The logic was sound.
But Hideo Kojima's face was already flushed deep red.
"Oshii—Director—" Kojima leaned on the table, his tongue tangling. "That part—at the end of Escape from New York—where Snake—what do you think of Carpenter's camerawork—"
"We'll talk about it tomorrow," Mamoru Oshii said, taking away the sake cup and replacing it with a glass of warm water.
Kojima pressed his palms flat on the table, his forehead slowly sinking toward the back of his hand.
Three seconds later, the sound of even breathing filled the air.
Gabriel looked up, glancing from Kojima sprawled on the table to his master. The long-eared dog, clearly used to such scenes, yawned and rested its chin back on its paws.
"You did that on purpose," Takuya Nakayama said, pointing at the now-dead-to-the-world Kojima.
Oshii finished the last piece of Wagyu and wiped his mouth with a napkin.
"With a brain like his, if you don't force it to shut down, he'll be up all night sketching storyboards. Then he'll barge into your office tomorrow morning with a plan he rushed through the night. Will you accept it then or not?"
Takuya Nakayama thought it over. He was right.
When Hideo Kojima got a burst of motivation, there was no stopping him.
Last time, during the MGS2 crunch, the man slept in the office for three days straight. In the end, he had to be poked awake by a cleaning lady with the handle of her broom.
"So how's he getting home?" Takuya asked, glancing at the unconscious game director on the table.
"Call a car to take him back." Mamoru Oshii stood up and took his trench coat from the hook.
Gabriel immediately scrambled to his feet, wagging his tail as he waited for his owner to fasten the leash.
Takuya pulled out his wallet.
Outside the izakaya, the night wind of Shinjuku swept into the alley.
Neon signs flickered and crisscrossed overhead.
Mamoru Oshii turned away, the hem of his trench coat billowing in the night breeze. Gabriel trotted beside him on short legs, his ears brushing against the damp pavement. The figures of the man and his dog vanished around the corner of the alley.
Takuya went back inside the izakaya and asked the boss to call a taxi.
He and the driver worked together to hoist Hideo Kojima out of the private booth and stuff him into the backseat.
Hideo Kojima mumbled something in his half-asleep state.
"—The opening shot—needs a telephoto lens—"
Takuya shut the car door and patted the roof.
The taxi merged into the stream of traffic in front of Shinjuku Station, its taillights receding into the night.
OVA or game? Let the chatterbox figure it out himself when he wakes up tomorrow.
A new week arrived swiftly.
At 9:00 AM on Tuesday, the doors to the boardroom on the top floor of the Sega Headquarters Building opened on schedule.
The long, solid-wood conference table had been polished to a mirror shine, with bottled water, paper, and pens neatly arranged at each seat. Outside the floor-to-ceiling windows, Tokyo Bay lay shrouded in a thin morning mist, the silhouettes of several cargo ships faintly visible in the direction of the port.
The directors took their seats one by one.
Thanks to Sega's comprehensive rollout of computerized office systems over the past two years, the routine reports had already been distributed to each director's desktop terminal via the internal email system before the end of the previous Friday.
Financial summaries, monthly operational data from each business division, reports from overseas branches, supply chain updates—all the materials to be reviewed and the figures to be digested had been available all weekend.
As a result, the routine reporting session in the first half of today's meeting was essentially a mere formality.
The Finance Director, presiding over the briefing, stood before the projection screen and spent fifteen minutes reviewing the key performance indicators.
His pace was steady, pausing at key points to allow for questions.
No one raised a hand.
Two years ago, this would have been unthinkable.
Back then, every Board of Directors meeting could devolve into a half-hour argument just over a single business unit's data reporting methods. Now, with PricewaterhouseCoopers' audit team permanently stationed at headquarters, McKinsey's management consulting reports updated quarterly, and Takuya Nakayama's personally championed cross-audit system, the figures submitted by each department—while not perfectly clean—had at least seen a significant reduction in large-scale falsification. The old habit of window-dressing data couldn't be eradicated overnight, but the blatant manipulation had been curbed.
As the reliability of the data improved, so did the board's trust in the reports.
The routine briefing concluded smoothly, and the moderator handed the floor to the next speaker.
Director Hoshino rose from his seat and signaled his assistant to switch the projection.
A macro-economic overview chart of four Southeast Asian nations appeared on the screen. The title, printed in bold black font, read: Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines—Exchange Rate Risks and Hedging Strategy.
"The detailed materials for this topic were sent to everyone's email last Thursday," Director Hoshino said, standing beside the projection screen with a laser pointer in hand. "Today, I will focus on a comprehensive explanation of the key steps in the operational contingency plan. Please raise any questions, and I welcome any additional information."
Without wasting a moment, he dove straight into the data on Thailand's current account deficit.
Director Hoshino's presentation was a model of rigor.
His data sources were clearly cited, and his logical chain was seamless. He began with the rigidity of the Baht's peg to the US dollar, then moved to the balance of payments imbalance caused by shrinking exports, and finally to the deteriorating ratio between short-term foreign debt and foreign exchange reserves.
Every judgment was backed by specific figures.
The directors listened intently. Outside of Sega, each of them managed their own industries or investment portfolios, making them highly sensitive to macroeconomic trends.
The indicators Hoshino presented—the current account deficit exceeding 8% of GDP, short-term foreign debt more than double the foreign exchange reserves, and the widening gap between real estate vacancy rates and credit expansion—were all familiar to them. But when systematically linked, the conclusion's impact was far greater than that of scattered news reports.
Someone interrupted mid-way to ask a question.
"How much longer can the Bank of Thailand hold out with its foreign exchange reserves to intervene in the currency market?" Director Sugiura asked.
Director Hoshino flipped to a backup chart. "At the current rate of depletion and the intensity of probing by international speculative capital, an optimistic estimate would be that they won't last past the second half of next year. Once Soros's Quantum Fund or a hedge fund of similar size focuses its fire on shorting, the Bank of Thailand's ammunition could run dry within weeks."
Another director responsible for overseas operations pressed further: "If the Baht collapses, will it have a direct impact on our hardware sales channels in Southeast Asia?"
"There will be foreign exchange losses in the short term," Director Hoshino replied, "but Sega's sales in Southeast Asia account for less than 3% of the group's total revenue, so this loss is within an acceptable range. What we truly need to guard against is the secondary shock of the crisis returning to Japan. Japanese financial institutions have issued a massive amount of loans in Southeast Asia. Once a wave of defaults breaks out there, the bad debts will be transmitted back through the capital chain."
This statement silenced the meeting room for a few seconds.