On the third day after his burst of inspiration, Kamiyā Yuu had already completed most of the animation for the close-up scene known as **"Sakura Kyōko's Smile."**
Considering that voice recording and editing would further compress the production schedule, the already overwhelmed Kamiyā Yuu planned to hand the completed but uncolored animation to Gogyo Ruri for coloring work.
From storyboard to key animation, and from key animation to fully detailed animation, the scene had undergone countless revisions before finally reaching the standard Kamiyā Yuu envisioned.
Kamiyā Yuu walked up to Gogyo Ruri's desk and greeted her.
"Kuroneko(Black Cat), are you free over the next few days?"
Dressed in a black Gothic outfit, Gogyo Ruri sat at her desk, completely focused on refining key frames into finished animation.
The scene she was working on depicted Homura Akemi drawing a firearm.
The key animator had already completed the key frames. What remained was for her, as an animator, to fill in the in-between frames.
Normally, someone of Gogyo Ruri's position did not need to handle this part of the process, but for some reason, she had volunteered for the work.
Because she had not noticed Kamiyā Yuu approaching, his sudden voice startled her.
"Brother! Don't sneak up behind people like that. Honestly."
She put down her pencil and spun around in her office chair, looking up at him.
"The Animation Department isn't particularly busy right now. More importantly, has the problem on your side been solved?"
She asked with genuine concern.
She was well aware of Kamiyā Yuu's unusual mood during this period.
From where he stood, Kamiyā Yuu could see the animation she had drawn.
There was no particularly strong personal style in it, but it matched the artistic style of 'Puella Magi Madoka Magica' very well.
That alone proved she had already become an excellent animator.
Recently, he had rarely assigned her any original art exercises.
This was because Gogyo Ruri's understanding of key animation had already surpassed that of most ordinary animators.
What she still needed was simply the accumulation of experience over time to match the knowledge she already possessed.
"More or less."
"Can I see the finished animation you've been working on?"
Kamiyā Yuu did not immediately explain why he had come. Instead, he looked with interest at the animation on her desk.
"Yes, teacher."
Gogyo Ruri playfully stuck out her tongue, gathered up the pages on her desk, and handed them over.
Kamiyā Yuu accepted them and flipped through several pages.
A look of approval appeared in his eyes.
"Very good. Although your drawing technique itself doesn't show obvious changes compared to your previous work, I can still see subtle differences in the overall structure. You've improved a lot."
What most tested an animator's skill was often not drawing technique itself, but mastery over the overall structure of the animation.
The difference between a novice animator and an experienced one was usually reflected there.
Hearing his praise, a faint blush appeared on Gogyo Ruri's cheeks.
She sat up straight and smiled happily.
"Mm~ I wanted to live up to your expectations, Brother, so I've been practicing even harder lately. Hearing you say that is wonderful. Even when I compare my current work with my older work, I can't really tell the difference myself. I thought I wasn't making any progress."
Why is she a chūnibyō cutie around Sora and the others, but turns into a soft and obedient girl in front of me? That's no fun at all...
Kamiyā Yuu complained silently.
Subconsciously, he reached out and rubbed her black hair before raising the stack of documents in his hand.
"Good. Then I can confidently leave this work to you."
He continued,
"These animations are the source of all the frustration I've been dealing with lately. I want you to handle the coloring for this section. This is a sample of the finished animation. Try to keep the style and colors as consistent with the sample as possible."
Gogyo Ruri accepted the uncolored animation draft Kamiyā Yuu had completed.
After opening the folder, she turned the pages one by one.
By the end, surprise was clearly visible on her face.
"All of this...?"
"Yes. Any problems?"
Gogyo Ruri gently shook her head.
"It's just that... for a single scene, there are far too many frames."
Were these animations the source of Kamiyā Yuu's frustration?
She carefully examined every page.
Unlike ordinary assembly-line animation, these carried an intense personal style.
If animated, they would undoubtedly look completely different from the rest of 'Puella Magi Madoka Magica.'
They were too detailed.
Too unique.
There were too many things within them that she found difficult to even describe.
As the pages connected together in her mind and formed a moving image, the hand holding the drafts trembled slightly.
At that moment, she finally understood why Kamiyā Yuu had suffered so much during this period.
She was the creator of Sakura Kyōko's character design.
All of her concepts.
All of her imagination.
Everything she had envisioned seemed capable of resonating with this single close-up smile.
Just from this one scene, she could clearly feel what kind of person Sakura Kyōko truly was.
A strange thought arose in her heart.
Perhaps this close-up smile would give Sakura Kyōko a soul in the hearts of viewers.
Gogyo Ruri's gaze softened.
Her fingers gently stroked Sakura Kyōko's smile on the animation sheets as she murmured,
"Brother... Sakura Kyōko's smile is a little different from what I imagined. No... perhaps it's even more perfect."
...
On the fifth day, Kamiyā Yuu brought the edited animation to the Sound Department overseen by Shindō Tsukasa for the final dubbing and audio integration stage.
Kamiyā Yuu and Shindō Tsukasa were reviewing the dubbed animation.
"Oh, so this is the close-up scene that's been causing your creative block all this time."
Shindō Tsukasa looked at the silent animation playing on the screen and praised it.
"Although I'm not responsible for animation, this artwork looks pretty decent. It feels noticeably better than the previous episodes."
Sitting nearby, Kamiyā Yuu rubbed his temples helplessly.
"Don't evaluate a month's worth of someone's hard work so casually. Even if it's meant as praise, it doesn't exactly make me happy."
"Haha. Amazingly, you managed to finish it in time. Episode Seventeen airs the day after tomorrow. I thought our Sound Department would finally get a break, but now it looks like we'll be pulling an all-nighter."
Shindō Tsukasa laughed carelessly.
Every sound department in the industry worked like this.
During the first half of production, people were so idle they could play games at work.
During the second half, they became so busy that even several consecutive all-nighters weren't enough to finish everything.
The following process was similar to ordinary dubbing sessions.
Once the voice actors arrived, they first reviewed any script revisions before beginning recording.
An interesting incident occurred during the process.
Even Tōgi Yūko, Sakura Kyōko's voice actress, was visibly surprised when she saw the close-up animation scene, whose art style differed completely from the rest of the anime.
She was so startled that she missed her first cue.
This recording session turned out to be much more troublesome than usual.
Kamiyā Yuu personally directed the performance and discussed every detail face-to-face with the voice actress.
Work that normally took only a minute or two stretched into more than two hours.
The same lines were recorded over a hundred times.
Yet Sakura Kyōko's voice actress did not become unhappy.
On the contrary, because of the quality of the scene itself, she became even more invested.
She listened carefully to every one of Kamiyā Yuu's requests and continued recording until he finally obtained a performance he found satisfactory.