knew. The sisters head to town hall to show the diary to the mayor, hoping to change her mind. They arrive to discover a massive protest against the library's shutdown—the people of the town have not forgotten Jordi's contributions. The mayor allows the library to remain open, and Kokoro and her sisters continue to live their peaceful days together in the library. Production Yōsuke Kuroda, a scriptwriter who had highly appreciated Takagi's doujin works published under the name "Boo", heard from Takagi himself that he was going to retire from his company and train to become a manga artist. "It's too late to train to become a manga artist now when you have the ability," he said, and pitched Takagi to the editor-in-chief of Monthly Comic Dengeki Daioh, whom he knew. The editor also appreciated Boo's drawing style and immediately gave him a positive response for serialization. At that time, Kuroda was instructed to write a scenario, which he accepted, and the serialization took shape. According to Kuroda, it took only an hour and a half from the time he was informed of Takagi's resignation to the time he informed Takagi that the serialization had been decided. As a result, Kuroda was in charge of the script for both the original story and the animation. Kokoro Library was animated digitally, rather than on cels as had been used for Studio Deen's animated productions until the late 1990s. However, limited-edition hand-painted replica cels were made available to collectors for ¥5,000 by online sale. The setting of Kokoro Library is ambiguous. The town is identified in signage as "Toaru City" (都亜瑠), a homonym for the phrase "a certain city", although it is never named in dialogue. We are never explicitly told the name of the country where the library is situated, or the year when the series takes place. Rather, it is a pastiche of Japanese and European cultural elements. Several pieces of mid-20th century technology appear: Iina drives a redecorated World War II Volkswagen Schwimmwagen, while other characters drive the post-war Citroën H Van and Citroën DS. In episode 11, Jordi's side carry the Karabiner 98k used by German troops in World War II, while the enemy armored unit fields the Russian T-34 and GAZ-67; however, neither side's nation is explicitly identified. Modern computers and cameras also appear, along with science fiction androids. The anime was notable as Chiwa Saitō's first