Chapter 67 The Priest Who Eats Tofu During Chinese New Year

After finishing the temple visit, Ori took Nanaya to a roadside izakaya for a midnight snack of chicken hotpot, which made up for the regret of not having a big meal at dinner on Nanaya.

The next two days were the New Year's days when everyone visited each other. As the head of the Ryougi family, Ryougi Shun brought his butler and driver, Morikawa Sugai, to visit everywhere.

As the next head of the Ryougi family, Ori stayed at home and received guests with her mother Ryougi Kiyomi.

The people who came during this time were all regular customers of the Ryougi family, and they knew the family very well. Therefore, they would not reveal their true colors in front of Kiyomi, but just kept praising Ori for having the demeanor of the next head of the family.

As for Nanaya, the outsider who came to stay, he did not show up. Although many of these guests were descendants of the Chinese, their influence was basically concentrated in Kyoto. For Nanaya, who was developing in Tokyo, there was no need to make friends. If he insisted on welcoming guests with Ori, he would be regarded as an evil guest who wanted to take advantage of the Ryougi family.

So except for the time when her teacher Ryuichi Hanai came to visit, when Nanaya and Ori received him together, all other times when there were guests, Nanaya would hide in the activity room next door and watch TV.

For Nanaya, hiding in a kotatsu and eating chilled oranges is the second best enjoyment in winter, next to eating ice cream in an air-conditioned room.

"Worn out."

After seeing off the visiting guests, Ori tapped their shoulders and walked into the activity room.

"Thanks for your hard work."

Nanaya, who was lying on the kotatsu, greeted Ori lazily. He was almost like a cat and didn't even think about standing up.

"Mmm... ah~ It's so warm~" Ori put her feet into the kotatsu and moaned very comfortably, "I envy you so much, senior. You don't have to do anything at all. Is this the New Year SP of "Magical Girl Illya"? "

Seeing the familiar silver-haired little loli on the screen, Ori hurriedly confirmed with Nanaya.

Nanaya nodded: "Yes, the new year SP of "Magical Girl Illya" "The Servant Lost in the Streets" is also a transition chapter between the upper and lower two and a half seasons."

The so-called New Year SP refers to the special episode broadcast during the Chinese New Year. Usually, the New Year SP of special effects programs such as "Magical" or "Kamen Rider" will be slightly longer than ordinary programs. If advertisements are included, it will usually be about an hour.

Of course, because it is the Spring Festival, the ratings for such children's programs are generally not very good. It is estimated that Nanaya can get 5% at most.

Therefore, Nanaya did not spend a lot of energy on this New Year SP. And like other TV drama New Year SPs, this extended version of the extra episode has little to do with the main plot.

The content of this episode mainly tells the story of a pseudo servant who escaped from the mirror world due to some reasons, caused trouble in the real world, and was finally solved by the protagonists.

Of course, not putting much thought into it doesn't mean you can just do it casually. Although the whole story continues the simple narrative style of traditional special effects films, it also maintains the usual excellent production standards of Nanaya's version of "Magic Illya". Both the special effects and costumes are top-notch in special effects films.

As for choosing a pseudo servant, of course it would be Mephistopheles, the bomb maniac. After all, the New Year's Day should be more lively, and the more firecrackers, the more festive it is.

In order to ensure that this SP can also have a certain topicality and satisfy Nanaya's bad taste, he also deliberately added two little tricks in it.

The first is to let the passerby actor who played Kokutou Mikiya in "Kara no Kyoukai" make a cameo appearance in this episode, and let him serve as the No. 1 NPC who provides information to the protagonist group. In order to maintain the mystery of the plot, Nanaya deliberately did not let Mikiya reveal his name in the early stage of the plot, giving people a sense of paradox.

The other one is——

"Is this the scene you mentioned before, specially prepared for the Spring Festival?"

Ori looked at the middle-aged man on the screen who was stuffing mapo tofu into his mouth, and a frown appeared on his face.

"Look how festive it is, and it can also whet your appetite, right?"

As he spoke, Nanaya reached out and took an orange and started peeling it. He also felt hungry.

"Well...that's true."

Watching the middle-aged priest on the screen eating more and more happily, Ori's stomach began to make some rumbling sounds, so he reached out and took an orange to satisfy his craving.

"I told you, the way uncle eats is amazing."

The content playing on the screen at this time is the scene that Nanaya specially designed to suit the New Year's theme - Kotomine Kirei, the monitor of the Holy Church, performs the performance of eating mapo tofu.

In the original version of "Magical", because it was just a loli yuri comedy with a strong Type-Moon style at the beginning, the member of the Templar Church in Fuyuki City, the main world of Illya, was Kallen.

However, in order to popularize some of the settings of the Type-Moon world as quickly as possible, Nanaya replaced Kallen's character with Mapo Tofu, no, it was Kallen's father Kotomine Kirei.

This priest who looks like a bad guy in the setting plays the role of a good guy in this drama. This is due to the original work and also due to Nanaya's own bad taste.

In other words, in "Magical", this tax-evading priest has basically no shortcomings except that he likes to eat mapo tofu. He is a good person who helps the protagonist and provides clues.

"I wonder what these guys will think when they see the true side of the tax-evading priest when I film FSN in the future?"

With this in mind, Nanaya decided to portray the priest in his "Magic Illya" as a typical representative of a person with an ugly face but a kind heart. Then, when filming FSN and everyone thought that Father Mapo would come to the rescue, he would let him show his happy side to give everyone a surprise.

As for how big a psychological shadow it will leave on the audience, the small things are completely insignificant to Nanaya.

"Anyway, compared to the senior who turned around in three episodes, my move was just a small test. Compared to Urobuchi, I am just a younger brother."

Although Nanaya explained it this way, Ori had only one evaluation for his senior brother in this state—a sinister man who took advantage of others and still acted like a good kid.

Therefore, in order to cater to the setting of Mapo, Nanaya asked the casting director to find an actor with a vicious face for her.

The crew did find one according to Nanaya's request, but this person looked like a gangster in the eyes of others, but when Nanaya saw him for the first time, he felt hungry.

The reason why Nanaya thought of having this Mapo priest perform eating in front of the people of the whole country on such an important day as the New Year's Day was entirely because of the actor Kotomine Kirei.

Because 10 years later this uncle would become popular all over the country as a very famous foodie and create a late-night miracle in history.

That's right, the foodie is the famous Inogashira Goro, and the actor's name is Matsushige Yutaka.

The "Solitary Gourmet" series starring Uncle Matsushige can be said to be one of the most popular food series TV dramas in Japan, and it is also well received in China.

In Nanaya's memory, when the first episode of "The Solitary Gourmet Season 7" was first broadcast, it won a 5.1% audience rating as a late-night TV series. In that era when TV was already declining, this result could be said to be the best among all the late-night shows, and even some of the monthly dramas could only look up to this result.

However, these things have not happened at this point in time. The food program that will sweep the late-night time slot will not be broadcast until 2012. Currently, Matsushige Yutaka is just an ordinary actor.

However, under Nanaya's lens, this uncle already has some signs of becoming the superstar foodie in the future.

"Hey, Ori."

"Hmm?" Ori, who was putting an orange into her mouth, heard Nanaya calling her, so she stopped her hand in mid-air and looked at him.

"Would you be interested in doing a late night show?"

Ori had said before that he wanted to become a director, so during the past two days during the New Year, Nanaya had been thinking about what would be a good way for his junior fellow apprentice to practice.

Unlike herself who has the blessing of time travel, Ori has an excellent talent in costume and prop design due to her family inheritance, but her control of the camera is only average, otherwise Nana would not have let Shonan be her photographer when filming "Kara no Kyoukai".

Therefore, it was not suitable for Ori to go straight into the movie business like he did. It was obviously more suitable for him, his junior fellow apprentice, to slowly accumulate experience from late-night TV dramas.

But since he is one of us, we can't just throw a project at him. After careful consideration, Nanaya decided to give "The Solitary Gourmet" to Ori to shoot.

First of all, "The Solitary Gourmet" is a typical project with low investment and high returns. Moreover, as a daily late-night drama, "The Solitary Gourmet" does not require any advanced shooting techniques, so it is the most suitable for Ori, a newcomer, to practice.

It can be said that this project is tailor-made for Ori. Nanaya estimated that as long as Ori worked hard on this project for two or three seasons, he would definitely become a qualified director, at least he would have no problem directing a TV series.

[But I remember that "The Solitary Gourmet" has a comic original. Let Tamari ask where the copyright of that comic is. ]

The copyright of this kind of daily-style comics is usually not too high, and Nanaya believes that he can get it without spending much money. After all, in the original timeline, "The Solitary Gourmet" did not air its first season until 2012, which is obviously not a hot topic.

[After the Chinese New Year, let Tamari go and find out which publisher owns the copyright of that comic.]

Thinking of this, Nanaya took a slice of orange and put it in his mouth.

"Ah, watching uncle eat really whets my appetite."

At this time, the foodie priest on the screen finished a bowl of red mapo tofu with the exciting background music. Looking at the uncle with a happy smile on the screen, Nanaya's stomach growled.

"Hey, Ori. When is dinner?"

After taking a bite of the orange, Ori said, "Wait a little longer, although I'm hungry too."

"Hai~Hai~"

Thus, Nanaya's 2001 New Year holiday ended in hungry waiting.