The sudden change in work hours left many people struggling to adjust.
Genma, of course, found it perfectly natural.
Then, barely two days later, he sought out Yuta and asked, "President Shido, how far along are your scripts?"
"Episode five. Why?" Yuta replied, puzzled.
"Stop writing. Your scripts are no good. They need to be rewritten from scratch." Genma said flatly, his face completely expressionless.
"Excuse me?" Yuta was caught off guard.
"I read your first three episode scripts. They contain a lot of material about the male lead's family and the female lead's family. All of that needs to go. What audiences want to see is school life, not family life. There is no need for that kind of content. Also, the male lead should ideally have an older sister or a younger sister. Personally, I lean toward a younger sister." Genma explained.
Yuta: "???"
It was true that audiences enjoyed watching school slice-of-life. No argument there.
Ideally it should be the daily life of high schoolers, which was one of the reasons anime protagonists in Japan were so often high school students.
But enjoying school slice-of-life did not mean audiences were averse to family dynamics, right?
Why did it have to be one or the other?
Moreover, the title Clannad itself carried the meaning of "family."
And now this man was telling him to remove all the family-related content? Without the family storylines, what was the point of even calling it Clannad?
The male lead should have an older or younger sister?
Sure, it was common for anime protagonists to have siblings, and in harem anime it was practically standard issue.
But Clannad was not a harem anime!
Why would he shoehorn in that tired setup of "has a little sister, owns a house, parents conveniently dead"?
Yuta vented furiously inside his head, but what he said aloud was far more measured. "Director, while Clannad does carry the tags 'school' and 'bishoujo' in its proposal, it is fundamentally different from a typical school anime. It is not a harem series. The focus is not on pursuing various beautiful girls. It is about emotional healing."
"I understand what you are trying to say, but you can achieve the same healing effect through school life alone. Why insist on depicting the families of the male and female leads? Audiences simply do not care about that." Genma argued his case.
"How do you know audiences don't care?" Yuta refused to yield.
"I am a director with multiple successful titles under my belt. If I don't know, then who does?" Genma replied with unmistakable arrogance.
"Having a few successful titles does not mean you understand what audiences want!"
"President Shido, are you looking down on me? Or are you saying you think you understand audiences better than I do?"
"I...!"
Yuta nearly cursed out. He obviously could not claim to understand audience preferences better than Genma. However, in his view, audience tastes were not something so easily grasped.
Declaring that you understood what audiences wanted just because you had directed a few successful shows was nothing but arrogance.
Besides, Genma's so-called "successful titles" were really just a handful of anime that had sold over three thousand copies. He had never once directed an anime that broke ten thousand.
What gave him the right to claim he knew what audiences liked?
If Starfall were not in such a sorry state, Yuta would have loved nothing more than to spit in Genma's face.
He took a deep breath and forced himself to stay calm.
After a moment, he spoke. "Audience preferences aside, removing the family content is out of the question. Clannad is an anime built around the core themes of 'town' and 'family.' That cannot be cut under any circumstances."
Seeing how stubborn Yuta was, Genma's temper began to flare.
He slammed his palm on the desk and practically shouted, "President Shido, setting aside your title as president, you are just a scriptwriter! I am the director! I am the one who is responsible for this anime! You should be listening to me!"
Yuta fired back just as angrily. "So what if you are the director? Don't forget that I am also this anime's producer!"
"Don't try to pull rank on me with your producer title. If it were Miss Fuji, I might at least show some respect. But who the hell are you?"
"Who the hell am I? Ha. I may not be Miss Fuji, but this anime's proposal was my creation. When it comes to this project, even she would defer to me!"
"That is a joke. Why would she ever defer to you?"
Genma scoffed, then quickly added, "Forget it. I am tired of arguing with you. You have three days to rewrite the scripts. If you don't, then I am done being your director."
With that, he stormed out.
He did not merely leave Yuta's office. He walked straight out of Starfall entirely. And from the look of things, he very likely would not return for the next three days.
'Son of a bitch!' Yuta thought.
This director was no good. Not reliable in the slightest. He was arrogant, conceited, and full of himself, and he had zero respect for Yuta as a producer.
The schedule change had been a small matter, something Yuta could grit his teeth and tolerate. But this was a matter of principle. This was an irreconcilable conflict.
He would not compromise. No matter what, he absolutely could not compromise. He would rather lose the director than change a single word of the scripts.
When it came down to it, he should have been clearer when he asked Aoi to find a director. Reliability was important, yes, but the director also could not be the type with too many ideas of his own.
All he had wanted was a director who would execute the vision. Not a self-important director who thought he had the right to meddle with the scripts.
Now all he felt was regret. Deep, burning regret.
A knock at the door broke through his thoughts.
Yuta took a deep breath. "Come in."
The door opened, and Rika stepped inside looking deeply apprehensive.
"What is it?" Yuta asked.
"P-President, everyone sent me to ask what just happened." Rika stammered.
The argument had been loud, and after Genma had stormed out of the president's office and left Starfall without a word, everyone outside had naturally grasped the severity of the situation.
An ordinary disagreement was one thing, but a dispute directly related to the anime's production was something that needed to be understood clearly.
Still, they could not all go barging into the president's office at once, so Rika had been chosen as their representative.
She was fully aware that Yuta was furious at this moment, and the fear was making her visibly tremble. Otherwise she would not have been stuttering through such a simple question.
Yuta was not aware of Rika's internal state.
He glanced at her irritably and said, "Rika, do you realize I am in the middle of being extremely angry right now?"
"President, I don't want to be here either!" Rika looked on the verge of tears.
The sight of her immediately made it impossible for Yuta to keep venting his temper.
He made an effort to rein in his emotions, then said, "Next time something like this happens, don't just barge in and start asking questions."
"At least bring me a glass of water first, say something nice, and let me cool down before you ask. Got it?"
"Oh."
Rika wore an expression that said "lesson learned" and turned to go get him some water.
But she quickly realized something was off and could not help muttering to herself, "I'm a production assistant. Why do I keep getting stuck doing things that a secretary should be doing?"
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