"Lin, it's time to pay the rent again. Even though I know you've been struggling financially, I can't let you stay here if you don't pay."
"Alright, I'll pay right away."
"Hmm? What's got you so cooperative all of a sudden? Did you find a job?"
"Not yet, but I still want to keep staying here. I'll have to pay the rent eventually anyway, and I don't want to put the pressure on others just because I haven't found work yet."
"Good. If things really are tough, you should consider working as a waiter at the restaurant I referred you to before. The manager there said they'd really like you to keep working there."
"Alright, I'll think about it."
After paying the rent promptly and returning to his room to close the door, Lin Zhiyan carefully tallied his remaining funds.
A total of 128,750 yen.
The monthly rent was 40,000 yen, and the cost of food was even higher.
If he was frugal, he could barely make it through a month.
But...
"This dump of an apartment is fucking awful!"
He surveyed the room, suppressing the urge to frown.
Nothing in sight was new, and the facilities were embarrassingly basic.
No air conditioning, no washing machine, no kitchen, no wardrobe, and no bed.
Just a tiny bathroom, a small balcony, and a small table.
Two folded blankets on the floor formed a makeshift bed, with clothes scattered messily around it.
The voices of neighbors, the sound of flushing toilets, and the TV from downstairs echoed clearly through the thin walls.
He couldn't help but feel a premonition: he'd probably be tossing and turning tonight.
Stranded in a foreign land with such dismal living conditions, how could he possibly sleep?
As for work, though he hadn't found anything yet, he wasn't particularly worried.
He'd just work in animation.
As for working as a waiter at a restaurant, although he'd just said he'd "think about it," there was really no need to consider it.
Having been reborn, it would be a disgrace to a reborn soul to go work as a waiter.
Indeed, he was a reborn soul, although not into his past self's body. Strictly speaking, he had transmigrated into the body of a high school student in Tokyo, Japan, with the same name and about to graduate.
The surname "Lin" isn't exclusive to the Celestial Dynasty; it's common in many countries in East and Southeast Asia. In Japan, the Lin surname is quite prominent, with around 500,000 bearers, ranking among the top 100 surnames in the country by prevalence.
During the Sengoku period of Japan, the Owari Lin Clan produced the military commander Hayashi Hidesada.
However, at that time, only nobles had surnames; commoners were not entitled to them.
In modern times, laws required all Japanese citizens to adopt surnames. Many commoners, unsure what to choose, simply took their address or occupation as their surname, leading to a proliferation of Lin surnames.
Of course, many Japanese with the Lin surname also descended from immigrants who arrived during different historical periods.
Lin Zhiyan stood at 182 centimeters tall, with a oval face, a slender build, and handsome features. His teeth were straight and pearly white—truly impeccable from a physical standpoint.
Unfortunately, his family was far from wealthy; in fact, they were destitute. He lost his parents just as he started high school, but fortunately, he was old enough to avoid being sent to an orphanage.
Moreover, he had no interest in studying. Throughout high school, he barely paid attention in class and copied his homework. He never joined any clubs and left school immediately after classes to go work part-time jobs.
As expected, Ayan's college entrance exam scores were abysmal.
There was no hope of attending university; he hadn't even considered that option. Instead, his planned path after graduation was "employment."
Graduating from high school and immediately entering the workforce wasn't unusual in Japan. However, with only a high school education and no special skills, finding a satisfactory job proved extremely difficult.
Since he couldn't find a job he wanted, he had been dragging it out until now.
Today was March 22nd, just two days before the graduation ceremony. That evening, while returning home, Ayan tripped over something and slammed his head against a rock. Moments later, Lin Zhiyan's soul transmigrated into his body.
If Lin Zhiyan had been reborn into the Celestial Dynasty in 1995, his superior memory would have likely allowed him to amass wealth quickly. But fate had placed him in Japan instead.
In his previous life, he had never lived in Japan and knew the country only through ACGN media, making animation his only viable skill.
Before his transmigration, he was an animation keyframe artist in the Celestial Dynasty, with a passing knowledge of music. He had posted cover videos of Japanese songs from anime and a few other genres on Bilibili, but he wasn't a professional in this field.
To support himself, he would still have to rely on his skills as an animation keyframe artist.
More crucially, something strange had occurred during his transmigration. He could now recall every line of dialogue and every visual detail from over a thousand anime he had watched before his transmigration with perfect clarity.
Given this ability, he felt that working in animation would be a waste.
Unfortunately, creating animation is a team effort, not an individual one. Without money, connections, or experience, even his photographic memory was useless.
He needed to join an animation company, build up his experience, and accumulate connections. Only then could he recruit a few partners and establish his own animation studio.
In March 1995, companies like Bones, PA, A-1, SHAFT, and MAPPA, which would later become well-known in the animation industry, had yet to be established. The impact of the Tsutomu Miyazaki incident had not yet faded, and the ACG industry remained in a slump.
However, within a few months, Neon Genesis Evangelion, a joint production by GAINAX and Tatsunoko, would debut. After its conclusion, it would cause a massive stir in society and gradually revive the ACG industry.
Despite this, the situations of these two companies were somewhat complicated. GAINAX would soon collapse to the point of being almost a hollow shell, while Tatsunoko would go bankrupt in 2005 due to the financially draining production of Karas and be acquired by another company.
Even if you wanted to participate in the production of Neon Genesis Evangelion to add luster to your resume, joining GAINAX or Tatsunoko might not be the best choice. After all, many animation companies handled outsourcing work for this series.
Sunrise, Toei, IG, J.C.Staff, and Madhouse are also worth considering.
As for Studio Ghibli, where Hayao Miyazaki works, though it's a dream for many to join, Lin Zhiyan has absolutely no desire to work there. Miyazaki's aura is too overwhelming, and he's a tyrant through and through. Employees there are treated like cogs in a machine, with no room for creativity. The work intensity is high, the pressure immense, and it's notoriously difficult to poach talent from Ghibli.
He entered the animation industry to build his resume and network, aiming to poach talent in the future, not to become a corporate drone. There's no need to exhaust himself with such grueling work.
"Hmm, I'll scope out the market tomorrow and see which animation studios are hiring recently."