In fact, it wasn't just Kenichi Matsumoto who was bewildered by Lin Zhiyan's new animation. When others in the company learned that Lin Zhiyan's next project would be an original romance anime film, they were all taken by surprise.
Given Lin Zhiyan's immense popularity and strong appeal in the TV anime field—having achieved sales of over 30,000 for even a super niche subject like "Shirobako"—it was baffling why he would make such a huge leap to suddenly decide on a romance anime film.
Many people discussed it over tea or during breaks:
"Why would the President suddenly want to make a romance anime? If he were in the honeymoon phase, maybe a moment of impulse would make sense, but he's already married and his child is even in kindergarten."
"If he were in the honeymoon phase, one could understand him getting carried away and wanting to tackle this genre, but the thing is, he's already married and his child is even in kindergarten."
"It is a bit surprising, but he has always switched genres with every animation he makes. It just happens that he hasn't touched the romance genre yet, so it's not entirely incomprehensible. What actually surprises me more is that his next project isn't a TV animation, but an animated film."
"Could you say he's giving up his advantage? But I feel like our President's achievements in the TV animation field have already hit a bottleneck. To take it to the next level, he really does need to transition into the field of animated films."
"That may be true, but normally, even if you want to transition to animated films, shouldn't you first choose a genre you're familiar with to test the waters, and then officially transition once you've had some success?"
"Perhaps he's just extremely confident in his new work?"
"Or maybe he didn't think that far ahead at all. He just wanted to make a romance animation, and since doing a TV animation would keep him very busy and force him to sacrifice more time with his family, he simply decided to make an animated film instead."
"I wonder if he'll be able to reach new heights after switching to making animated films."
For all the speculation going on, Lin Zhiyan naturally had no way of knowing.
Since deciding on the new animation he wanted to make, he had been busy preparing.
It wasn't just preparing a plan and a script; it also included the layout.
Lin Tomohiko naturally had no way of knowing about the public discussion.
After deciding on the new animation to make, he had been busy with preparations.
It wasn't just about preparing a project proposal and a script; it also included the layouts.
For his previous animations, he would draw the storyboards, and he would hand over the layouts following the storyboards to the company's internal key animators, only taking on the role of reviewer himself.
This time, however, it was an original animated film with an independent scope. The production cycle was over two years, and if you included the time that should have been spent on conceptualization and refining the content, it was equivalent to at least three and a half years.
Time was quite abundant, so under these circumstances, Lin Tomohiko naturally hoped to make it more meticulous. This was also why he had delayed announcing the detailed plan for the new work internally.
Of course, it was impossible to wait until all the layouts were drawn before announcing the detailed plan for the new work. By around mid-May, having finished about one-fifth of the layouts, Lin Tomohiko began to assemble the team and formed the production crew for the animation "Your Name," officially starting the production of this film.
Storyboards, script, supervising director, character design, chief animation director, and music were, of course, all handled by Lin Tomohiko himself. The key animators and animation directors were almost all top-tier talents from within the company. However, it wasn't exclusively internal staff; there were a few sporadic key animators from outside, and they were people who had very good relationships with Lin Tomohiko, such as Kazuchika Kise from IG.
In addition, Lin Zhiyan also brought in Makoto Shinkai to assist with the production.
In another timeline, at this time, Makoto Shinkai had just finished "Children Who Chase Lost Voices" and had not yet officially started production on "The Garden of Words."
In the timeline where Lin Zhiyan resides, "5 Centimeters Per Second" was released nearly a year earlier than it should have been. Theoretically, "Children Who Chase Lost Voices" should also have been released about a year earlier, but after "5 Centimeters," this guy took on more work for short films, commercials, and game openings, which resulted in "Children Who Chase Lost Voices" still being released in May 2011.
Throughout the month of May, Makoto Shinkai was almost entirely occupied with the release of "Children Who Chase Lost Voices," so Lin Zhiyan didn't bother him. It wasn't until after the film finished its theatrical run that he called him over to help.
As for the theme song, he approached the band RADWIMPS, who performed the original version in another timeline.
Although they hadn't collaborated before, given Lin Zhiyan's status and position, it was just a matter of spending a bit more money; there was no such thing as being unable to hire them.
For the film's promotion and distribution, he had to cooperate with relevant companies.
While Lin Zhiyan's company possessed strong promotional capabilities, it lacked strong film distribution capabilities, and it was impossible for him to set up a specialized film distribution company, so there was really no other way around it.
In another timeline, the original version of Your Name had explosive box office results. While the primary reason was indeed that the animation itself was excellent, it also had a lot to do with powerful promotion and distribution.
Lin Zhiyan saw this point very clearly.
When it's time to cooperate with others, you have to cooperate; hogging all the benefits isn't necessarily a good thing.
Moreover, this wasn't the first time he had cooperated with other companies. Several animated films previously produced by L.S Produ, including Rebellion Story, Summer Wars, and The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, as well as Hotarubi no Mori e releasing in early July and the K-On! theatrical film releasing in December, were all co-distributed.
As long as Lin Zhiyan had the final say on the production side and the distribution of profits was agreed upon, he was accepting of this arrangement.
After the general production lineup and partner companies were determined, the production team for the Your Name animation started operating at high speed.
However, Lin Zhiyan didn't just quietly focus on animation.
While pushing forward the production of Your Name, he didn't forget to occasionally brush up his presence in front of the public.
For example, just as the relatively lackluster early plot of Steins;Gate was about to end and enter a very heartbreaking phase, he posted a tweet: "The next episode of Steins;Gate is quite spectacular, you must watch it."
When Mayuri's pocket watch stopped again and again, tormenting the audience until they couldn't take it anymore, he tweeted again: "Mayuri does die again and again, but it's really not that bad. If we're talking about pure torture, my previous anime were even worse [smug~]"
In early July, when "Hotarubi no Mori e" was released, he didn't forget to tweet about it too: "An animated film adapted from another manga by the author of 'Natsume's Book of Friends', 'Hotarubi no Mori e', will heal your entire summer."
Attached below the tweet was the main visual for "Hotarubi no Mori e," and it looked like a rather healing image.
At first, the fans didn't think much of it, assuming Lin Zhiyan was just promoting his own animation. It wasn't until the number of similar tweets increased that they gradually realized something was wrong.
Why has the "Old Thief Lin" suddenly become so idle?
There's no news about any new animation either.
Linking this to the L.S Produ animations from April onwards—"Steins;Gate," "Hotarubi no Mori e," the second season of "Sword Art Online," "Fate/Zero," and the "K-On!" theatrical film—more than half of them were tear-jerkers.
Thinking about it this way, they couldn't help but feel suspicious: A conspiracy! There must be a conspiracy!
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