"Welcome, Hunter." My laptop said as I turned it on, it sounded like a voice you'd hear over the intercom at the grocery store. I looked over at the bookshelf to my right, there were some textbooks like "Art: the Advanced Guide to Anime" and "Manga at it's finest" left over from college, and some how-to-draws and whatnot. But most of it was just manga and video games. I had the full series of most every anime I watched in the Anime, Light Novel, Manga, plus it's game if it had one. Most of the time, for any one of these rare collectibles, I would stake out for days at a time, just to get a spot. Still waiting for my laptop to boot up, I stood up and looked out my window. On a clear day, you could look down at the sea of people down below, but right now all you could see was the sign that said "Welcome to Akihabara!" in Japanese Hiragana. My computer finally booted up, and I opened my email. My mentor had asked me if I wanted to do an appointment at Five, to which I agreed.

I went to my favorite anime site and continued from where I left off the day before. I was watching the newest episode of The Journey. It was an action anime involving a group of characters trying to recover a man by my same name from a magically induced coma. In the scene I saw, the main character in the anime, Hunter's daughter, -a woman by the name Sitorro- was fighting the main villain, a creature that simply called themselves Death (This was not Death himself though, nor a grim reaper type character.)

I paused the video, grabbing my sketchbook from the shelving and opening it to a new page. "Man it's been a while since I've drawn a scene like this. But let's start by drawing Sitorro herself first." Sitorro was a hard character to draw. A Kitsune, her two ears had to be shaded perfectly with her hair, which was a color like the midnight sky, but it was a strong color. The Royal Navy blue hair on the top of her head faded into a dense poisonous purple toward the fringes, with a mix of black in between. Her eyes, an endless sea of magenta, were among the normal things about her. There was a very thin tuft of white fur within her ears that functioned as a pop-filter according to the artists. Her tail, not that much different from her hair, was bushy and long. She usually wore a kimono, and rarely anything different. This was because she hid weapons inside, and had a sheathed Katana on her hip. Of course, like most guys like me, I fell for the girl. She was cute, kind, and connectable, and within no time I was hooked with the anime.

I took my drafting pencil (A tool that draws lightly in a material that is easy to erase) and began on the face, looking at the current scene for reference. I wasn't sure how I would draw Death, but I was sure going to try. Before I knew it, I had drawn him. A black figure with long, stick-like fingers, he wasn't the type of guy that you wanted to have a drink with, nor hang out with. He wouldn't even be the type of guy gang members would want as a mafia boss. He's just too evil. No mercy, no grace, no good. On to the colors. In this scene, I drew a light blue, lightsaber type wave from Sitorro's Katana, hacking at a barred teeth, no-holds type of guy that just wanted to kill you. They were in a void, standing on a black platform of unknown material. Death was laughing.

I had drawn scenes like this before, a grisly battle of life and death, the noble fight for justice, how heroic. But this was different, almost more realistic. I looked at my drawing. This was something I could be proud of. But, as I looked at it, it began to animate itself. I heard conversations, felt the intensity. I was surprised, dropping my notebook. And when I did, it felt more real than ever.