The comment section under Sora's account had become a raging ocean.
Thousands upon thousands of posts poured in, tearing into him so viciously that even his own father might not have recognized him anymore. Mixed into the flood were professional haters and paid accounts stirring the waters, but there were also genuine fans - people who had followed the series for months and, after that night's episode, had simply lost all reason.
"What the hell do you mean, 'maybe it would've been better if they'd never met,' you old bastard? Explain yourself!"
"If you were going to kill Nagisa Furukawa and Ushio, then you should never have created C in the first place. If everything was going to end in death anyway, I'd rather they had never appeared in my memories at all. At least then I wouldn't be sitting here at two in the morning, unable to sleep, eyes bloodshot, typing insults at you like an idiot."
"You demon. Wash your hands of this industry and retire already. I don't want to watch anything you make anymore."
"A creator who doesn't respect his own characters doesn't deserve my respect, no matter how talented he is."
"God of animation? I'd love to see who still dares call him that after today without embarrassing themselves. Just for killing Ushio in this episode, I'll say it right now: no matter how good the numbers are, Sora will go down in animation history as second-rate."
"This isn't just disrespect toward the characters. It's disrespect toward the audience. Nagisa's death was barely acceptable because it led into Ushio's story, deepened the girl's character, and made the family theme of the second season hit harder. I could accept that. But Ushio dying? What the hell is that supposed to accomplish? How does that elevate the theme? What kind of brilliant ending could possibly justify it? There isn't one. It's just Sora's sick hobby. Pain for the sake of pain."
"I seriously can't take this anymore. What kind of plot is this? Why would anyone write a script like that?"
"We're practically at the final episode, and he's still doing that nonsense with the girl in the lonely world. From the first episode of season one all the way to the penultimate episode of season two, I still have no idea what that storyline is supposed to do. And those light orbs? Nobody knows what they are either. Sora, don't tell me you think you can leave this for some third season reveal and fans will still watch."
"I officially turned dark tonight. Fan to anti."
"I said from the beginning that young Kantokus are prone to losing their minds, but a bunch of C fans mocked me for it. Look at you now. All clowns."
"Hahaha, I warned you. Fans of Sora, don't get too smug. He was bound to collapse sooner or later. I just didn't expect him to fall as a creator who backstabs his own audience."
"Today, we Sora haters are happily enjoying the sound of his fans crying."
"C stayed stable for more than half a year, only to ruin the story at the very end. Ah, Sora…"
"There's still one episode left. Do you think there'll be a twist? What twist? Was there a twist to Nagisa's death? She died, and that was it. Even if that old bastard writes the best finale in the world, Ushio won't come back to life."
For the entire night, Sora's fans, dragged along by haters and paid accounts, cursed him until there was barely anything left to curse.
C's score dropped from 9.6 to 8.3 overnight, and it was still falling as more fans entered the rating system just to change their old high scores to zero.
Episode twenty-one of C's second season had been cruel. Cruel, and brutally effective. Its tearjerker impact had landed perfectly.
But it had also completely enraged the fanbase.
In Japan, C did not have a base of original game fans or veteran viewers stepping forward to explain that the story would later turn around. To Sora's fans at that moment, the deaths of the two central characters, Nagisa Furukawa and Ushio, officially declared that an anime broadcast for nearly a year had collapsed right at the finish line.
No one started watching an anime because they wanted to see the protagonist's wife and daughter both die.
Who would willingly seek out that kind of suffering? Life was hard enough already. Who would turn on the television just to watch someone else's misery?
And yet, Sora had done exactly that. He had told such a story with beauty, tenderness, and a process that filled the audience with almost limitless hope.
When everyone believed the protagonist and Nagisa would live happily together, Nagisa died.
When everyone believed the protagonist and Ushio would finally grow together in peace, Ushio died.
Fine. Maybe the creator had something wrong with his head, but the fans were under no obligation to follow him into madness.
If something felt awful, they cursed. It did not matter if he was called a genius Kantoku or a miracle of the industry. The moment he offended the audience, he was worth less than garbage.
That day, an enormous amount of emotional value surged from every corner of Japan into Sora's body.
Sitting in his office, he watched the entire internet - from haters to paid accounts - lead his own anime fans into condemning him. And never before had he felt so refreshed.
"As expected… works that keep turning despair into healing and healing back into despair are the ones that truly make a fortune."
A smile appeared on his face.
If he did not want to be cursed, he could easily have leaked a small hint at that moment, something to let the fans know that the final episode would contain a reversal. But if he did that, their anger would not accumulate enough. And without that anger, how could he harvest so much emotional value from them?
Naturally, Sora knew about the private moves being made by the four major networks. He also had the ability to hire another group of accounts to fight them for control of public opinion online.
But for the sake of more emotional value, he did nothing.
He would harvest one wave from episode twenty-one. Then, when the turnabout came in episode twenty-two, he would harvest another.
That had been his plan from the beginning.
"The only pity is that the real fans aren't having the best viewing experience."
When he thought of that, a faint trace of guilt did pass through his heart. After all, at the end of episode twenty-one, he had not even inserted a preview for episode twenty-two. Not a single spoiler. Not a single hint. Not even a sliver of relief.
"But the extra emotional value is also for exchanging better works. That way, they won't suffer from a shortage of anime in the future. In essence, I'm taking from the fans and using it for the fans. They aren't losing anything."
Very quickly, Sora pushed that tiny bit of guilt to the back of his mind.
Attack on Titan did not only have a first season.
The exchange cost for the later seasons was not cheap at all.
To exchange the entire work would require a terrifying amount of emotional value, easily exceeding one billion. There was nothing Sora could do about that.
After spending half an hour in his office reading fans insult him, Sora cheerfully shut down his computer and began arranging the work that still had to follow.
C would conclude next week, but only as a TV anime. There were still several OVA side stories that would be released together with the Blu-ray discs, and those tasks still needed to be wrapped up.
Then there were the promotional trailers for Your Name and Attack on Titan.
The official PVs for both works had not yet been released. Sora had been waiting for the right opportunity.
And that opportunity would be the very end of C's final episode.
He had already negotiated with the networks. Once the TV broadcast ended, the promotional trailers for both anime would be aired as special advertisements.
In the film industry, perhaps Sora was not yet considered a true heavyweight.
But in the television industry, he was now a top-tier figure. If Your Name wanted strong results in the New Year season, he would naturally use every method available to him.
At noon, the audience ratings for episode twenty-one of C's second season were released.
6.21%.
Not only had the ratings not fallen, they had actually risen slightly.
After all, the viewers who watched the anime the previous night had no way of knowing the story would become that devastating. That made the numbers look excellent.
High ratings and an enormous wave of criticism. That was exactly the result the four major networks wanted to see.
It meant that more viewers had believed in Sora - only to feel stabbed in the back by him.
If things continued developing like this, after C ended, Sora's reputation among his own fans would likely rot beyond saving.
For several days, the trending topic about C's ruined ending remained pinned near the top of the NatsuYume forums.
Furious fans logged onto NatsuYume almost every day just to stomp on Sora again.
The Southern Alliance, Sora, and Yume Animation remained completely silent. No statement, no explanation, no attempt to calm the audience.
That silence made even the fans who were still clinging to the hope of a final-episode reversal begin to waver.
From the look of things, both sides were pretending to be dead because they did not dare make a sound.
Since the story had already reached this point, what content could the final episode possibly air?
That was when the paid accounts hired by the four major networks began crawling out to disgust people even further.
"I'm guessing episode twenty-two will show Takasaki holding a grand funeral for his daughter. At least a hundred banquet tables."
"No, the protagonist spent more than half a year not working so he could take care of his daughter. He probably doesn't have money for something like that."
"Maybe the protagonist will lose all hope, break down completely, and kill himself so he can reunite with his wife and daughter underground."
"You haters of Kantoku Sora, aren't you disgusting? What's the point of mocking people on the forum all day?"
"It's very entertaining. We're witnessing the first failed work of the greatest genius in animation history. How is that not interesting?"
"But honestly, with C's current popularity, the final episode's ratings probably won't be low. A lot of fans are still holding their breath and will watch until the end for Nagisa and Ushio. But the Blu-ray sales for this anime are probably going to collapse."
"The first season of C already made its money back a long time ago, but the production cost for the second season was huge. With the anime's current reputation, losing money is probably the most likely outcome."
"Kantoku Sora really made history. A work with ratings over 6% that still might not recover its costs. There's never been anything like it before, and there probably won't be again."
"Haters, don't get too proud. If the final episode turns the reputation around, I'll dig up every single one of your comments. Don't pretend you disappeared when that happens."
"Tsk, tsk. There are still brain-dead Sora fans who think C has a chance to recover its reputation. Such touching loyalty. But whatever. In just over ten minutes, C's final episode will begin. The Sora you love so much is about to deliver your final despair."
Anger covered Shōgo Nishimura's face as his fingers hammered across his phone screen, arguing with haters one after another.
He had been doing this every day for the past week.
But after typing for a while, he still ended up letting out a sigh.
What was the point?
Even if he won an argument against haters online, so what? After the heroine and the daughter both died, C had already collapsed.
If people said it was a romance anime, who had ever seen a romance anime kill its heroine?
If they said it was a parent-child anime, then fine - the only daughter was dead too.
At this point, he could no longer understand what meaning there had been in spending more than half a year following this work every week, always filled with anticipation.
Was it all just to watch the protagonist start from having nothing in the first episode…
Only to end up here, with no wife, no daughter, and nothing once again?
Wasn't that just idiotic?
The more Shōgo thought about it, the angrier he became.
Even so, he wanted to finish what he had started. He had followed the story this far. There was only one episode left.
Then, the final episode of C began.
Once again, the opening scene was the story of the girl and the robot in that lonely world.
This time, the two of them were lying together amid ice and snow.
Even now, Shōgo still did not understand what that story was supposed to mean.
The opening song began.
This time, when he saw the smiling faces of all the characters appearing in the opening, Shōgo felt like crying.
It hurt too much.
The story continued from the dreamlike sequence of the previous week.
Takasaki's consciousness seemed to have returned to the moment in the past when he first met Nagisa Furukawa. In front of the girl hesitating over whether she should go to school, he stood motionless, controlling his body without reacting.
If, at that moment, he did not call out to her…
If he simply let her pass him by…
The two of them would never meet. They would never fall in love. They would never marry. They would never have Ushio.
So this was not only a test for the protagonist.
It was also a test for every viewer who had watched the anime.
If you knew that the end of this story would be so bleak…
Would you still wish for the two of them to meet at the beginning?
Shōgo fell into thought.
But it only took him a few seconds to make his choice.
Of course he would.
Perhaps the protagonist had merely gone from having nothing to having nothing again.
But everything that journey had given him along the way was real.
It was like human life itself. People came from nothing and returned to nothing. Did that mean the process of living had no meaning?
If that were true, Shōgo Nishimura might as well die right then and there. Why keep clinging to life and piling up worries?
Even without a good ending, the journey still had meaning.
Could it be that C had written Ushio's death precisely to make the audience arrive at this kind of reflection?
Shōgo thought about it in confusion, but very soon, the story pulled his attention back in.
After understanding that much, when he saw Takasaki on screen remaining unmoved, seemingly ready to let Nagisa leave, Shōgo screamed inside his heart.
Grab her hand.
Don't let her go.
The scene shifted once more to the girl in the lonely world.
She and the robot were lying together in the snow.
If I had never met Nagisa…
Takasaki's expression was silent.
"Is this the end of our journey? I can't accept it. I don't want her to collapse in a place this cold."
The robot looked at the girl lying in the snow.
"I had a dream."
The girl opened her eyes and looked at the robot holding her hand.
"At last, I can hear your voice now. In the dream, I understood many things. About me. About you."
"I once lived in the same world as you. In a world close to this one, many years ago."
The girl began to explain.
Shōgo frowned.
What did this part mean?
The girl and the robot had once lived together in a world close to the lonely world?
After works like Re:Zero and Steins;Gate, ideas such as parallel worlds and multiverses had already taken root deeply among viewers.
On top of that, Clannad had been showing those light orbs all along. In the protagonist's world, whenever he and Nagisa resolved someone's inner suffering, a glowing orb would rise into the sky and disappear.
With those clues, it was not difficult to infer that the so-called nearby world was the real world where the protagonist lived.
The lonely girl and the robot had existed in the real world a long, long time ago.
As a science student at a top university, Shōgo reached that conclusion quickly.
"I'm sorry. I have to stay here. I can't leave this world with you," the girl said to the robot.
"I am this world itself."
"If I disappear, this world will disappear too. And if that happens, so many light orbs will become unhappy."
Light orbs?
Shōgo thought for a moment. She was talking about those glowing spheres.
In C, whenever the protagonist and Nagisa helped resolve the emotional knot in a character's heart and allowed that person to find happiness, a light orb appeared.
What the girl meant was that, if she left this world, many people in the real world would no longer be able to obtain happiness.
"The light orbs are the feelings of the people in that world. You are one of them," the girl said.
"Then, in the other world, is there another me too?" the robot asked.
A current seemed to surge through Shōgo's mind. His mouth slowly opened as a still-blurry hypothesis began to form.
The robot.
Another world.
Another version of him.
Then did the girl also have another version of herself in another world?
"You exist in both worlds at the same time," the girl said, looking at the robot.
That explanation strongly resembled the parallel-world theory researched by Kotomi's parents in the first season. Connecting it to the earlier plot, the thought in Shōgo's mind became clearer and clearer.
"Now, you need to close your consciousness in this world. Then wake up in the world on the other side. And then… meet me."
The robot's corresponding consciousness in the real world would meet the girl in the past. Then, a long, long time later, the girl's consciousness would awaken in the lonely world and meet the robot.
This, too, was a closed loop.
But stories involving parallel worlds and timelines often followed that kind of circular logic.
The past was the future. The future was the past.
Shōgo tried his best to understand the structure.
Then…
Who was the robot in the real world?
There was no doubt. It could not possibly be some random background character.
That part was easy to guess. Most likely, it was the protagonist, Takasaki.
But what about the girl?
Nagisa Furukawa?
No…
Could it be Ushio?
Looking carefully, that girl really did bear a faint resemblance to Nagisa Furukawa.