By the time the ending song, "The Final Moment," finished playing, viewers around the world finally began to wake from the trance.
Until only a few seconds earlier, everyone had still been trapped beneath the suffocating shadow of Sosuke Aizen. The screen had already gone dark, the credits had already rolled, yet that oppressive feeling remained, as though his voice were still echoing somewhere deep in their minds. Only then did the fans truly start reacting. Some rushed into comment sections and live chats to pour out everything they were feeling, while others immediately turned to their sons, their best friends, or whoever happened to be sitting beside them, trying to put into words the shock that episode had delivered.
It was not as if Aizen had never done this before. Since his first great reveal, he had always possessed the power to silence an audience, to turn a single line into something capable of dominating an entire scene. But as time passed, even the sharpest fear would inevitably wear down a little. The original impact would fade, the threat would become memory, and even a legend could start to feel a little too familiar.
This time, however, was different.
For many longtime fans, it felt almost like being thrown back to the peak of the Soul Society arc, when Aizen betrayed the Thirteen Court Guard Squads and overturned the entire structure of the story in one stroke. That same chill, that same sensation that the world of the series had changed forever, returned with brutal force.
And above all, there was that line.
"When exactly did you fall under the illusion that I wasn't using Kyoka Suigetsu?"
Its sheer presence was no weaker than "I will stand in the heavens." On the contrary, for many viewers, it stood on the same level.
Perhaps even higher.
When the two latest episodes of Bleach finally came to an end, July also slipped away, and August arrived.
Along with it came a cruel reminder for every student: half of summer vacation was already gone.
And yes, the homework was still waiting.
Naturally, that kind of warning was basically useless. Most students would still leave everything until the very last night before school started, writing in a desperate frenzy while promising themselves, for the tenth time in their lives, that next year would be different.
Meanwhile, countless teenagers and young adults with dramatic souls threw themselves, without the slightest restraint, into heated discussions about Bleach. After all, that week, Aizen had once again elevated the concept of elegant arrogance to an almost artistic level.
In anime merchandise stores across the country, Aizen's white coat, absurdly stylish to the point of excess, sold out completely. It did not matter whether people actually had the courage to wear something like that in public; owning the coat alone felt like a declaration of faith.
But while the audience celebrated, one major figure in the national film industry, especially in the commercial comedy circuit, was not in a good mood at all.
Martin Hale, currently one of the strongest box-office names in comedy, had a new movie originally planned for the summer season. However, after hearing that Bleach would also be airing during that period, he and his team chose to avoid the collision and pushed the release to the national holiday period in October.
The facts proved that the decision had been correct.
The movies that premiered in July were crushed one after another, some so badly that they barely seemed to belong to the same market. Smaller productions were not even worth discussing. The most eye-catching case was Monster Hunt 2, the only major franchise of the period, which ended with a box office of seven hundred million.
For an ordinary film, that number would have been spectacular.
But the first movie had broken past two billion.
Of course, there was an objective reason for that. The sequel was bad. Weak, lazy, and soulless. Even so, it would have been naive to ignore the fact that Bleach had stolen all the oxygen in the room.
"What the hell was that? Not only did they recycle everything, they stuffed it with ancient jokes. I felt secondhand embarrassment watching it."
"I thought they dared to release it alongside Bleach because the producers had confidence in the movie's quality. Turns out they were just completely clueless."
"This garbage still made seven hundred million? The audience here is way too forgiving toward domestic films."
"If Alex's Death Note had been allowed to release in theaters here, it would've made at least seven billion worldwide."
Comments like that appeared nonstop. Gradually, Alex almost became a universal weapon in the hands of netizens, used to attack bad productions and empty celebrities alike.
Whenever some young idol released another disastrous drama and his fans defended it with things like, "We only care about his face, it doesn't matter whether the show is good," someone would always fire back with sarcasm: "Is he more handsome than Alex? Because Alex's new series just hit a 9.5 rating again."
There were also those actors in their thirties who still insisted on comparing themselves to much younger idols, selling discipline, muscles, and self-improvement as if that alone could sustain a career. Whenever one of them went overboard marketing his body on social media, a single comment was enough to end the discussion:
"If you're that disciplined, Alex must have called you in for an audition, right?"
Instant kill.
But none of that was what truly worried Martin Hale.
The problem was that August had already begun, half the season had passed, and Bleach still showed no sign of approaching its ending.
To make matters worse, he was watching the series himself. As someone who still needed to appear on variety shows, interviews, and public events, he knew he could not afford to be disconnected from what young people were talking about. If he did not understand the references, he would lose half the jokes before he even opened his mouth.
And after watching it, Martin had no choice but to admit that Alex's talent was terrifying.
What unsettled him even more was one simple but devastating possibility: what if the final season of Bleach continued airing for three straight months and ran all the way into October?
In that case, would his new movie have to run away again?
From October to New Year?
The worst part was that the idea did not even sound absurd anymore. Several productions originally scheduled for the October holiday were already considering doing exactly that. Among them were expensive fantasy projects by famous directors, commercial dramas starring top-tier names, and major productions with heavyweight casts.
There were even rumors that a patriotic action blockbuster planned for the same period was also considering a delay. Still, in that particular case, the possibility seemed lower. After all, when that director's films leaned into patriotism, normal box-office predictions stopped working.
Once the news spread online, it was not only Alex and Bleach fans who burst out laughing. Even casual spectators, people merely watching the chaos from afar, found the situation hilarious.
Movies running away from a television series?
That was practically unheard of.
"I'm still laughing. Didn't that director always call himself the number one figure in domestic cinema? A TV series scared him this badly?"
"Poor Martin Hale suffered the most. He already fled from summer to October because he was afraid of Alex, and now Bleach doesn't even look close to ending. Is he going to run again?"
"If a series can already do this to them, imagine what happens when Alex releases another movie."
"Seriously, Alex needs to make a feature film that can officially release here. Domestic cinema has been competing to see who can deliver the worst trash. A little pressure would do it some good."
For a while, as Aizen and Bleach continued dominating the trending topics, another subject also began gaining momentum: the public's desire to see Alex direct a movie that could be widely released in the national market.
Coincidentally, that very same week, Alex had just sent several scripts to old Harrison, one of the most influential figures in the industry.
Cells at Work, Five Centimeters per Second, Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid, Your Name…
Action and battle series usually depended on complex worlds, extensive internal rules, and long-term buildup. That kind of story rarely fit well into a single movie without losing depth or becoming nothing more than a rushed version of itself. Because of that, Alex chose scripts with more everyday foundations, stories where the impact came less from the scale of conflict and more from emotional intimacy.
Well… in theory, at least.
Because deep down, almost all of them carried that melancholic, cruel flavor of romances beautiful enough to break someone from the inside.
In his previous life, films like those were often released around Singles' Day. Alex remembered that very clearly. More than once, he had used the occasion to invite lonely girls to the cinema. Of course, watching the movie itself had never exactly been the real objective.
The key point was that, in the darkness of a theater, many things could happen.
After reading the scripts, Harrison remained silent for quite some time. In his mind, however, a string of curses thundered one after another. In the end, he lifted his eyes and looked at Alex with deep suspicion.
"You, a scumbag of this level, can actually write stories this pure?"
Alex was speechless for a moment. Judging by his expression, he had absolutely no intention of discussing that subject any further.
"Which script do you think is best, Uncle?"
Harrison slowly rubbed his chin. He knew very well that the tastes of today's young people were no longer something an old retired man like him could accurately grasp. Professional matters should be left to professionals. Interfering too much, in this case, would only get in the way.
"What I think isn't the most important thing. You're the one who's going to film it."
He raised his eyes again.
"Which one do you like the most?"
Alex thought for a few seconds. The silence stretched for almost half a minute before he finally answered in a calm, low voice:
"If I had to choose… Dragon Maid."
Yes.
Deep down, he just wanted to experience what it felt like to have a harem.
___________________________________________________________________________________
Additionally, more chapters exclusive content are available on Patreon: https://patreon.com/ImmortalEmperor?utm_medium=unknown&utm_source=join_link&utm_campaign=creatorshare_creator&utm_content=copyLink
- CHRONICLES OF THE ICE SOVEREIGN
-PLAYING ANIME LEGENDS
-THE OTHER WORLD'S ANIMATOR
Join now and help shape the future of the story while enjoying special rewards!