name in the industry these past months - the core figure behind Voices of a Distant Star, the animation praised by so many… and hated with the same intensity by those who couldn't forgive how brutally emotional its ending had been.
Then Yumi's gaze shifted to Sumire.
A white dress, pale skin, a cool presence - not arrogance, but composure. Sumire had a kind of beauty that felt quiet, steady, almost distant. Yumi considered herself beautiful, had always been treated as beautiful… but in front of Sumire, she couldn't pretend she clearly held the advantage.
The most shocking detail was simple: in most studios, two people their age would be making coffee, carrying boxes, and learning to survive on polite humiliation. At Yume Animation in Tokushima, they were director and assistant director on a production that already had money, attention, and expectations attached to it.
Yumi exhaled, like someone deciding to cut straight to the point.
"Since you're both in the middle of this rush, I'll say what I'm thinking." She rested a hand on the back of the chair, leaning in slightly. "I want you, Sora-kun - and you too, Sumire-san - to create verified accounts on Natsuyume as soon as possible."
They blinked.
"…Huh?" Sora let it slip before he could stop himself.
"Verified… accounts?" Sumire echoed, hesitating as if she'd heard it in another language.
Their expressions were enough for Yumi to confirm the obvious.
People who knew how to make anime… rarely knew how to market anime.
She cleared her throat and continued, now with the tone of someone explaining something simple to very intelligent people who just happened to be completely out of their depth in this particular area.
"As the investor, I'm already prepared to push Natsume Yuujinchou hard over the next few months using my profile. I've mentioned that before." She paused, letting the question hang without needing to say it out loud. "But you're not going to just sit there and wait for me to do everything, are you?"
Sora swallowed, because - honestly - that was exactly what he would've done.
"In this process, you need to appear, too." Yumi tilted her chin, practical. "On Natsuyume, there's a huge crowd obsessed with Voices of a Distant Star. And they're curious about the 'face' behind the work. In this case… you."
A cold knot formed in Sora's stomach that had nothing to do with air conditioning.
A public account. Comments. People. Attention.
Even in his previous life, he'd never been the type for social media. It always felt like an uncomfortable stage - like a display case where every small movement became something to judge. And now… he had to step into it because it was necessary.
Sumire raised a hand, cautious, as if she didn't want to sound stubborn.
"But… why me too? I'm just the assistant director…"
Yumi let out a short, almost amused laugh.
"'Just'?" She stared at Sumire as if that were an accidental joke. "You're the assistant director. And on top of that… you're a young, pretty assistant director. You have no idea how much damage that does to otaku. It's free publicity."
The way she said it - for your own good - carried a confidence that was almost irritating.
Sora and Sumire exchanged a look. It was strange. Uncomfortable. But also… logical.
Yumi had put tens of millions of yen into this. This wasn't the kind of investment you fought over out of pride just because you didn't like the idea of registering an account online.
"Fine…" Sora gave in first, more out of fatigue than agreement.
Sumire nodded right after, still wearing that expression of someone who'd rather be organizing spreadsheets than existing on the internet.
Satisfied, Yumi sat down and turned on the office computer like she owned the place - and, in practice, she did.
"Come on. Click here." She started directing them without ceremony. "Now here you request verification. Upload your information, prove your connection to Voices of a Distant Star… good. That way, Natsuyume officially marks you as the director and assistant director of the work."
Sumire did everything with precision, but with zero enthusiasm.
Sora, on the other hand, moved like he was signing a contract he hadn't read.
"And then you'll upload a photo." Yumi added, as if it were the most obvious step in the world. "Fans want to see what you look like. Especially now that everyone already has an opinion about you."
Sora opened his mouth to protest, but she'd already lifted her phone.
"Forget it. I'll take it myself. You two look incapable of taking a selfie without coming off like wanted fugitives." She aimed the camera - and before either of them could properly prepare, the shutter clicked.
Not long after, both profiles were live.
Then Yumi logged into her own Natsuyume account and drafted a short, surgical post: a brief introduction to the anime she was funding, the official account for Natsume Yuujinchou, and below it, two links - the verified profile for Sora and the verified profile for Sumire.
Posted.
The effect was immediate.
Yumi wasn't just some random investor on Natsuyume - she was one of the platform's biggest voices in the animation space, someone who could cause waves with a single comment. Her followers - over twelve million - were notified the moment she published anything. Plenty of people clicked expecting another casual update, maybe a rant about "trash anime this season."
Instead, they found this.
You disappear for days and it's because you went to Tokushima to invest in an anime?
Confusion spread fast.
The title Natsume Yuujinchou slipped past many at first glance - strange, hard to place, not instantly readable. But the two verified accounts linked beneath it… those were impossible to ignore.
Director of Voices of a Distant Star: Sora Kamakawa.
Assistant Director of Voices of a Distant Star: Sumire.
The reaction was the usual mix of shock and unhealthy curiosity.
"WHAT DO YOU MEAN?"
"YOU KNOW THEM?"
"SO THAT'S WHAT YOU'VE BEEN DOING?"
Fans swarmed Sora's profile first.
The first thing they saw was his photo sitting in an office chair - relaxed posture, a smile that was far too mild for someone who'd emotionally wrecked so many people. Young. Handsome. Looking like an ordinary student.
Which only made them angrier.
Because that friendly face was, in their eyes, the mask of a criminal.
He was the one who created Voices of a Distant Star - the work that made so many viewers finish the final episode with a hollow ache in their chest, a sadness with nowhere to go. Later, the novel release had offered some relief, some closure - something that at least felt like "fine, I can breathe now."
But for weeks before that… the fandom had lived in mourning.
A lot of people genuinely believed the ending meant one thing: the heroine had died years ago, and the hero was still waiting for her on Earth, trapped by his own hope.
And now the culprit was right there, smiling like a corporate headshot.
The comments turned into a courtroom.
But it was the kind of "hatred" that only exists when you love a work too much to forgive what it made you feel. The same mechanism that made fans call Togashi Yoshihiro a "thieving old man" while still being grateful that Hunter x Hunter existed at all.
After venting their accumulated drama on Sora, a portion of the crowd rushed to Sumire's profile.
And the mood shifted.
Her photo - also taken in the office, white dress, hands behind her back, a discreet posture and a faint awkwardness in her gaze - had been captured at a perfect angle. The lighting flattered her, and she looked beautiful in a clean, almost elegant way, effortlessly.
For a moment, it was like part of the fandom forgot they'd come there to fight.
Comments began to pour in.
"So the assistant director of Voices of a Distant Star is this pretty?"
"Sora is even more unforgivable. He gets to work with a girl like that every day. Double the crime."
"I'm in love. I can't. I literally can't insult her."
"Wait, I thought everyone who made anime was a 150-kilo otaku."
"Her name is even cute…"
"Yumi, you can go. I betrayed you. I'm Team Sumire now."
Watching from the side, Sora's jaw tightened when he saw the difference in treatment.
Praise under Sumire's profile.
Public execution under his.
"So you're telling me you feel totally comfortable stoning me, huh…?" he muttered, annoyed, as if the phone itself had personally offended him.
But childish resentment aside, the results were impossible to deny.
In less than three hours, Sora's profile had surpassed thirty thousand followers.
Sumire's had passed forty thousand.
And Natsume Yuujinchou's official account had already crossed sixty thousand.
Three hours.
Sora's expression turned serious - truly serious. This wasn't "publicity" anymore. This was mobilization power.
Yumi wasn't just an investor. She was established influence. In Natsuyume's animation space, her name carried weight - one of those figures the community referred to with half-joking, half-reverent familiarity as "the Second Sister" of the sector. And judging by the impact, it wasn't an exaggeration.
The clowning continued, of course, but the fandom wasn't stupid. They understood what the post's real focus was.
The new work from the director of Voices of a Distant Star…
Natsume Yuujinchou was the point.
But at this stage, the project was still in preparation. On the official profile, there was only a description too brief to feed curiosity: "A story about humans and youkai… names and promises."
Vague. Pretty. But vague.
That was why one specific comment - simple, direct - became the most liked, and it caught Sora's eye.
"Natsume Yuujinchou? What kind of work is it?"
Sora thought for a moment.
Then he pinned the comment to the top and replied through the official account - no needless flourish, only what he truly believed.
"An anime that will make you cry… and still leave you with a warm heart, like something inside you has been quietly healed."
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