"The Japanese Way"

Magenta Sue stood on the balcony of her danchi. She was crying, not even bothering to wipe away the tears, for she held the most prized possession she would ever hold in her young, hot life - a Japanese residency card.

What? You think just ‘cuz it’s the year 2999, that people can move around wherever they like? If two billion people want to live in Neo-Neon Tokyo, and it only has room for a billion - some people simply aren’t getting in. If you’re not from there, you need a golden ticket to stay there permanently. Sue held hers now.

Her own apartment in Neo-Neon Tokyo. A view from the danchi of neat streets, neighborhood shrines, all the other aspects of her slice of life Japanimations.

Sue found herself in the platonic ideal of paradise. She would return to this view night after night while hanging out with her showerhead, but for right now - she couldn’t help but sing.

I dream of the Japanese way!

Living my life like an anime.

The foreign style is rendered moot-

By the sight of gakurans and sailor suits.

It started approximately one day ago, when Magenta Sue signed a deal to produce an original Japanimation based on her story idea for Finger Game!. She would handle the creative side, while a bunch of high-powered executives (names didn’t matter to Sue, just titles) would deal with the business side. Upon signing the deal, the company acquired a residency card for her.

It was a dream come true. Not only did she get to work on her very own Japanimation, she got to meet a variety of characters across the industry, most of them powerful with friends in high places. She’d wake up, be creative for the day, then go to dinners and clubs with CEOs and CFOs and other suits all night. Then she’d come home to her little danchi and smile at the thought of making it. After all these years of climbing various social ladders, Sue had finally made it big. If she were to die right now, she’d be content.

I love trains and Nara deer!

A land so safe, you’ll have no fear.

‘Cept for a courage test, at a midnight shrine-

But with my onee-chan, I’ll be just fine!

A couple of days later, Sue became less content. A danchi was cool and all, but you know what would be cooler? Living in one of the ten Mega-Pyramids. But again, space was limited. At the end of the day, some people will have better living situations than others, but as long as the baseline was good, then nobody complained that much about living on the 200th floor while others lived on the 1000th.

To at least get on the 200th floor, Sue needed some money. Apparently, it took time to get a Japanimation ready, especially when they were using human voice actors. Sue spent less time around the studio and more time at meet-and-greets and the boss’s office. At a luncheon with a group of government culture bureaucrats, Sue finally found a way to make it big.

It involved candy. The sugar-filled candy of the past was a huge health hazard, contributing to societal obesity and things like that, so old-school candy was banned in favor of healthy alternatives with self-burning calories. That meant there was a market for old-school candy, and this bureaucrat had a connection to an underground operation in a Russian factory near Vladivostok. He needed an extra hand bringing it in.

Sue went up to Cape Soya, the northern tip of Japan, serving aboard ships disguised as crab fishing vessels, and hauled in a good chunk of illegal Russian candy. That earned her quite a pretty paycheck, and soon enough, a room on the 200th floor of San-Pyramid. If she were to die right now, she’d be content.

I dream of the Japanese life!

In this old land, there is no strife.

Where every LN excites from page-to-page-

And almost all of the lolis are of age!

A couple of hours later, Sue became less content. The 200th floor was cool and all, but the 1000th floor - that sounded nice. She hadn’t been to the studio for a while now, instead hanging out with local government figures and a couple of representatives in the Human Congress. They liked their Russian candy, too. Smuggling and selling candy became such a money-maker that Sue no longer had any need of her Japanimation. She sold the rights with no hesitation, and combined with the candy money, that was enough to get her to the 1000th floor.

She stood on the balcony, drinking sake, listening to a Nii-san Comforts You During a Thunderstorm ASMR, smoking a cigar. If she were to die right now, she’d be…content?

No, not content.

Something…someone…was missing. Whatever it was, it was important, ripping open a hole in Sue’s heart.

What could be missing?

I love those sakura trees!

Aesthetics of peace and harmony.

Oh, to live in the land of the rising sun-

Climbing Mt. Fuji, what could be more fun?

The robo-cops arrested Sue the next morning. Investigators got wind of the connection between candy-smuggling and the government, so her original bureaucrat pal and her new political buddies promptly sold her out. During the entire ride in the police van, Sue kept her head down, glasses covering her eyes. The arrest wasn’t that important, all things considered. She just really wanted to know what was missing. She had made it big, hadn’t she?

A series of events occurred en route to the police station. The Ministry of Culture had authorized a cosplay parade down the closest street to the station, but failed to notify the Ministry of Justice. The robo-cop driving the van found the way unexpectedly blocked. Its censors calculated an alternative route that took it through Kitkuhani-ku, the amalgamation of the former wards of Nishi-Kitsune-ku, Kuma-ku, and Hanikamu-ku. During all the bureaucratic paperwork of unifying the three wards into one, maintenance records for the particular road the van now drove down weren’t well-maintained. The van hit a pothole, the jolt tearing open the back doors of the van. Those doors were made with cheap metal produced by a shell industrial company several government figures had bought stock in as part of a pump and dump scheme. All those factors unknowingly enabled Sue’s escape.

She raced through town, arriving back at the entrance to San-Pyramid. She couldn’t enter no more. Following the arrest, they revoked her lease there. All the neighbors she waited in the elevator with - nobody cared that she was gone now. It was as if she never existed.

Sue trudged through the city, arriving at a plaza with giant screens adorning giant skyscrapers playing - what else? Previews of upcoming original Japanimation Finger Game!. Enthusiastic crowds gathered to watch the trailers.

Sue grabbed the nearest high schooler. “Imouto-san, you know I made Finger Game!, right?”

“Um…eto…”

Sue stopped, realizing she was shaking some poor first-year (who was more shy than genki). With a sigh, Sue lowered her head and trudged on, nobody paying attention to her, nobody caring about her former status as someone who lived atop the world. Even when she got to the studio, security tossed her out without a second thought.

When she arrived at her old danchi, she found that a new family had moved in. The parents were playing with their little daughter on the balcony, all smiles.

Sue ended up sitting on a bench in a small park overlooking the Tama. She stared at her bespectacled reflection in the water and sighed.

If only I had stayed in that danchi…now I’m a nobody. It sucks, no longer being important, losing out on your exclusive status.

But wait, that’s not it…even when I had the status, I felt like something was missing.

Sue blinked.

I get it now.

I was so focused on the cheese, I forgot about the trap.

I left my friends to pursue a life of fame and fortune, and now I’ve lost everything.

Sue wiped her eyes and brain-called a friend she never should’ve left behind.

“I’m sorry,” Sue said. “I abandoned you, even though we said we would stick together. You showed me how to be creative, to be something more, and I left you behind without a second thought. You deserve a better friend than me. But I’ll try, alright? I’ll try to be a better friend this time. So please…please, forgive me.”

The line was silent for a while. Then, finally-

“I forgive you,” answered Scottie.