Authors Note: I know what you're thinking. "Yet another fanfiction cliché where the OC gets thrown in for whatever reason, falls in love with one of the main characters via some forced romance, and the story focuses on them and only them, while ignoring the rest of the setting the two had before they met. Their relationship means that both of them are happy and nothing bad ever happens and they ride off into the sunset and drop their lives for the others happiness. *close page* *new tab*"

I'm trying to redefine that cliché, with this story. The purpose of me writing this fanfic, other than me wanting to do some work with Shirobako, was to see how well I could write a realistic romance that was the "B" story and not be the primary focus of the text. Shirobako presents a unique challenge to me. Of all the stories I have ever written, the most realistic OC's I have ever created were in unreal stories; Harry Potter and Naruto. As you can see, far from true realism. Adding in the fact the last set of OC's I put into fanfictions were cool when I wrote them, but looking back on it, they just annoy me as to how I go out of my way just to make them stand out in one way or another. Creating a character in such a normal slice-of-life but hysterical anime such as Shirobako will give me the perfect opportunity to practice this. As for the romance, I want to try my hand at making a realistic romance when both parties have actual jobs and lives, not that high school romance style where they are attatched to one another simply because they see each other 5 days a week. I haven't seen an anime love interest occur naturally. Besides, I have never written romance. Not once!

I'm getting off topic.

The point of me writing this note is to give you a good synopsis, and fanfics preview character limit is too low for me, haha. This story consists of a character equally as realistic as all the others in the series. Strengths, Weaknesses, Goals, etc. The story will shift between his love interest, to his life itself revolving around anime with all other character in this series, and to the unappreciated job of being an Inbetweener, and onto the motives of other characters, and the general debauchery that tends to happen on a daily basis at Musashino Animation. Not every scene will focus on him, but he will be with a Shirobako Character when he is, in attempts to give each character screen time and show how interconnected Musani really is.

Anyways, that's what to expect. I just had to give you this in detail, because I'm sure you are equally tired as I of seeing the "OC falls in love with a main character" cliché on this site. But please, review and let me know how you feel. If not, thank you for clicking and even reading this far.

Now, I'll stop talking and get into the story, I'll leave my notes to be faaaar shorter and at the end of chapters now.

~Please Enjoy

Episode One

"Send Him In"

Miyamori heads the interviews for Musani as they are in the midst of their "Golden Age" before heading into their newest project. Who will make the cut?

To say Musashino Animation has been on a roll lately would be an understatement. After surprisingly landing and launching a critically acclaimed first season of Third Aerial Girls Squad, the studio not only virtually healed its reputation, but also made it desirable for outsiders to work for and more key animators, voice actors and authors to work with. In the following summer, they began airing the crowd pleasing pirate manga adaptation Two Piece, putting out more quality work casual anime fans and Otaku alike have gradually begun to expect from them. They wasted no time in shocking the world again. About two weeks before they aired the second episode of Two Piece (in a timely fashion no less!) they fought for, and ultimately won, an uphill battle for a second season to Exodus! The commercial success and thoroughly well animated stories of Third Aerial Girls Squad and the strong initial buzz surrounding Two Piece led to more interest in the studio. This unexpectedly sold more Blu-Ray copies of Exodus! season 1, and created an unforeseen interest in the anime's continuation. Even despite the most hellish time the studio has ever faced running two weekly anime series, they managed to survive, thrive and become the one of the hottest names in anime.

In the hours after Musani was green lighted for a second season of Exodus!, the studio wasted no time in spending money to procure temporary part time help to assist them. They weren't built to handle two demanding projects at one time, but they'd be damned if they didn't try. Key Animators, Inbetweeners, Production Assistants, you name it. At the conclusion of the fourteen episode first season of Two Piece however, half were let go at the turn of the New Year. The ending of Exodus! following it in late summer, even more were expected to be let go, rather than to truly be hired. Musani had rumors circling of their own original movie, Border-town Depopulation Girl. However, since the studio had given no official dates, they had the full flexibility to work on it at their own pace.

This brings us to the present. Today in the conference room on the top floor of the studio the final interviews were being conducted for the remaining part timers that were not already hired.

"This is going to be a hard one, some of them have given up a lot to stay with us."

Masato Marukawa – President

As he looked through his stack of papers through his silver rimmed glasses, he sighed. His usual smile on a temporary hiatus. Ordinarily, interviews make him smile, giving Musani new faces. However the possibility of letting some hard working employees go, forced him to trade the bright smile for a graver expression.

Giving herself an idea of what to expect, a blonde-haired, blue eyed female shifted through a stack of papers looking at the names and bodies of work of many of her. She looked as bright eyed and motivated as ever, staving off the physical signs of a high stress environment after almost four years of work for Musashino. "I want to keep all of them, especially after how good Exodus ended." She sighed. "Unfortunately, that's not the case."

Aoi Miyamori – Production Desk

On the other side of the director sat a dark haired woman. From under the bangs of her short cut hair, both of her hands were on her phone, her thumbs tapping the screen at a blistering pace. "Well, we aren't letting all of them go. We are working on Border-Town Depopulation Girl in a few short weeks. Don't let go of all of the help."

Yuka Okitsu – General Manager

Aoi sighed. "Well, even if they can't work here, they're one step closer to their own dreams! They will find work somewhere, I'm sure of it!"

"Well, that is true. All of them can't work here, but all of them can work somewhere This is fact." Marukawa smiled. "When's the first one coming in?"

The Production Desk checked the schedule in front of her. Twenty-two total prospective employees. "The first one should be coming in any moment now, he's scheduled for 10:15."

"Who is it?" the president asked.

"An Inbetween. Minato Shimura." The blonde producer responded.

"Ah! Was he the one who worked on Yashuhara's key frames when we had to move her to from Two Piece?"

Aoi smiled. "Yes! Actually, he helped with key frames more than once!"

Sending and receiving emails at what seemed like about fifteen per second, Yuka Okitsu looked up from her phone's screen. "So he's the one who was gave Misato Segawa those headaches."

"Really?" President Marukawa asked. "Surely he couldn't have been that bad if he did it more than once?"

"She reported that his designs weren't inherently bad, just nowhere as good as she needed them to be. Compare his designs to Yashuhara's and they looked even worse. He needs more experience. More discipline."

"Hmm… it's possible that we can let him go, and if need be, call him in the future. Add him as another contact for Musani in case we are in need of another key animator."

Miyamori objected. "But he is surrounded by many good animators he can learn from. Suigie, Ogasawara and Iguchi all taught Yashuhara, and he's been doing a lot of inbetweening on Ema's drawings so he has that to study from!"

Conveniently ignoring one night a lot of the staff mistakenly met up on an impromptu drinking outing, Miyamori had only run into Minato three times, and two of those times were telling her telling him that Segawa thought his designs were bad. However his dream was to make an anime of his own, and he took all of the criticism with grace. Plus, Aoi didn't want to see anyone's dream of anime creation take such a setback, especially after a year and a half for Musani.

"We should delay this conversation, at least until we see him once more." Yuka stated, putting her phone away in her purse before dropping the purse to the floor and out of sight. "Are we ready?"

"Yes!"

"Now's as good a time as any!"

"Well," Yuka looked at her watch, and then looked to Miyamori nodded. "Send him in."

Next time on Love is Like… Anime, Right? Episode Two: "Should I Bring Cheese?"