Taro tries to reason with Ryosuke and his decision, but he refuses to listen. Taro then vents his anger to Aoi and blames her for the situation, explaining that the argument was the reason behind the phone calls. With the storyboards for the final episode way behind schedule, being a month late, chief production assistant Yutaka Honda, desperate for progress, goes to extreme lengths and locks Seiichi inside a cage in the storage room in order to get him to finish them, despite his protests. Taro explains to Aoi that he got caught up as the middle man between Ryosuke, who wanted to do the key frames for an explosion scene, and the 3D director Yuichiro Shimoyanagi, who had already prepared a CGI explosion, the result of which led Ryosuke to believe people were favoring 3D over 2D and drop out of directing the eighth episode. An unsatisfied Aoi accuses Taro of not handling the situation better and tries to tell Honda about it, but he talks her out of it. Caving under the pressure of his new work environment, Seiichi recounts how his once successful career as an anime director took a downfall after the release of Jiggly Jiggly Heaven, and it is revealed Exodus! is his first official anime in six years. Whilst having a drink with his coworker Hotta Hikari, Ryosuke learns from animator Saburou Kitano about how he is teaching 3D animators himself, stating that it is not about whether 3D is better or not, but rather how it can be used to improve the quality of anime. Aoi and Ema meet up and eat at the latter's house, where they talk about how 3D is continuing to influence the production of anime, which is what led Misa to choosing her career path. The next day, while showing Ryosuke the 3D-rendered scene of the explosion, Aoi learns that the beginning of episode nine, which follows on from the explosion in the eighth episode, had been finished using key animation.