"Speaking of which, AD's anime has already passed an average of two hundred thousand BD copies per volume as of yesterday. Congratulations, Sora," Sumire said while finishing the work in her hands.
"Only two hundred thousand. There's nothing worth getting excited about."
Sora set down his brush and began checking the storyboards spread out before him. His tone was far too calm for someone who had just received news that would have sent almost any anime producer into a state of euphoria.
"My expectation for AD is to break every BD sales record held by my previous works."
Sumire lifted her gaze slightly, thoughtful.
"Break your records… If I remember correctly, among all your previous anime works, the one with the highest average BD sales is Re:Zero, right? It has reached three hundred and ninety thousand copies per volume so far."
"No. It's Steins;Gate," Sora corrected her.
He turned another page of the storyboard before continuing.
"Last week, Steins;Gate passed four hundred thousand copies per volume. Judging by the trend, it should still climb a little higher."
Sumire fell silent for a moment.
"So you really think AD can surpass Re:Zero and Steins;Gate?"
"I do."
Sora paused briefly. Then he smiled.
"You also participated in the production of AD's second season, so you know better than anyone how good this work is. Be a little bolder and imagine it: after the second season finishes airing, its average BD sales surpassing four hundred and fifty thousand copies per volume."
Unlike Steins;Gate, whose early plot was deliberately slow, AD did not demand nearly as much patience from its audience. Even if Steins;Gate reached an almost divine level in its later half, in Sora's previous life there had still been many anime fans who simply could not get through the first part of the story.
But AD was different.
Sora had almost never heard anyone say they could not get into that work. Its first season was indeed considerably weaker than the second in terms of impact, but compared with most other productions, it was still a refined work, above average in nearly every aspect.
It did not impose the same barrier to entry on viewers. It did not require them to endure twelve full episodes of slow buildup before finally being rewarded.
If AD's popularity continued to grow, it was easy to foresee that, at some point, it would draw in even more anime fans than Steins;Gate.
"Four hundred and fifty thousand copies…" Sumire murmured.
Just hearing that number made her voice drop.
"If it really reaches that result, AD will enter the top five in the historical BD sales ranking for TV anime in Japan."
"Only the top five?" Sora asked, curious. "You study this kind of data too?"
"Of course I do. The top five in average sales per volume are almost all grand works from the golden age of Japanese animation, ten or twenty years ago. I grew up watching those productions. How could I not know?"
"And first place? How much did it sell?"
Sumire hesitated for a moment before answering.
"Five hundred and seventy thousand copies per volume."
"Five hundred and seventy thousand…"
Sora's voice stopped halfway through the phrase.
Sumire looked at him with a teasing smile.
"What? Did that number scare you? Left you speechless?"
TV anime was different from theatrical animation. After a series had already aired on television, the audience's urge to buy the BD usually was not as strong. Movies, on the other hand, offered a new story, renewed visual quality, and a different experience; many people were still willing to pay for that. In the case of franchises like EVA, for example, some of the better-selling films reached BD averages more than three times higher than the TV version.
"No," Sora said, looking at Sumire. "I was just thinking that this record might be broken next April, when Attack on Titan premieres."
Sumire's eyes froze.
The way Sora said it so casually shook her more than she wanted to admit.
So that was how much expectation he had for Attack on Titan?
"Aren't you worried about those scenes of people being eaten? About people complaining that it's disgusting, filing reports, giving it bad ratings? And you're still thinking about it breaking BD records?"
"I'm not worried."
Sora smiled with confidence.
"As long as the authorities don't ban that kind of content, Attack on Titan will explode. And it will explode in a way you probably can't even imagine. Don't underestimate anime fans' ability to accept new things. It's just people getting eaten. How big of a problem is that?"
Time moved forward into the autumn cour, in October.
That season, the four major Japanese broadcasters were not staying idle either.
Each of them invested more than seventy million yen to produce four high-quality anime series.
AD had not displayed the same absurd potential for popularity that Steins;Gate had shown. Across the twelve episodes of the first half of its second season, the episode with the highest viewership had reached only 5.42%.
That gave the four major broadcasters a sliver of opportunity.
If AD merely maintained that level of viewership, then defeating Sora and restoring the glory of the four giants might not be an impossible fantasy.
Sunday night.
The thirteenth episode of AD's second season was about to premiere.
The two-week hiatus had tormented the fans long enough. That night, every section of the NatsuYume forum was occupied by comments related to AD.
Unlike what happened with Sora's other works when they reached the middle or later stages, with fans crying, screaming, and collapsing in despair, the atmosphere in AD's comment area was still quite cheerful.
After all, up to this point, AD's story had not been painful.
Fuuko's starfish, Youhei's comic relief, Tomoyo's deadly chain of kicks, the recurring jokes that had already become memes… Whenever those topics came up on the anime forum, an endless stream of fans appeared to discuss them.
In the end, the story still felt everyday, light, and refreshing. When everyone discussed the plot, there was hardly any reason to argue.
With a smile on her face, Yumeka Morikawa looked away from the comments under Sora's account and turned her attention back to the television.
That night marked the premiere of the second half of AD's second season in the autumn cour market.
The promotional push had also been much stronger than usual.
As soon as the time arrived, the screen of Minami Alliance TV flickered on schedule.
AD's opening song began to play.
In countless homes across Japan, viewers sitting in front of their televisions felt their hearts gradually settle.
The title of the thirteenth episode was "Graduation."
Only when she saw those words did Yumeka Morikawa realize that, within the story, Nagisa Furukawa had already been repeating a school year for almost a full year.
Meanwhile, Takasaki, the male lead, had already graduated from high school and left school a year ago. During that period, the two had lived through the imbalance of a relationship in which one person remained in the school environment while the other had already stepped into society; they had gone through the incident of Takasaki's father being imprisoned; and together, they had made the promise to get married.
Watching that anime felt strange. Once someone truly immersed themselves in it, it no longer felt like merely following a story. It felt like experiencing a part of someone else's life.
And that left traces.
As Yumeka Morikawa thought about this, the opening came to an end.
The beginning of episode thirteen showed Takasaki arranging a baseball match with Nagisa Furukawa's father.
Takasaki's objective was simple.
Facing a future father-in-law with a straightforward mind and absurd physical strength, asking permission to marry his daughter without getting beaten up required choosing a special moment.
For example, defeating him precisely in the sport he was best at.
Beneath the rain, Takasaki and Nagisa's father faced each other in a baseball duel.
Even without properly understanding the rules of the sport, Yumeka Morikawa watched the scene with her eyes fixed on the screen.
And when it became clear that Nagisa's father had understood Takasaki's intention and still softened his approach a little, the protagonist won one play, immediately ran up to his future father-in-law, and said that he wanted to marry his daughter.
Rationally, Yumeka Morikawa knew that this was not a particularly complex scene.
Even so, her eyes grew wet.
That was love.
Without realizing it, she had already placed herself in Nagisa Furukawa's position.
The marriage between the protagonist and the heroine, after that, happened naturally, as if the story were simply following a path that had been chosen long ago.
The plot continued to move forward.
Just when Yumeka Morikawa thought the anime would begin portraying Takasaki and Nagisa's everyday life as lovers, the turning point arrived.
Nagisa Furukawa had repeated her third year of high school for two consecutive years because, due to illness, she had been unable to complete the required class hours.
But now, in her third attempt at her third year, at the crucial moment of graduation, she fell ill once again. Once more, she faced the risk of failing to complete the mandatory hours and credits. Once more, she was confined to bed, unable to go to school.
Seeing that, Yumeka Morikawa's eyes widened.
A surge of anger rose in her chest.
Sora, you damned old bastard.
Is there something wrong with your head?
The girl only wants to graduate from high school. Was this really necessary?
In the first episode of the first season, she was already a student who had repeated a year because of illness. In episode nine of the second season, she repeated another year for the same reason.
A girl like that only wanted to finish high school. This was already her third year trying. And you, cursed screenwriter, still had to make her fall ill again at this exact moment, with some inexplicable disease that left her weak and feverish?
Was it really necessary to write something like this?