The following afternoon, Genma showed up at Starfall to demand an explanation, just as expected. However, Yuta had already given his orders. Genma never even got to see Yuta's face before he was escorted out.
Then, not long after, Yuta received a phone call from Aoi Fuji.
"What is going on? I heard you want to remove Wasabi from his position as director?" Aoi's tone was accusatory from the very first word.
"Miss Fuji, this director is no good. It is either him or me. We cannot coexist." Yuta replied.
"Explain." Aoi's voice grew serious.
"He already made us change our work hours to accommodate him. I let that slide because it was a minor issue. What I cannot tolerate is that he wants me to throw out every script I have written and rewrite them all according to his vision." Yuta explained.
"He is the director, and he specializes in bishoujo anime. If he asked you to rewrite the scripts, he probably had his reasons." Aoi said thoughtfully.
"But he wants me to cut all the scenes depicting the male lead's family and the female lead's family. He also wants me to give the male lead an older sister or a younger sister." Yuta said.
"Why would he want to add a sister?" Aoi sounded genuinely confused.
"Probably personal preference." Yuta speculated.
His guess was not unfounded. In every anime Genma had directed, the male lead had an older or younger sister, and in some cases the sister was outright the female lead.
Granted, giving the protagonist a sister could build a sense of familial closeness with the audience. But it had to fit the story.
Not every protagonist needed a sister!
"Whether or not to add a sister is not the main issue." Yuta continued. "The real issue is that the family storylines for the male and female leads cannot be removed. The core of Clannad is 'town' and 'family ', not school slice-of-life. If the family content gets cut, there is no point in making this anime at all."
Aoi Fuji fell silent, seemingly deep in thought.
Seeing that she had not responded, Yuta pressed on.
"Genma has directed so many school slice-of-life and bishoujo anime that he has lost perspective. I am not going to follow him down that path. What I am trying to create is a classic. Scripts written according to his vision will never become a classic. They will just be another generic bishoujo anime."
"You do have a point there." Aoi's stance finally began to soften.
Yuta knew he had found the right angle.
The reason Aoi had chosen his proposal over Kaito Amanai's in the first place was that his proposal had the potential to produce a classic, while Kaito's would have only resulted in a mediocre bishoujo anime.
In other words, Aoi shared his ambition and drive.
Hitting that key point once was enough. There was no need to keep hammering it, or it might backfire.
With that in mind, Yuta shifted his approach. "Miss Fuji, when I first came to you with the proposal seeking investment, I attached the scripts for the first three episodes. That means you have read them yourself. So let me ask you directly: what did you think of those first three scripts?"
"They were excellent. I had no issues with them." Aoi said.
"Part of the reason I decided to invest was precisely because your scripts were outstanding. They made me want to turn them into an anime immediately."
"Then there you have it. My scripts were perfectly fine, and yet Genma insisted I scrap them and start over. How could I possibly agree to that?" Yuta scoffed.
Aoi was quiet again for a moment before speaking. "Regardless, removing Wasabi from his position and having him thrown out of Starfall was still wrong on your part. How about this? I will talk to him and convince him to follow your creative direction going forward. In return, you take a step back and apologize to him. We put this behind us and move on. How does that sound?"
"Apologize? Absolutely not." Yuta rejected the idea without hesitation.
"President Shido!"
"Miss Fuji, he was the one who started this mess. I did nothing wrong. Why should I be the one to apologize?"
"Can the two of you not simply meet each other halfway? Besides, in a professional setting, an apology is often not about actually being in the wrong. It is about smoothing things over for everyone's benefit. You have worked as both a production assistant and a production manager, President Shido. Surely you understand this."
"I understand it perfectly. But I will absolutely not compromise."
"..."
Aoi was starting to get a headache.
When Yuta had been seeking investment, he had displayed this exact same refusal to budge. He would rather walk away from Arcane's funding than hand the anime over to another studio.
And now here he was again.
She was beginning to wonder how on earth Yuta had ever been promoted from production assistant to production manager before founding Starfall.
Someone like him should have run into walls at every turn in the workplace. It defied all logic.
"Miss Fuji."
Yuta spoke again. "I never wanted to remove Genma from the director's position in the first place. He was the one who threatened me. He told me I had three days, and if I did not rewrite the scripts, he was done being the director."
He then recounted the entire sequence of events in full detail.
When he finished, he added, "Genma was the one who chose to play games. I will never, under any circumstances, apologize to someone like that."
"But if you do not apologize, how will he agree to come back to Starfall and continue directing Clannad?"
"If he does not want to come back, even better. I was not counting on him to continue as director anyway."
"But then Clannad has no director."
"Then we find a new one."
"Before all of this, finding a replacement would not have been too difficult. But after what has happened, who would dare come to Starfall to direct?"
"I already told you, Genma was the one who started this. With a different director, as long as they do not pull the same nonsense, I will cooperate with them wholeheartedly."
"..."
Aoi was suddenly regretting her decision to invest in Clannad. They had barely started, and things had already gone this far off the rails. What would happen down the line?
She let out a sigh, her voice heavy with resignation. "I understand your position. Let me see if I can mediate this somehow. If it truly cannot be resolved, we will just have to find a new director."
Only then did Yuta say with genuine sincerity, "Miss Fuji, I really am sorry for causing you so much trouble."
Aoi paused, taken aback, and replied with mixed emotions. "So you are capable of apologizing after all."
"Of course I am capable of apologizing. But it depends on who I am apologizing to. Someone like Genma Wasabi will never get an apology from me." Yuta said.
"Fine, fine. Let us focus on solving this problem first. Wait for my update." Aoi said one final sentence and hung up.
Yuta set the phone down and quietly let out a breath of relief.
However, if anything, the pressure on him had only grown heavier. After causing this much chaos, if he still failed to deliver a good anime in the end, the consequences would be ugly.
There was no turning back now.
No matter what it took, he had to make Clannad happen, and he had to make it great.
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