Tokyo: Oreimo

They actually prepared it? I thought it was just talk.

"Thank you."

Ryosuke expressed his gratitude.

When he was little, Mieko would prepare small surprises for him at Christmas, but later, due to family financial problems, she stopped giving him surprises and replaced them with a big meal.

I stopped having that habit after that.

He was quite happy to receive the gift.

Ling Nai caught a glimpse of Ryosuke's expression out of the corner of her eye. She felt a little happy inside, but on the surface she pretended to be indifferent.

"Is it a scarf? You have a good eye for choosing things."

Ryosuke took the red scarf out of the shopping bag; it felt quite soft to the touch.

"...Don't get me wrong, I didn't specifically choose it." Ling Nai muttered softly, "You said you just bought it randomly, and you saw it while shopping and thought it was pretty cheap."

"Ah."

"And aren't you quite sensitive to the cold, so..."

"Ah."

"What?! Just 'hmm'!" Ling Nai finally turned her head and met Ryosuke's smiling eyes. Her face flushed instantly. "You... if you don't like it, give it back to me!"

"like."

Ryosuke took a scarf out of the bag and wrapped it around his neck.

The red scarf was wrapped twice around his neck, with the end hanging down in front of his chest, and the gingerbread man ornament was placed right at his collar.

"How about it?"

Ling Nai stared blankly at him, her lips moved, and after a long while she managed to utter a sentence: "Hmph... It's alright, not as ugly as I imagined."

Ryosuke smiled.

"Then wear it like this."

"Whatever!" Ling Nai turned and walked towards her room, but stopped after a couple of steps. Without turning back, she said, "That gingerbread man can be taken off; it's a keychain. Don't be silly and wear it with you."

"understood."

"Also, I'm not responsible if you lose it."

"it is good."

Ling Nai strode into her room and slammed the door shut.

Ryosuke stood in the corridor, looking down at the scarf around his neck and then at the gingerbread man ornament in his hand.

He returned to his room and stood in front of the mirror for a while.

The red scarf really suited him, and it was the perfect size, not too long or too short.

"You've grown up; you even know how to give gifts now."

Ryosuke chuckled softly, carefully removed the gingerbread man keychain, and placed it in the most conspicuous spot on his desk.

"In that case, there's no way to delay the manuscript any longer, and I have to return the favor."

However, it seems impossible to finish the manuscript before Christmas; I'll try my best as soon as possible.

Ryosuke sat back down at his desk, closed the notebook that had been open, and took another unfinished notebook from the shelf.

Come to think of it, I don't know if this can even be considered a gift.

"With such sensitive tear ducts, you might cry after watching this, right?"

......

In the next room, Ling Nai threw herself onto the bed and rolled around twice while hugging a pillow.

My face feels so hot.

Oh no, it must have been because the air conditioning was too hot just now.

The girl buried her face in the pillow and let out a muffled groan.

"Fool."

Chapter 116 Rival

After Christmas, Ryosuke Takashiro rarely went out, spending time with his parents while working on his manuscript.

At the beginning of the new year, he went to SP Company with Ritsu Saito.

Because Shinpei Ito called him as soon as he returned to work.

He valued the song that Ryosuke had previously entrusted to Shizuka Hayakawa and Mirai Asakura to bring back, but he still did not arrange for the DC idol group to practice it, let alone produce it.

The collaboration has not been finalized, and using the content without authorization is not only disrespectful to the author, but also carries the risk of copyright infringement.

Fortunately, the negotiations went smoothly.

After showing a portion of the script, the head of SP Company immediately agreed to the collaboration.

The production committee for "Puella Magi Madoka Magica" has been officially established, with SP Company joining as one of the investors. SP Company is responsible for the production of all the music and voice acting, accounting for 15% of the investment in the production committee.

Ryosuke's transfer of the music commercialization rights for the anime means that SP will be able to exclusively release the theme songs and original soundtracks for the "Puella Magi Madoka Magica" anime and organize related music events.

As a core member of the production committee, Aniplex also receives a certain percentage of the revenue generated from these businesses, such as CD sales and concert ticket sales.

Shinpei Ito was assigned as the intermediary to handle the follow-up communication with Ryosuke, and Tomomi Inada, a professional musician from the company, was arranged to assist with the arrangement and production.

In addition to the opening and ending themes, Ryosuke Takashiro also provides several Latin songs in a humming style.

In my memory, the music of "Puella Magi Madoka Magica" is a very important part of the anime, especially the famous "sales pitch" song - "Sis puella magica".

Composed by Yuki Kajiura, it can be said to be the soul of the entire anime, and Ryosuke could not possibly abandon it.

As long as the piece remains and the style is consistent, the overall musical presentation will not be bad.

Ryosuke has signed licensing agreements for all these songs, allowing SP to use and produce them. Of course, Aniplex will receive an additional share of the profits generated thereafter.

It's worth mentioning that Tomomi Inada, who was in charge of the animation's music production, was completely taken aback after hearing the melody that Ryosuke was humming.

Someone who can compose such a tune can't even write sheet music, yet insists on humming it.

This incident completely shut down the musician.

After resolving the music issues for "Puella Magi Madoka Magica," Ryosuke spent another day at SP Company completing the voice casting for "Clannad."

This time he was alone, so he basically made his choice according to his own subjective will.

Because the budget was much larger than before, most of the main characters were voiced by experienced veteran voice actors, while the supporting roles were played by newcomers.

Overall expenses were kept at a moderate level, within ten million yen.

After finishing all that, Ryosuke's only remaining tasks were creative work.

.....

Writing a manuscript is not something that can be done overnight, especially since Ryosuke is still seriously studying how to express Madoka's storyboard drafts more clearly.

If things continue like this, it should be completed by the end of January.

But before that, winter break ended.

The weather was still cold, and winter was not yet over. The brother and sister wore red scarves when they went out.

"I don't want to go to school."

On the way, Takashiro Ryouno kept talking about this. Apart from going to the company, she spent almost all of her winter vacation playing.

Only a few days before school started did I ask Ryosuke for some tutoring.

On the first day after the holiday ended, there would be an academic test. Having learned her lesson the first time, she was smarter this time.

She was confident that she could do well on the exam, but the problem was that going to school was a rather unpleasant experience for her.

Instead of dozing off in class, why not enjoy playing games on your computer at home?

Ryosuke didn't attend last year's winter CM exhibition because CL production couldn't keep up, purely out of interest.

However, Ling Nai did travel with Gokou Mao. As far as he knew, this younger sister had bought at least dozens of new works of different styles, including a considerable number of doujinshi.

Visual novels (galgames) are produced and iterated at a very fast pace.

Since the huge success of FSN last year, a lot of similar works have emerged this year, such as Magician Killer and New World Magic Apocalypse.

Most of them are works that copy the surface but not the core, but Ling Nai's tastes are quite diverse, and this guy has a high tolerance for toxicity. Even if it's a terrible work, as long as the creator's values ​​aren't too outrageous, he can basically finish it.

However, this is also a good thing for Ryosuke, as it avoids him being watched by her. Since they live under the same roof, if his younger sister gets bored, she will most likely come to him to urge him to update the Madoka Magica script.

It takes less than 20 minutes to walk from my home to Chiba First High School.

Takashiro Ryouno was still half asleep and kept muttering to herself until she saw a figure standing straight at the corner, at which point she shut up.

"Liuli?"

It was quite unexpected to see my friend on my way to school.

Geographically, Chiba First High School is located in the middle of their two houses, so they usually go to and from school separately.

This is the first time we've met each other on a road we have to take.

"Good morning, Ling Nai... and elder brother."

Ruri Aragaki greeted everyone, smiling broadly at Ayano, but her expression immediately changed when she looked at Ryosuke.

Did I offend her?

Ryosuke remembered that he hadn't contacted the other party since the last time they invited him to meet in person.

When they parted, the other person said they might come to ask him for help with some difficult game problems, but he never received a single text message from them. The sudden meeting reminded him of that.

It seems that the other party hasn't played "Fate/stay night" yet, otherwise Ling Nai wouldn't have remained completely unresponsive.

This will definitely be mentioned at home.

It's been several months, haven't you made up your mind to touch it yet?

"Why are you here? Isn't your house in the opposite direction?"