Without pressure from the outside, the infighting began.
That year's anime market had already entered its final cour, and everyone in the industry understood one thing clearly: Steins;Gate and Clannad were, without question, the two strongest works of the season.
It was a pity, but those two anime would have to settle things in December. And when that moment came, the fans on both sides would certainly refuse to yield even the slightest inch.
At noon, the ratings for episode nineteen of Clannad second season were released.
6.05%.
Exactly as everyone had predicted.
It had broken past 6%.
On that day, the entire Japanese anime industry fell into a collective silence.
Ever since Re:Zero surpassed 6% in ratings, Sora's fame and fanbase had been growing without pause. That meant any anime he created afterward would receive enormous attention from the moment it aired, making it easier for his works to challenge even higher results.
But Re:Zero, Steins;Gate, and AD had all broken past 6% in sequence.
In the history of Japanese animation, there had never been a single creator who had produced three works with results of that level.
Much less three in a row.
After that day, Sora was praised to the heavens by the Japanese media. Even Sumire's standing within the industry rose along with him, gradually taking on the aura of a living legend behind the scenes.
And Yumi, as an investor in Yume Animation and because of her relationship with Sora, became the blogger with the highest number of followers on all of NatsuYume.
Although Yume Animation was not the largest animation studio in Japan, it had already become the industry's benchmark for refined, god-tier works. Its reputation far exceeded its actual size and production strength.
On the other hand, the senior executives of the production departments at the four major TV networks wore extremely grim expressions.
A work with a 6% rating, even twenty years ago during the golden age of Japanese television, was something that rarely appeared even once a year.
Now, it was something that might not appear once in a decade.
And yet Sora, somehow, insisted on being this absurd, producing three works like that in only two years.
Worse still, the man was almost impossible to poach. He was a shareholder of Southern Alliance TV.
So what were they supposed to do?
This cour was already about to end.
What about the next one?
And the cour after that, when Giant premiered?
Were the four major networks truly powerless against a young man barely in his twenties?
The thought was unbearable for those executives, who had spent years looking down on the industry from above.
On that day, every side of the anime industry carried a completely different mood.
But Sora had no time to care what they were thinking. With the explosive success of AD and Steins;Gate, Southern Alliance TV also began to stir. Amid that excitement, they came up with an excellent method to save the ratings of their live-action television dramas.
The idea was simple: secure authorization from Sora and have Southern Alliance TV provide the money, personnel, and resources to produce live-action adaptations.
Many older television viewers and housewives did not watch anime at all. But when an animated work was adapted into a live-action drama, they could watch it with great enjoyment. With the popularity of the original IP as a foundation, the ratings for those live-action dramas would certainly not be low.
Still, Sora resisted the idea strongly.
He remembered certain live-action adaptations from his previous life, and those memories were painful enough to make him fear that his own works would be ruined the moment they were dragged into that format.
But after repeated persuasion from Southern Alliance TV, he eventually began to waver.
After all, adapting those works into live action was also a way to expand the influence of his IPs.
Over the past year, Sora himself had recruited many employees for his IP operations department. He had people with that kind of talent under him as well. At the very least, the chances of creating a complete live-action tragedy were not that high.
After several days of back-and-forth negotiations with Southern Alliance TV, Sora reached a preliminary cooperation agreement with the network.
Adapting the two works into live-action television dramas was not impossible.
But the investment had to be joint, coming from both the network and Sora's side. In addition, the operation and core decision-making of the drama projects had to be led by his own team.
As for casting, broadcast scheduling, filming, promotion, and the other major tasks, those would be handled by Southern Alliance TV. Sora would not involve himself deeply enough to interfere with every detail, but he had to retain final approval over key matters such as casting. Otherwise, with the popularity of AD and Steins;Gate, the moment filming was announced, countless celebrities with connections would try to force their way into the projects. If even the casting could not remain fair, there would be no point discussing the quality of the work.
In the final profit split, Sora would take 40%.
The remaining 60% would belong to Southern Alliance TV.
In other words, he would contribute some funding and the IP scripts, then walk away with a huge portion of the profits.
By the traditional logic of the Japanese television industry, those conditions were almost unimaginable.
But Southern Alliance TV accepted every single one of them.
In the end, the same truth still applied: ratings were the most fundamental foundation of a television network.
If Southern Alliance refused Sora's terms, other networks would gladly rush forward to accept them.
After those cooperation intentions were preliminarily settled, episode twenty of Clannad second season aired.
And the plot of that episode made the sky collapse over Japanese anime fans.
At first, the episode was merely a warm portrayal of the everyday life between the protagonist Takasaki and his daughter, Takashi.
Even Fuuko, who had been widely loved in the first season, awakened from her comatose body and appeared as an adorable girl, becoming Takashi's friend and playing with her.
For almost the entire episode, viewers were satisfied. The experience was joyful, gentle, and healing.
The problem lay in the final ten seconds.
Takashi returned from the bathroom with a flushed face, clearly disoriented. Then she lost consciousness and collapsed in front of her father, grandfather, and grandmother.
That scene crushed the hearts of AD fans without mercy.
No matter how they looked at it, Takashi was sick.
And the symptoms of that illness were exactly the same as the unknown, debilitating disease that had taken Furukawa Nagisa's life.
Takashi was only five years old.
Sora, you damned old thief.
What are you doing?
Do you even know what kind of story you are writing?
You are playing with fire.
That night, Sora's comment section was directly occupied by furious fans.
Among the top ten trending searches on NatsuYume, every single one was taken over by dangerous phrases such as "Takashi is going to die," "Sora was born without humanity," "the worst anime Kantoku in history," "that damned old thief Sora is causing trouble again," and "if Takashi dies, we're all charging Sora's house."
At that moment, even the most loyal fans had their emotional defenses shattered.
"Is Sora even human?"
"He wants to kill Takashi."
"I curse that damned old thief. His brain is definitely not normal."
"Why arrange this kind of plot? AD has already broken 6% in ratings. Couldn't he just play it safe? Did he have to stir up trouble?"
"His pretentious author disease is acting up again. He can't stand seeing his characters live even a little happily. He has to force them through suffering."
"I am willing to call episode eighteen of AD one of the greatest masterpieces in anime history. But episode twenty? I will call it one of the worst atrocities this industry has ever produced."
"If Furukawa Nagisa's death was meant to make the audience understand the bond of family and the unpredictability of fate, then what is the point of making Takashi sick? Judging by the look of things, they're preparing a tragic fate for her too. Why? To teach the audience a lesson about life? Real life is already frustrating enough. Can't we even watch something happy in an anime?"
"Kantoku Sora might not necessarily be planning to kill Takashi. She only got sick and fainted."
"Hehe. Before Furukawa Nagisa died, people online said the same thing. They said that damned old thief Sora wouldn't dare kill her. And now? You still want to think that way?"
"Genius Kantoku? Looks like an idiot to me. This plot is rotten beyond belief. Purely disgusting."
"If Takashi dies, I will hate Sora for the rest of my life."
"Everyone, look at this room full of figures from Kantoku Sora's works. If he dares to write Takashi's death, I'll burn them all immediately."
"I have never wanted to stab a creator this badly before."
"Damned old thief Sora, if you dare kill Takashi, I'll buy bot accounts and spend an entire year blackening your name."
The fans made no effort to hide their anger over the scene in episode twenty where Takashi fell ill and collapsed.
After experiencing Furukawa Nagisa's death, no fan still doubted whether Sora had the courage to kill Takashi.
Everyone knew what kind of creator he was. With him, the question was never whether he dared.
It was only whether he wanted to.
Appealing to his emotions might not work.
But appealing to profit might have some effect.
Overnight, more than one hundred thousand preorders for AD character figures were canceled by furious fans. On Southern Alliance TV's official website, a massive crowd flooded into the comments, threatening to boycott not only Sora, but the network itself if he truly dared to make Takashi die.
If the animated plot of Takashi's death had already been produced, then send it back and remake it. Do not let it air. No matter how long they had to wait, those fans were willing to wait for an ending where Takashi remained alive.
Southern Alliance TV, which already knew the direction of Clannad story in advance, found itself in an extremely difficult position.
The fans' emotions were far too intense this time.
And the problem was that the plot of episode twenty-one was exactly that kind of plot.
When episode twenty-one aired in a few days, would the network not be torn apart by the fans?
At that moment, every member of the production department fell into collective anxiety.
The department head, Ryo Yukishiro, called Sora several times to communicate with him. Each time, the answer he received was the same: there was no problem, they could relax.
"You may be able to stay calm, but we are all old people here. We can't handle this kind of shock, Kantoku Sora."
After hanging up the phone, Ryo Yukishiro sighed with a face full of worry.
"Next week, we'll probably be cursed by the fans for seven straight days."
At noon, the ratings for episode twenty of Clannad second season were announced.
6.17%.
Once again, the work had set a new ratings record for itself.
But the entire public opinion landscape of the anime market had changed.
Compared to last month, when Furukawa Nagisa died, the anger now being accumulated was several times more intense.
Seeing this, the four major networks were overjoyed.
They understood very clearly that defeating Sora head-on through the quality of their works was already an extremely unlikely possibility.
In the past ten years, all three Japanese anime that had surpassed 6% in ratings had come from Sora's hands. Where could they possibly find someone capable of standing against him?
But when the gods wish to destroy a man, they first drive him mad.
If Sora had simply continued steadily until the end of AD, the work would undoubtedly have been enshrined as a masterpiece.
But he insisted on suffering from that pretentious author disease and playing dangerous games with the plot.
The first time, when he killed Furukawa Nagisa, he had been lucky. He managed to reverse the reputation of the work by using the character Takashi.
And now he was stupid enough to raise the blade against Takashi as well.
Did he really think the goddess of luck was his wife?
Hehe.
Then he could not blame them for being ruthless.
The four major networks began investing large sums of money throughout the industry. They bought trending topics, hired waves of bot accounts, and invited large numbers of anime critics.
Everything was prepared patiently, waiting only for the premiere of episode twenty-one of AD.
If the story truly raised the knife against Takashi, they would help Sora carry out a massive "promotion" across the entire internet.
The four major networks did not believe that the fans of his works could swallow something like that.
And even if they could,
they would use public opinion to drag the fire out of them.
To make that genius fall from grace.