Work Text:
“In another life, I might have gone into making animation.”
Because, in another life, the world wouldn’t have fallen apart, leaving the world in a state where they scavenged remnants of the past out of rubble, trying to preserve what they could, or at least they did so in Japan.
In other parts of the world, or so Kuromi heard, they had instead abandoned the old, gone for new ideas, such as everything belonging to everyone, with no right to property, though in reality, there was always someone in power, in control of these groups of property, these communes.
At least, that much was clear from some of the animation that Kuromi ran from village to village, going over the options while some weirdos asked if she had the rumored Pupa animation that, yes, she had seen at one of the Animation Runner meet-ups, and honestly, she didn’t understand why anybody would create such a work.
Instead, she preferred sharing classics such as episodes of Sailor Moon and GetBackers, while taking the time to dive into the libraries of each small village she visited, each village trying to preserve what books they could, Manga or not, eating up every single adventure.
Of course, she also had stories of her own, of running from some of the monsters that had come to be because of the world falling apart, which was ironically similar to some of the Anime episodes she’d seen, though they never seemed as fantastical or unbeatable as some of the Anime made them out to be.
“You’d think the world would be better prepared for this kind of thing,” she said. “I mean, it’s not the first time episodes became lost for the ages. They were still apparently trying to find lost episodes of Doctor Who when the world fell apart.”
“I’ve never heard of that animation,” the person willing to listen to her chatter said.
“Oh, it wasn’t an animation. It’s live action, and from Europe,” Kuromi said. “It’s a show that ran for years and years, with older black and white episodes being lost.”
“We rarely get any black and whites,” the person said, letting out a hum. “But the ones I’ve seen, sometimes I think they’re better than some of the newer stuff. Sparkle is only so much. Good stories are great, but with the fact that episodes are lost, the episodic ones are currently better than the non-episodic ones.”
“Maybe there will be a day when the world recovers enough that we can go back to a world where we can be less episodic, like with the books,” Kuromi said. “And maybe that institute that is working on making new animations will pan out. They’ve not produced anything yet, but we Animation Runners have been invited to see the first product, and they’re training individuals to install networks as they did in the old days, to help better communicate from village to village.”
“That should make our job a lot easier, right?”
“Yeah, but it also may make my job obsolete in the end,” Kuromi said.
“Maybe you could get a job at this institute?” the person suggested.
“Maybe.” Kuromi nodded her head. “That sounds like fun.”