Chapter 1: Killing by Consciousness!
Akira Hattori coughed loudly to clear his throat, "Good evening. We've gathered here to discuss about a special collaboration between Musashino Animation and Shounen Jack's author-artist duo, Ashirogi Muto." The sound of polite applause flitted across the tiny room stationed on the top floor of the Musashino Animation office. "This will be the first time for the production of a manga-anime in-line release. On behalf of Shounen Jack, I would like to express our delight in working together with Musashino Animation, and we look forward to a successful production." More applause rang throughout the room as Hattori took a deep bow to end his brief speech.
The room was filled to the brim with people, having been crammed already during Musani's own meetings, now housed an addition of Hattori, the Ashirogi duo, the chief editor of Shounen Jack, and renowned script-writing rookie, Midori Imai. Midori was the latest "addition" to team Musani, having been their part-time researcher during her college days and well known to the Musani staff as "Diesel-san". Now seen as a fresh graduate out of college, she made her name known as a talented writer. In her final year of college, Midori led her team - the animation society - to victory at the All-Japan animation festival, showcasing a top-notch animation that received the praise from pros of the field. The name Midori Imai came up at multiple anime production companies, hoping to fish this bright graduate into their own. However, Midori's confirmation to join Musani was only an inevitable occurrence, as she had grown to enjoy the free spirited atmosphere of the high-paced environment. The collaboration between Musani and Shounen Jack marks Midori's first official project as a full time employee.
Hattori's brief speech was followed by director Kinoshita's words,
"We at Musashino Animation are equally thrilled to work together with manga creators of such high calibre," the director began fidgeting with his fingers as he did when he felt cornered, "I'm interested in knowing the style of your works Ashirogi-kun."
Several volumes of Ashirogi Muto's works had been laid out on the conference table, with both Iguchi and Ema's noses already digging their way through the chapters of Reversi.
"Well, our main strengths are creating battle manga in a non-mainstream style." Takagi started, his first sentence brought upon the murmuring amongst the Musani staff, "Basically, if you take a look at our previous manga, we write about battle-y stuff, but in a way like its not a physical battle, but…" Takagi's voice trailed a bit as he thought hard on how to present something that the author-illustrator duo were now so unconsciously used to, but had never been challenged to explain with words, "more so in a way of mental battles. Mind stuff."
The Musani team were still perplexed with the explanation, the worst being Kinoshita, who furrowed his brows furiously as he mumbled to himself, trying to digest Takagi's explanation as if he was deciphering ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs.
"Maybe it would make more sense with an example, KTM." Takagi motioned towards the Shonen Jack volume on the table, "We took relatively intangible subjects as the key battle purposes, in the case of KTM, those intangible subjects were intelligence and appearance, and the way the battle works is through exchanging money for intelligence or appearance, with the consideration of possible negative outcomes when you attack with the 'wrong move'". The general idea is something of value that people can fight for, and we like to have the fights in a way that is relatable for the general public. Like how we spend money everyday in real life."
"So we just have to incorporate daily stuff into the manga. Sounds simple, but I don't feel like I can come up with anything on the spot right now." Kinoshita spoke as the rest of the Musani staff began stuffing their noses into the manga volumes, a sight that was slightly too comical for such a serious setting. Mashiro scanned the room, and noticed Iguchi and Ema continuing to peel through the pages of Reversi, he stopped short as he saw Ogasawara san in her Lolita get up, PCP in one hand and taking extensive notes on character development in the other. The very idea of a goth girl taking notes seriously on a light-hearted manga made Mashiro giggle slightly.
Mashiro took a breath and spoke,
"We want to connect with our readers at a more personal level." All eyes turned towards the young illustrator, whose first words of the day came about such a profound yet fundamental topic. "We first had trouble trying to grasp a balance between the crazy, all-out, unrealistic battles that most young readers would hype about, and the common, everyday experiences that we wanted to deliver so to connect with our readers. Connecting is important to Ashirogi Muto, we don't want to create a firework that only shines at its peak and fizzles out at the end, we want to make something more like your nightstand. Something that shines constantly and will be ingrained in your mind." For someone who pretty much spent every day of his life drawing and rarely ever communicating with a large audience, Mashiro managed to present the values and ideals that Ashirogi Muto held eloquently. The Musani side was getting the idea of Ashirogi Muto's genre, and the discussion on the theme of the upcoming collaboration commenced.
"Robots have always been interesting. Anything mecha. Neon Genesis Evangelion is my all-time favorite."
"We could do stuff like time. Like KTM, but time is the valuable item."
"How about consciousness?" Miyamori mumbled aloud unconsciously with an emotionless expression slapped on her face. She quickly turned beet red as she realized that everyone turned to look at her, and all conversations in the room suddenly muted. "Oh, ignore what I just said, I was just mumbling to myself!"
"No, that's a cool idea." Takagi's eyes gleamed, "We've always just played around with stuff related to daily life like greed, sleuth. It would be cool if we went head on with psychology."
"What about being able to access other people's consciousness?" Midori suggested, "Being able to know what other people are thinking or what they want."
"We need to add some kind of cost to that, a cost and a purpose." Takagi chimed in, "Maybe needing to give up part of your own happiness in order to access other people's consciousness. The characters would have to judge which they decide to have in life, but we'd have to make sure that the value of both consciousness and happiness are comparable, in order to make sense of giving up one for the other."
"Yeah, that makes sense. Now for the purpose of this exchange. We need a main character who does this with some sort of purpose, I'm picturing a man in his late twenties, someone who's about to get married with his girlfriend, and they're about to embark on a happy life…" Midori's imagination was cut short by Takagi,
"His girlfriend gets killed!"
"That's the end of the story?"
"No, his girlfriend gets killed right before they live their happy life, he's lost his main source of happiness and he's willing to give it up for consciousness!" Takagi started to get excited, and when Takagi got excited, word vomit was bound to happen. "So he becomes a self-proclaimed "Consciousness policeman", and he tries to do everyone justice because he felt that he was stripped of it when his girlfriend got killed. But he does this by killing the people whom he believes are the cause of injustice. How's that?" He stopped, slightly out of breath, the silence of the conference room erupted into a trill of conversations amongst the workers, ideas began to form.
"Let me consolidate everything into a summary." Midori readied herself with a pen and paper.
Title: Killing by consciousness.
It is set in a dangerous world where people can enter other people's conscious and gain access to other people's deep thoughts by giving up part of your own happiness. By entering people's consciousness, the intruder will experience gloom, and if the habit persists, the emotional experience becomes stronger until the intruder is completely trapped in a pit of devastation.
The main character Futsuuo is a self-proclaimed "Consciousness policeman", Futsuuo enters his targets' consciousness, and learns of their suffering, he then commits murder on those who he believes are the key contributors to his targets' sufferings.
BEGINNING: His girlfriend is killed, to which he responds by killing those responsible for his girlfriend's death. He continues to seek "justice" for those who he deems are weak, the killings continue throughout the series.
ENDING: His last entrance into a consciousness shows himself as the root of someone's suffering. Shocked by the idea that he was the very cause of someone's suffering, in contrast to the strong belief he held in his morals for justice, as well as being completely submerged in his "pit", he decides to kill himself by jumping off the roof of a building. He dives into the street through the air, through his conscious, he feels hatred and anger for himself and the world as he first begins his fall, as he approaches the ground he sees a flickering light, hearing his girlfriend's voice and realizing that the glowing light is actually her, he falls into her embrace and smiles, finally realizing the cruel world he lived in and how he succumbed to his depression. Ends with a monologue of Futsuuo reconciled with his girlfriend, and expressing his gratitude for this afterlife.
"This is it!" Director Kinoshita jumped to his feet. The whole room buzzed with energy over the idea of a new creation. Takagi rambled on with his ideas to Mashiro who beamed and nodded in return, Midori gripping her pen tightly and her hands flying across the sheets of paper, trying to note down every single idea contributing to a fresh story. Amidst the chaos, the president of Musani entered the room with a bright smile and pot of curry in hand.
"Here's some curry for everyone to enjoy." He spoke gently with a toothy grin.
Kinoshita leapt to his feet and began wolfing down bowls of curry, the rest of the staff began settling down into different groups, the artists, story-writers, production team, everyone dove into work mode whilst happily munching on the president's famed curry. Miyamori looked at the scene surrounding her, it was a sight that she was familiar with, one that warmed her up in the insides and sent butterflies into her stomach, as the birth of a new project began. She suddenly bit into a piece of garlic left floating around in her curry, the sharp heat awoke her from her daze. I better enjoy the fun before all hell breaks loose.