I just want to quietly draw manga Chapter 353(2in1)

A week had passed, and Echo Shroud was fully preparing for the Fullmetal Alchemist signing event. They had pushed for maximum publicity and tried to bring in as many new readers as possible, since the manga was moving toward its final arc. They also tried to bring Muzishrio's fans from his other anime and manga toward Fullmetal Alchemist.

Haruki arrived at Evermark just before noon. Kazuya, Wes, and David had flown back yesterday from their promotion trip, and they were already in Kazuya’s office.

When Haruki walked toward the office, he could already hear voices from inside.

David was in the middle of talking. “I had to attend one small public event there, and honestly, I’m not doing that again until we finish Code Geass.”

Wes laughed. “I still don’t know how you survive this stuff, Kazuya. And you’re telling me you’re ready to make more anime with Haruki in the future? Good luck.”

Kazuya sighed. “I try to manage. Earlier animes were easier; the fanbase was small. Now with this… I just tell everyone I’m only an animator. The real culprit is Muzishrio.”

Haruki pushed the door open. All three of them turned their heads.

“Oh.” Wes straightened in his chair. “Haruki. We were just… talking about you.”

Haruki took a seat. “What were you talking about?”

Wes leaned forward with a smug look on his face. “Your signing event. I’m thinking of joining as a spectator. It’d be fun to watch.”

Haruki stared at Wes without saying anything.

Kazuya looked at him. “Anyway. Haruki, about the budget. Will this be enough, or should we look for another option?”

“Based on Shiori’s assessment, we’ll manage,” Haruki said. “At least until Code Geass earnings come in.”

Kazuya nodded quietly.

Haruki turned to Wes. “I need your help with something.”

Wes raised an eyebrow. “Your new art style?”

“Yeah.”

Wes stood. “Alright. Let’s go.”

Both of them left the office while David stretched and stood up as well.

“I’ll go check the production staff,” David said, waving as he left.

Haruki’s Office

Wes closed the door behind them and walked straight to Haruki’s desk, where several storyboards and rough sketches were spread out.

“So.” Wes picked up one of the panels. “Where are you stuck?”

Haruki moved to the desk and pulled out a specific sequence, a series of sketches showing a character standing on a hill, overlooking a town. The next panel showed the same angle, but the town was gone. In its place, a massive crater.

“The anime I’m working on is about time and memory,” Haruki said. “Two people living in different timelines, connected by something they can’t explain. I want the visuals to reflect that, not through cuts or flashbacks, but through continuous transformation.”

Haruki continued, tapping one of the middle panels. “Right here. The character is looking at the town. In his memory, it’s alive, people walking, lights on, normal life. But in reality, it’s been destroyed for years. I want to show both timelines in one shot. The town becomes the crater as the camera moves. No cuts.”

Wes asked, “Oh, it’s a new technique?”

Haruki nodded. “Yes. I made it for this.”

Haruki leaned over the desk. “I’ve tried adjusting it, but I keep missing the timing. Some scenes work perfectly. Others fall flat.”

“That’s because you’re thinking about it like traditional animation,” Wes said. He picked up a red marker from the cup on the desk. “In traditional cuts, you control pacing through editing. Cut to past, cut to present. But with continuous transformation, the camera movement itself becomes the pacing tool.”

He drew a line across the storyboard, marking the camera’s path. “The speed of the push-in, the way the lighting shifts, even the angle, it all has to work together. You’re not just animating objects transforming. You’re animating time itself.”

Haruki watched as Wes sketched quick notes on the margins.

“How long would it take to get the timing right?” Haruki asked.

“For one scene? A week, maybe two, if you're testing different variations.” Wes set the marker down. “For a whole anime? You’d need to build a pipeline and train your animators to think in this new language. It’s not impossible, but it’s time-intensive.”

Haruki’s eyes lit up. “So if we get the pacing right, this technique is scalable?”

“Theoretically, yes. But—”

“That’s what I needed to hear.”

Wes sighed. “But with this new technique, it’ll require more supervision, and there will also be a training period for the animators. For your first anime, I think we should do it anyway.”

Haruki exhaled. “This is one of the problems. And I also want to incorporate two other techniques.”

“Two?”

Haruki nodded. He pulled out another sketch and then grabbed his phone.

“I just recorded the piano version, but this is the gist of it. I want to incorporate the song into the movie so it’s not a separate thing but matches the animation, every beat, rhythm, everything matching the animation.”

Wes stared at the storyboard while the piano played. “I can see the vision. So you want to incorporate that into this anime as well?”

Haruki nodded. “I have everything ready for synesthetic scoring. I tried to do it, and I think it’s working properly now, but I don’t know how to incorporate it with Conscious Motion and Temporal Layering into one single pipeline where animators can follow it and make it on a large scale.”

Wes laughed, a short, disbelieving sound. “So we’re talking: Conscious Motion for method-acting-like animation to make the characters feel real, Temporal Layering where the camera morphs one timeline into another for non-linear narratives, and on top of that Synesthetic Scoring, sound and image animated so precisely they become inseparable, one unified sensory experience. Haruki, any one of these techniques would be ambitious for a single project. Combining all three?”

Haruki’s eyes focused. “Yes.”

Wes studied him for a long moment. Then he sighed. “Alright. What do you need from me?”

“Synesthetic Scoring is ready,” Haruki said. “I've got the songs, and the transitions work. The problem is blending Conscious Motion with Temporal Layering. The camera angles, the character acting, the frame-by-frame transformations, it all has to flow together. I need help building a pipeline.”

Wes scratched his cheek. “You’d have to bring in someone at Masafumi’s level for the music direction if he doesn’t want to join. Synesthetic Scoring is a whole different level of technique.”

“I’ll talk to Masafumi-san,” Haruki said. “But I don’t know if he’d want to jump back in right after Code Geass finished.”

Wes gave a small chuckle. “Don’t worry. He’s a workaholic. When he hears about a new technique, he’ll show up even if he has to fight his family to do it.”

Haruki nodded. “Also… we need to finish this by next summer.”

“Next summer.” Wes rubbed his face. “Of course. You and your impossible deadlines.”

“Can we do it?”

Wes was quiet for a moment, then nodded slowly. “We’ll need more staff. A lot more. And we need to start pre-production immediately.”

“Shiori’s already recruiting,” Haruki said. “By the time we finish the pipeline, we’ll have the animators ready.”

“Good.” Wes picked up one of the storyboards again, examining it closely. “So how did you come up with Synesthetic Scoring?” He seemed genuinely interested, as this technique was easily on par with his Conscious Motion, which had taken him over forty years of experience to develop.

Haruki leaned back, remembering when he’d first watched the anime after purchasing it from system. he was reminded why he’d loved anime so much. Later, he checked comments and related news.

That was when he saw someone say people were hyping it too much. “It was the music videos with animation.” Reading that, his first thought had been how central the music felt. If people thought it looked like a music video with animation, then maybe there was a way to merge the two completely, turn them into a single thing.

The next day he’d gone straight to the studio and commissioned a simple piano piece so he could start experimenting.

Haruki looked at Wes. “The story I have in mind has a big emotional section tied heavily to music. I wanted to use it without it sounding like a dropped-in insert song. Even if I made the best transitions, it would still feel like a heavy-music anime. So I thought about how to do it differently. That’s how I got the idea.”

Wes asked, “Is it a musical anime?”

Haruki shook his head. “No. It’s about conveying emotion through music for deeper immersion. I want to enhance the emotional scenes and make them as immersive as possible.”

Wes nodded slowly. “So this anime has heavy emotional scenes.”

“A lot of them.”

“Should I be worried?”

Haruki smiled faintly, remembering the final scene the system had shown him, the staircase, the two characters passing each other, the realization. “Don’t worry. This one has a happy ending.”

Wes frowned. “I don’t like that smile. What are you planning?”

“Just a small cliffhanger.”

Wes slapped his hand on the desk. “Of course there’s a cliffhanger.”

Haruki laughed, and for a moment he forgot about the signing event.

Then his phone buzzed on the desk.

He picked it up. “Hello?”

“It’s confirmed,” Haruka said. “The venue is Karigawa Hall.”

Haruki’s expression shifted. “Isn’t that… big? That place holds a lot of people.”

“You’re more popular now,” Haruka said. “And you don’t do signing events often. This is standard for major creators.”

Haruki pressed his lips together. “How many people are we talking?”

“One thousand tickets. Sales open in two days.”

Haruki let out a long breath.

“And I need you to post on your fend account,” Haruka continued. “Even a short message. It’ll help with engagement.”

“Anything else?”

“Did you hire a manager yet? And a stylist?”

“Reina’s handling it.”

“Good. Then come to Echo Shroud on the day of the event so we can get you ready. After that, we’ll go to the venue together.”

“Okay.”

Haruka hung up.

Haruki set the phone down and stared at the wall for a moment.

Wes watched him. “You alright?”

“Yeah.” Haruki picked up the storyboards again. “Let’s get back to work.”

Wes grabbed the red marker. "Alright. Let's start with this sequence. The camera needs to push in slower here, give the transformation more weight."

Haruki leaned over the desk as Wes began marking up the panels.

"Micro-expression here," Wes said, sketching a quick face. "Pupils dilate when the character realizes what they're seeing. That's our Conscious Motion beat."

Haruki nodded, already redrawing the panel on a fresh sheet.

"And the music?" Wes asked.

"Starts quiet. Strings. Builds as the town fades." Haruki traced the camera path with his finger. "The beat drops right when the crater fully forms."

"Good." Wes drew another arrow. "Then we hold on the character's face"

They worked for an hour.

Wes made progress with the camera angles for Temporal Layering, while Haruki tried to land the scenes perfectly without making them feel rushed or losing any detail.

[NOTE: The Synesthetic Scoring technique is actually the same approach used in Akira, where the score was created first and the animation was made to match it. You can also see this technique in the opening sequence of Cowboy Bebop. I believe it’s commonly referred to as “pre-scoring.”]