That the nondescript old man was the Third Hokage under a henge was not something anyone present was going to comment on. The little teahouse was, in fact, entirely staffed by ANBU operatives who were not wearing masks or otherwise obvious about their primary occupation.
"You're making HOW MUCH?" asked the old man.
"You heard correctly," said Jiraiya, shaking his head and pouring a little rice-wine into his mentor's cup. "In fact, the publishing house I've used has a deal for me. They want me to run a start-up where they'll be working in animated films."
"How is this going to impact your other job?" asked the Third, well aware that the other job in question was that of spy.
"I'll have to scout out new talent, new locations, photographers to take images that we can give to the animation crew to come up with locations that look authentic," said Jiraiya. "Most of the business aspects I'm handing off to others who can stay put at an office and work there. Me, I'm going to be away from the office more often than not."
"In other words, you will have a cover even more thorough than you had originally planned," said the old man, settling back into his seat.
"Oh yes, I expect that there'll be some 'friction' with the current Hokage," said Jiraiya. "We'll argue back and forth for awhile, full of hurt and recrimination, then reconcile with a compromise where Konoha gets a discount on advertisements or something along those lines."
"Huh, you think Kumo or one of the other villages will go with that?" asked the old man.
"They may protest, and if they do - they'll negotiate," said Jiraiya. "After all, it's a cartoon mouse. How much further can this possibly go?"
Six months later:
"We did what?" asked Jiraiya, wondering briefly if he was going to be saying that a lot now. It certainly seemed that way.
"Dobe Duck is selling really well, so..." The assistant held it up. There it was, Dobe Duck, in his basic ready-to-brawl pose. In a fabric and stuffing sort of doll. "The Dobe Duck plushy."
"It's selling well?" asked Jiraiya.
"Oh yes, not as much as Abukunai, but well ahead of Gruff McSnarl."
Jiraiya nodded. "Well, I'd expect that as Gruff is an antagonist mercenary working for the Cats Pajamas."
"Yes, but a sympathetic character due to the gambling debts and mention of his tragic past," said the assistant. "Sets him up to be the Atoner later if we go that route. And it looks like Tomoe Tiger is going to be even bigger, but with a different age group."
"The samurai mixed up in ninja business provides an excuse for explaining things the characters should know but the audience doesn't," said Jiraiya, who'd come up with the character to have someone filling that role without resorting to an idiot. After all, they already had Dobe Duck.
"And we came up with a tweak on Richduck," said the assistant, the twinkle in her eyes indicating two things to Jiraiya. One, that he was going to like this. Two, the Uchiha were not.
Read the comments on this episode
(Posted Tue, 11 Jun 2013 17:08)
Questions? Problems? Suggestions?
Send a mail to addventure@bast-enterprises.de
or use the contact form.
らんま1/2 © Rumiko Takahashi
All other series and their characters are © by their respective creators or owners. No claims of ownership of these characters are implied by the authors of this Addventure, or should be inferred.
The Anime Addventure is a non-profit site.