After conquering the most important technical hurdle, the remaining task was to build the game's stages.
Salamander had six levels in total—ranging from deep space, to steel warships, to the innards of a giant fleshy monstrosity—rich and varied scenes.
Naturally, none of this could fit into a 20K cartridge. But with the release of the SG-2000, the cartridges had changed as well.
The current standard had reached 32K program + 8K graphics/audio, following Nintendo's lead. With this, a long game containing multiple stages finally became possible.
Time drifted toward the end of January, and Kobayashi Tetsu received Sega's monthly payment—over seventeen million yen.
Kobayashi Blocks, Yamashita Tank Battle, Duck Hunt's light-gun license—these all contributed.
Especially Duck Hunt, bundled with the SG-2000, whose sales rose in direct proportion to the console's.
In short:
Despite spending a lot last month, Kobayashi now had over fifty million yen on hand again.
He also visited the Tokyo Patent Office. Unfortunately, scrolling technology was not considered original, and thus could not be patented.
Still, judging by the current pace…
By March, he should be able to complete this era's version of Salamander. After all, part of the level design had been outsourced to Taito.
The FC version with iron-plate protection, however, would not be released until November.
"The timing works," Kobayashi murmured while coding. "But I already negotiated with Sega—since I'm keeping the royalty system, I must handle the promotion myself. Which means these next six months are all for marketing. And Sega needs early notice to prepare production and ready a batch of cartridges…"
Under the royalty system, all cartridges must be manufactured at company-approved factories. No matter the company—Sega or Nintendo—if the cartridge didn't come through their facilities, it wasn't an official cartridge.
So finding his own factory was pointless.
Kobayashi paused, thinking ahead.
Promotion—well, there were plenty of possibilities.
At present, Sega and Nintendo still relied on the same old methods: massive billboards on central streets, TV commercials, handing out flyers—
But Kobayashi felt:
Bro, these methods are prehistoric.
Surely there was a more effective, money-burning way?
There was indeed. He had a plan for a multi-front promotional campaign:
Animation.
Link the animation, the toys, the game, and the video releases into one ecosystem.
Japan currently had five major private TV stations—TBS, Asahi, Fuji, TV Tokyo, and NTV.
In the 80s, TBS dominated; Asahi and Fuji followed behind.
And the poorest, smallest, most content-starved of them all was TV Tokyo. As long as quality wasn't atrocious, they would take anything. Though their rank seemed low, a phoenix tail was still a phoenix. TV Tokyo was still one of the five giants.
Kobayashi twirled the whiteboard marker and suddenly asked:
"What do you think would happen if I commissioned an animation of Jörmungandr, and aired it on TV?"
Naka Yuji's head snapped up, confused.
Boss… what drug did you just take?
Masuko Tsukasa looked speechless.
We make games—why are we making anime?
Kitagawa Go scratched his cheek.
He can't possibly expect one person to draw everything… right?
Seeing their vacant faces, Kobayashi clicked his tongue in disdain.
"I'm not asking the three of you to animate it. It's settled then. Kitagawa-kun, you're coming with me tomorrow. We're going somewhere to meet a few people—illustrators. You'll get along. Oh, and do you have a car? Where we're going is pretty far."
Kitagawa hesitated.
Well…
He did have a bicycle. A good bicycle! With a headlamp!
…
…
A bicycle was, of course, unacceptable.
So Kobayashi had no choice but to borrow Kentarō's personal driver.
If you drove for the boss, running a small errand for the boss's "family" was only natural.
The next day, Koizumi drove a black luxury car and took Kobayashi and Kitagawa all the way to the outskirts of Tokyo—Koganei City.
There stood a simple house, with a modest sign at the entrance:
Daicon Film Animation Studio
Kitagawa scratched his head.
"It sounds familiar… but I can't quite place it."
"This studio is remarkable," Kobayashi said. "Sure, it's nothing impressive now, but give it time—they'll stay unimpressive!"
He rang the doorbell.
He'd already scheduled the meeting yesterday, so he wasn't worried about being turned away.
Just before the door opened, Kobayashi turned to Kitagawa.
"Kitagawa-kun, do you have dreams?"
Kitagawa blinked.
"Do you like anime?" Kobayashi pressed.
Kitagawa scratched his head. "Does Astro Boy count?"
"Astro Boy does not count. Once we go in, just talk to them about ideals. Talk about Miyazaki Hayao. Confuse them until their heads spin."
Astro Boy was by Osamu Tezuka, whose studio favored PPT-style minimal animation to maximize output. This clashed with another great figure—Miyazaki Hayao—who insisted on meticulous, hand-crafted animation and despised Tezuka's shortcuts.
And the studio they were about to visit supported Miyazaki's philosophy.
More precisely, one of its founders was Miyazaki's disciple.
The door opened. A young man with curly hair and black-rimmed glasses appeared.
His appearance wasn't bad, but his smile naturally exuded a certain… questionable aura. One look, and you knew this was the type who fantasized about being slapped and scolded "Bakayarō, hentai!" by a stern half-German Japanese heroine.
He extended his hand enthusiastically.
"Atlas! I've heard so much about you. I love your games. Allow me to introduce myself—Anno Hideaki."
Kobayashi nodded. "Anno-kun, this is Kitagawa Go, our art director at Atlas."
"Oh!!"
Anno's eyes lit up immediately.
An art director—finally, someone who spoke his language!
He ushered them in, slightly too eager, into the cramped but earnest workspace of "Daicon Film."
Kobayashi reviewed Anno's background in his mind.
Anno Hideaki, born 1960, now twenty-four—an animation creator.
A college dropout discovered by Miyazaki Hayao himself and brought to Tokyo as an art director.
Thus the mentor-disciple relationship. Miyazaki profoundly shaped Anno's creative path.
Anno's most famous work would one day be Neon Genesis Evangelion.
Kobayashi planned to have the very studio that would eventually create EVA help produce an animated work tied to Salamander—that is, this timeline's Jörmungandr—and broadcast it on TV Tokyo.
If everything went well, not only would it serve as a living commercial…
It might even make a tidy profit.
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