99. Romantic Dreams and Romance
99. Romantic Dreams and Romance
The product of our semester's work, Liam Walker, was released.
The story wasn't all that special.
Liam lost his parents in an attack by mysterious assailants shortly after he was born.
Overnight, he became an orphan with no one in the world and was raised in an orphanage.
Due to his extremely frail constitution, he endured all manner of bullying at the orphanage—until one day, a passing wizard discovered his magical talent.
- My name is Moore. Listen up, boy.
According to Moore, Liam had been cursed at a young age, which made his body weak, but his magical talent was so exceptional that it more than compensated.
In fact, the very fact that he had endured the curse at that age and come away with nothing more than a scar on his forehead showed just how extraordinary his talent was.
Moore happened to be a professor of magic, and with Moore's help, Liam transferred into the academy late and slowly but steadily began learning magic.
From there, the main content was simply showing the academy through Liam's eyes as he adapted to it and made friends.
It was only in the latter half that the existence of a hidden mastermind emerged just a little, with the three main protagonists working to thwart the conspiracy—but I had my doubts about whether I should even consider that special.
This kind of story was standard fare in this world too, so it didn't seem like it would deliver any fresh shock.
So there was no reason it should be nearly as popular as Magical Girl...
- <Why We Are Enthralled by Liam>
Popular...
- <Liam Walker was neither an elite nor a Hero. He was 'us.'>
It was popular.
Contrary to my expectations, the public reception was quite favorable.
No, it went beyond favorable—it was fervent.
I accepted the newspaper with mixed feelings and read the explanation.
=========================================
First, the film appealed perfectly to the audience's love of an underdog.
A protagonist who grows through persecution, and the personal narrative of the actor who portrays him.
Because the lead had been chosen through a public audition, Jace already had a fanbase before the film opened. Combined with his personal underdog story, that fanbase became fiercely loyal.
Once that core fanbase formed, word of mouth spread outward from them and became its own marketing.
Was that, then, the entirety of the film's appeal? No, it was not.
Even if the protagonist's narrative drew people in, keeping them hooked was the job of the film itself.
And in that sense, the plot successfully performed that role.
The film's distinctive setting was what held their attention.
That fictional world had no Sanctuaries.
Unlike a real academy, it had no concept of Sanctuaries, and healing magic was less developed.
As a result, it was a little bloodier than a real academy.
- Jimmy! Open your eyes! Jimmy!
...Correction. It was much bloodier.
Blood flew, death matches occurred, combat power directly determined the school hierarchy, and incidents made the student population rise and fall. Nevertheless, it was an academy.
Aside from that, it was an ordinary academy story, but apparently even this was enough to make it feel distinctive.
Just as a magical world fascinated people from a world without magic, an academy without Sanctuaries apparently felt fresh to people for whom Sanctuaries were everyday life.
On top of that, many reviews noted that the academy's unique concept of ranking—where students determine the hierarchy among themselves through battle even without a Sanctuary—was quite compelling.
Once the setting drew people in, the students themselves carried the story and won them over.
What that meant was that plenty of films featured students playing Heroes or Hero parties.
But in the end, the roles in those works were not students but working adults, and audiences simply saw them as characters, not students.
Magical Mari at least had students as its protagonists, but strictly speaking, few viewers thought of the magical girls primarily as students.
In that sense, Liam Walker was almost the very first film where students took center stage, set against an academy backdrop, with events unfolding around academy life.
All of this turned people into 'fans' of Liam Walker.
=========================================
...or so the critics' analysis went.
However, I personally found it hard to understand.
No explosions, no brawls, weak tension.
And yet people were calling it good.
Then one possibility occurred to me.
"Aren't they just sucking up to us because we made it?"
That was the question I asked our club members the moment I heard the box office results.
They say once you're famous, people applaud even when you take a shit, don't they?
I suspected this film might be the same.
But what came back was condemnation aimed squarely at me.
"That's because your brain is pickled in dopamine."
"Boss. A film doesn't need action and explosions to be a film. Please."
"Allen. I can't agree with you on this one either. Those words are an insult to the production staff who worked so hard to make this film."
That was Leon, Nikolai, and Pia, in that order.
To summarize what they said, <Liam Walker: Grand Legacy> was simply, objectively well-made.
Only after all three of our studio's brains affirmed it simultaneously was I forced to accept that this film was indeed a well-made one.
...I was disappointed that we couldn't include more explosives and stunt action for safety reasons, but since they said it was well-made, I had no choice but to accept it.
With the first project successfully wrapped up like this, I began preparations to make the second one.
It was easy to forget, but this was a large-scale academy-sponsored project that replaced regular classes.
The first semester had ended smoothly, but even I didn't know what would happen in the second.
What if approval was denied for the second semester?
Then Liam Walker would simply be discontinued.
That's why I'd been lying low that semester.
I held back on adding explosions and restrained myself from putting in brawls while filming, in case I caused trouble mid-semester and approval got denied for the second semester.
On top of that, Leon was one of the three leads. If I caused trouble, the situation could grow beyond anything I couldn't smooth over myself.
When I shared this fact with Leon,
"You've been holding back on that?"
"For the sake of the film, I can hold back. I have to."
Even though I had to rent a training ground every night and fire guns into empty air to endure it, I was still holding back.
Leon had even applauded and said that was good enough. Somehow, I was still holding back.
It was important, so I said it three times.
I was holding back.
The first semester had now ended, and the second was about to begin.
I hadn't caused any trouble, and the film had become a massive hit, so surely they wouldn't cancel the project or cut the budget.
With trembling hands, I wrote out the proposal.
I needed the Department Head's approval before summer break began.
I finished the final section of the proposal and rose from my seat.
Just as I was about to head to the Department Head's office, a summons from him arrived.
Upon hearing what he wanted, I couldn't help but be surprised.
"Excuse me? An awards ceremony?"
He wanted me to receive an award as the student representative during the summer closing ceremony.
*
I had never cared about them, so I hadn't known that this world also had film awards.
According to Leon, there were quite a variety of them.
The Yellow Dragon Cinematography Association, the Silver Eagle Awards, the Rictus Awards, and so on.
Among them, the ceremony that gave us an award was the Parma Film Festival, the world's most prestigious ceremony hosted by the Empire.
The category was the Rookie Discovery Award.
They said the award recognized the film for discovering an extraordinary number of promising newcomers.
Feeling rather dazed by receiving an award for the first time myself, I got fitted for a suit.
How could I not have known after producing so many hits?
Simple—because they never gave me any.
It was something I only found out later, but Leon explained that the judges for those ceremonies were mostly long-lived elders exceeding five or six hundred years of age, and they didn't much care for blockbuster-type films.
Even with just the John Armstrong Series, things like the Best Actor award always went to the protagonist Hero of some religious film, and I'd never even been nominated.
Fairness controversies had flared up over this, but those old men didn't even pretend to listen.
Anyway, those old men still seemed to hate blockbusters, as they'd tried not to give awards to this type of work by any means necessary.
They complained that the violence was excessive, too few minority races appeared, and the work had no moral lesson.
But this time, even they had to give up their stubbornness and award Liam Walker the Rookie Discovery Award.
As for the reason the old men had suddenly changed their minds—I looked toward the most likely suspect.
"Pia. Was it you?"
"No? I stayed put 'this time,' you know?"
"'This time'?"
"I did consider pulling some strings once in the past, but I thought you might dislike that, Allen. An award received that way seemed like it would be an insult to you. So I've been holding back."
Apparently thinking I wouldn't hear her, Pia muttered about useless old men rotting in back rooms. I pretended not to hear.
After briefly showing her true feelings, Pia instantly put on a kind smile and asked me,
"Do you need me to?"
"No. I'll earn it with my own skill."
"Hehe, I thought you'd say that."
Just in case the Puppet Duchess surfaced again, I let Pia rest her head on my lap and patted her.
Then I turned back to Leon and asked what had suddenly happened this time to make things different.
"Even they can't ignore objective numbers. You discovered more than thirty newcomers, and I'm one of them. If those old men criticized this film, even they would have trouble escaping unscathed."
Aha.
Placing absolute power on the opposite side of the scale from the judges' abuse of authority had balanced it.
Convinced by Leon's words either way, I set off to collect the award.
Ordinarily we would've had to go to the awards ceremony, but this time they decided to hold the presentation at the dome in conjunction with the summer closing ceremony.
The situation was a little complicated.
It began with the judges' pride. They argued that because the film had technically been funded by the academy, the Academy Headmaster should receive the award.
They were making it blatantly obvious that they didn't want to give this film an award.
Naturally, the judges compromised the moment the Archwizard Department Head—who cherished his students—twitched an eyebrow. They offered to give the award to him instead.
The Department Head disliked their initial attitude and believed the award belonged to the students, so he arranged for the ceremony to be held at the academy.
- Does it make sense for students to leave the academy?
That was what he said, but the underlying message was that he was going to thoroughly trample on the preview organizers' pride.
At first the organizers threw a tantrum and said they wouldn't give us the award, but the moment the Department Head pulled his staff out of the drawer, they backed down.
Pride did not stop nuclear bombs, after all.
Even so, the organizers pleaded their case with talk of authority and reputation, and eventually managed to extract a little mercy from the Department Head.
I would still be the final recipient, but because I was a student and might require a guardian, the Department Head would accept it as an intermediary and pass it to me.
The organizers could present it as having given the award to the prestigious Department Head, and the Department Head could ultimately deliver the award to the students—a compromise both sides could accept, or so the explanation went.
That was the summary of the situation the Department Head gave me.
He apologized, saying he was sorry about the adults' unsavory circumstances, but as far as I was concerned, this was more than enough.
'I love you, god-tier Department Head.'
It was more than enough. I was overflowing with gratitude.
In any case, the award presentation ended up taking place during the summer closing ceremony.
[Thanks to your efforts, the students have regained their motivation...]
During the summer closing ceremony, Department Head Heinkel handed me the Rookie Discovery Award and an academy plaque of appreciation with a benevolent smile.
This plaque of appreciation was something the academy side had personally prepared.
The reason, they said, was that this film's success had become a source of hope for the students.
As you could tell from my receiving the Rookie Discovery Award, this film had become a gateway for students.
And this series would continue to serve as a gateway for students going forward.
If this film's only story had been about a struggling student gradually improving, it would have ended at vicarious satisfaction, but with a real gateway opening up alongside it, it was no longer a distant dream.
Hard work could be rewarded.
With a little luck, a student could catch the eye of Bon Voyage Studio.
Simply making that possibility visible had caused students to participate in academy activities with unprecedented enthusiasm.
This wasn't just the Department Head's empty words—it was a fact agreed upon by every professor who had taught classes.
That alone was more than enough reason for the academy to give me an award.
'Come to think of it, that film too...'
The film about the wizard with a lightning-shaped scar on his forehead was also regarded as a gateway that had discovered many new actors.
While entertaining, the film's significance was also highly regarded for the sheer number of new actors it had launched.
In our world, the Liam Walker series had inherited that film's role.
Deciding that a good result was a good result, I accepted the plaque and shook the Department Head's hand.
Anyway, the important part wasn't the plaque but what came next.
"So we can shoot our film as-is for the second semester, right? With the same leads?"
Maybe my words came across as a joke, because the students who heard them over the speakers burst out laughing.
I was dead serious.
The Department Head answered me with equal wit.
"Heh-heh. Do I look like some petty man who'd take back the funding just because you didn't cast me?"
Amid the laughter, the closing ceremony came to an end.
*
After the closing ceremony, the Department Head privately explained how we would be treated from then on.
From that point forward, the founding members from the first semester could continue taking the course until graduation.
And this project would be maintained until we graduated.
For a club that had won the world's most prestigious award, this level of preferential treatment was only natural, he said.
However, since we would also need to keep casting new actors, and the Department Head wanted opportunities to be spread evenly among the students, we would continue accepting course registrations every semester.
A system where making more films automatically supplied talented actors.
I had no reason to refuse this system.
"I look forward to it, Allen."
"Just leave it to me, Department Head."
*
A few weeks after the discussion between Allen and Department Head Heinkel ended.
Left alone in his office, the Department Head recalled the last bit of casual conversation he had shared with Allen after the negotiations concluded.
- Department Head, how powerful can the explosions be?
- Not as powerful as what you are imagining.
But after Allen pleaded and pleaded, the Department Head had reluctantly permitted explosions weaker than dynamite.
The Department Head watched with satisfaction as Allen departed, grinning from ear to ear.
His escort, secretary, and butler, who had been listening to that conversation from the next room, asked.
- Do you trust that troublemaker?
The Department Head's answer was firm.
- I do. I believe he has grown.
The Department Head wore a knowing smile.
The butler, unconvinced to the end, made a wager with the Department Head.
Would he cause an incident or not?
Now, a few weeks after that wager.
Allen, who had been quiet all that time, broke the silence and released a trailer.
<Liam Walker: The Revealed Threat>
The first film had introduced the setting. In the second, the hidden mastermind would begin moving in earnest.
As if signaling slightly rougher action, the trailer showed a bit more brutality.
However, the Department Head couldn't understand why a trailer was being released when, to his knowledge, filming hadn't even finished yet.
As expected, the trailer showed only the early footage completed so far. Then, as if that were enough, it faded to black without revealing anything more.
Then the screen changed to a two-shot of Allen and Nikolai sitting on a sofa.
A single stick of dynamite was clutched in Allen's hand, and Nikolai was looking at him with an exasperated expression.
"?"
As the Department Head wondered what he was seeing, Allen spoke.
- "Can't we use dynamite?"
- "No. The Department Head said absolutely no explosions on the level of dynamite or above."
- "What about C3H5NO3-3?"
- "Writing the chemical formula does not make it acceptable."
- "What about 'Kickass Red Rat-Bastard'?"
- "Using a code name doesn't make it okay. The Department Head expected that and already struck the entire list."
- "Even 'Intense and Dazzling Art'?"
- "'Improvised Universal Ending Direction' too."
- "Do you want to make a cloud?"
- "I'd love to. But no."
- "Fuck!!!"
Indignant, Allen hurled the dynamite out the window.
The trailer ended with a BOOM as an explosion erupted outside the window.
While the butler wondered whether this counted as winning the bet, the Department Head smiled, handed him the stake, and spoke.
"See? I told you that boy would grow."
An explosion had occurred, so he'd lost the bet, but the Department Head burst into a hearty laugh in good spirits.
In contrast, the butler couldn't understand even as he accepted the money.
In what way was that growth?
To that question, the Department Head answered only with a hint.
"Think again about the process by which art evolves."
Only then could the butler understand.
That was Allen's sense of humor.
He had sublimated his impulses, anger, dissatisfaction, and other emotions into comedy.
He had even partially satisfied his urges without harming anyone else.
The secretary, too, had no choice but to acknowledge that Allen had grown.
Smiling with satisfaction, the Department Head thought of Allen.
The Department Head didn't know the full details of Allen's circumstances, but he knew that Allen harbored a directorial obsession bordering on compulsion.
Since the hero disciples who suffered from PTSD had all been like that, the sight was a familiar one to Heinkel.
And because it was familiar, he was also the most sensitive to such changes.
He had been the first to notice Allen slowly beginning to master those wounds, which was why he could believe in Allen's growth.
The butler, belatedly, could only express his respect for the Department Head.
"You are a model for educators."
"An old man who ought to be rusting away in a back room has pointlessly occupied this seat for over a hundred years. If I couldn't manage this much, I'd have to step down."
Letting out a hearty laugh, he took a sip of his tea.
For one who had reached the peak, there was no pleasure quite like watching the growth of a sapling.
"Growth..."
Nor was there anything he envied more.
He replayed the trailer again and again while drinking his tea.
In the old man's drawer, as he forced his rising emotions back down with bitter tea, a dust-covered Best Actor trophy peeked faintly into view.