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In Kaminoyama High School, animation club members and good friends Aoi Miyamori, Ema Yasuhara, Shizuka Sakaki, Misa Todo, and Midori Imai promise to each other that they will make an animated feature together one day. Two and a half years later, Aoi is working as a production assistant at Musashino Animation, an animation studio that is currently working on an upcoming anime for the fall season, called Exodus!. She visits Misato Segawa, the animation supervisor for the anime's fourth episode, to retrieve the checked animation. Then, she drives to the studio, where she attends a meeting as the entire crew (including Ema, who is a key animator) watches the premiere of Exodus!. When the anime premieres, it is met with a lukewarm public response, to everyone's relief. Later on, while previewing the third episode, the crew finds that Taro Takanashi, another production assistant, was unable to finish the key frames in time, thus leaving the quality of the episode's animation erratic. Since there are no other key animators available to finish the frames, the crew turns to Segawa, who reluctantly decides to take the extra job at the request of the third episode's animation supervisor Ryosuke Endo, who is her rival. Once the frames are finished, Aoi retrieves them before taking the animation director, Hironori Madoka, to a dubbing session. She then stops by Segawa's house and finds her lying on the floor unconscious.
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After tending to Segawa, who had collapsed due to severe dizziness from a fever, Aoi manages to get Ryosuke to handle the key frames for episode four. As the production process continues, Ema calls Shizuka, who is now a restaurant employee and also a beginning voice actress, and the two make plans for the group's monthly get-together event. Ema then notes to Shizuka that she and Aoi are interacting less at work, and Aoi seems to have an overwhelming workload, being responsible for the production of two episodes. Later on, during the sound design process of a later episode of Exodus!, the director, Seiichi Kinoshita, becomes dissatisfied with the design of one of the characters. He then suggests making changes to the character's design based on his vision of her, which involves completely new ideas that were not incorporated during production. As a result, this is met with resistance from Hironori as it would require the staff to redo the key-frame animation for the scene entirely. It is then revealed that a previous anime directed by Seiichi, Jiggly Jiggly Heaven, had become the subject of widespread ridicule because of these same actions. Unsure of which side to take, Aoi suggests that they hold a meeting with the rest of the staff to properly determine the personalities and back-stories of the main characters. After some discussion and debate, the group eventually comes to a consensus and agrees to make the changes.
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General animation supervisory assistant Yumi Iguchi is impressed by the new iteration of the fourth episode and decides to begin work on the retakes. Later on, Aoi is faced with a heavy workload regarding the fourth and ninth episodes. After checking the finished cuts, she delivers the key frames she has for the ninth episode to director Masashi Yamada for checking, and he instructs her to wake him up early so he could check the key frames that have not been delivered yet. Doing so, Aoi is then instructed to give the key frames to the general animation supervisor, Rinko Ogasawara. After Rinko checks the key frames, Aoi sends them to in-between inspector Chiemi Domoto, then realizes she mistakenly sent one of the cuts to the camera department and retrieves it. Later on, she finds that one of the key frames she requested has not been delivered to her and calls lazy freelance key animator Mitsuhide Kisa to finish the cuts. Although he begins work, the process is delayed due to his laziness. As he finishes, the missing key frame is delivered late due to the truck being held back in roadworks. On the day before episode four is due to air, a problem with the studio's FTP server results in the delivery of an external studio's color shots getting delayed. Aoi panics, but she is comforted by fellow production assistant Erika Yano. Eventually, the staff manages to pull together and get episode four delivered on time, with the retakes being well-received.
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Taro tries to reason with Ryosuke and his decision, but he refuses to listen. Taro then vents his anger to Aoi and blames her for the situation, explaining that the argument was the reason behind the phone calls. With the storyboards for the final episode way behind schedule, being a month late, chief production assistant Yutaka Honda, desperate for progress, goes to extreme lengths and locks Seiichi inside a cage in the storage room in order to get him to finish them, despite his protests. Taro explains to Aoi that he got caught up as the middle man between Ryosuke, who wanted to do the key frames for an explosion scene, and the 3D director Yuichiro Shimoyanagi, who had already prepared a CGI explosion, the result of which led Ryosuke to believe people were favoring 3D over 2D and drop out of directing the eighth episode. An unsatisfied Aoi accuses Taro of not handling the situation better and tries to tell Honda about it, but he talks her out of it. Caving under the pressure of his new work environment, Seiichi recounts how his once successful career as an anime director took a downfall after the release of Jiggly Jiggly Heaven, and it is revealed Exodus! is his first official anime in six years. Whilst having a drink with his coworker Hotta Hikari, Ryosuke learns from animator Saburou Kitano about how he is teaching 3D animators himself, stating that it is not about whether 3D is better or not, but rather how it can be used to improve the quality of anime. Aoi and Ema meet up and eat at the latter's house, where they talk about how 3D is continuing to influence the production of anime, which is what led Misa to choosing her career path. The next day, while showing Ryosuke the 3D-rendered scene of the explosion, Aoi learns that the beginning of episode nine, which follows on from the explosion in the eighth episode, had been finished using key animation.
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Despite seeing the 3D-rendered explosion scene, Ryosuke refuses to return to work, citing that things had already gone far enough. Becoming agitated by Taro's attitude, Aoi finally informs Honda of his failure to handle the situation between Ryosuke and Yuichiro. Honda decides to tell Seiichi about the situation as well, but discovers that he had somehow managed to escape his confinement so he could sneak off to the after-recording session. Meanwhile, production assistant Tatsuya Ochiai is given an offer by his friend, line producer Houjou Hiroaki, to work at Studio Canaan, another anime studio, but Tatsuya turns down the offer. Later, Aoi and Erika discuss the possibility of hand-drawn animation being phased out by 3D animation completely. Aoi then hears from Misa about how, even as a 3D creator, she needed to study up a lot of hand-drawn animation to get an artistic sense. Meanwhile, Shizuka is visited by her old mentor, Mari Tateo, who invites her to a play recital, where she teaches her to make use of the time between auditions. Afterwards, Shizuka calls Aoi, who tells her about the difficulties she is experiencing at work, and she comforts her. Seiichi decides to return and finish his work. Hearing from Segawa about how Ryosuke was inspired by an Idepon anime to become an animator, Aoi invites him to an exhibit on the show. There, they run into Taro and Yuichiro. The exhibition helps Ryosuke and Yuichiro get over their feud and encourages Ryosuke to return to work and get the cuts done. Afterwards, Ryosuke praises Yuichiro on his CG explosion and asks to dabble in 3D himself, while Yuichiro asks Ryosuke to take a look at some of his 3D motions and give a key animator's opinion. Aoi celebrates the finishing of the cuts, and Taro, Erika, and Tatsuya credit the success to her and her ability to effectively handle situations.
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In a hurry, Aoi arrives at Kanno's house. However, she gets there without knowing very much about Kanno and realizes that it was rather rude for her to ask him to do some key frames for her. As she apologizes, Kanno gives her some advice.
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Aoi Miyamori
Taro Takanashi
Seiichi Kinoshita
Aoi Miyamori
Taro Takanashi
Ema Yasuhara
Seiichi Kinoshita
Ema Yasuhara
Shun Watanabe
Yuka Okitsu