Morning, at Lin Zhiyan's home.
After finishing breakfast, Lin Zhiyan said to his family, "I'm heading out," and then drove to the company.
Upon arriving at the office, he first took care of some daily trivial matters. It wasn't until official working hours began that he called some people together for a meeting in the conference room.
"I have an announcement for everyone. Although this year's main anime, Uma Musume, hasn't aired yet, our company's main anime for next year has already been decided."
As he spoke, Lin Zhiyan took out a manga, and the title written on the cover was: Demon Slayer.
At the same time, he continued, "This manga, serialized in Shueisha's Weekly Shonen Jump, will be adapted into an anime by L.S Produ. The projected premiere date is next April. Even though we still have a full year until then, this will be a half-year series, so we need to start preparing early."
In the conference room, everyone looked at each other, feeling quite surprised.
This manga is not exactly unknown, but ever since L.S animation was founded, the animations produced by L.S Produ have gradually moved towards a "less is more" approach. Generally, only those highly favored by Lin Zhiyan are produced by L.S Produ.
Now, Lin Zhiyan's description of Demon Slayer isn't even "produced by L.S Produ," but rather "the featured animation for next year."
What level is a featured animation from L.S Produ?
The featured animation for 2014 was the second season of Love Live!, with initial disc sales of 66,000 and subsequent sales of 30,000, for a cumulative total of 96,000. It is the TV animation with the highest disc sales among all animations produced by L.S Produ, second only to Puella Magi Madoka Magica.
The featured work for 2015 was the Love Live! theatrical film, with a cumulative box office of 2.9 billion yen. It surpassed the box office of Puella Magi Madoka Magica: Rebellion and broke the box office record for a late-night anime theatrical film.
The featured animation for 2016 was A Silent Voice, with a cumulative box office of 2.5 billion yen, winning seven or eight major animation awards.
The featured anime of 2017 was "Sword Art Online The Movie: Ordinal Scale," which accumulated a box office of 2.6 billion yen, ranking second only to the "Love Live!" theatrical film among late-night anime theatrical releases.
As for 2018's "Uma Musume," since it hadn't aired yet, its performance couldn't be determined, but it was an anime based on a game produced by their own company, so there wasn't much to say about it.
The original work of "Demon Slayer" was a manga from Shueisha, which had nothing to do with L.S Produ. And what they were going to make this time wasn't a theatrical anime film, but a TV anime.
Why was Lin Zhiyan so optimistic about it, to the point of using the term "featured anime"?
This question lingered in everyone's minds.
However, no one asked on the spot.
After the meeting ended and Lin Zhiyan returned to his office, Atsushi Hosokawa, who had been designated as the production manager for "Demon Slayer," approached him and asked, "President, are you very optimistic about 'Demon Slayer'?"
"I wouldn't say very optimistic, just that it's decent. If we produce it well, it has the potential to become a big hit," Lin Zhiyan replied with a smile.
Atsushi Hosokawa still didn't quite understand: "I've read two or three volumes of the original manga for this work. Although it seems to be one of the manga Shueisha is heavily promoting, I feel like it's just passable. I personally think 'Kaguya-sama: Love Is War,' which is produced by L.S animation and scheduled to air this coming January, is more interesting than it."
Lin Zhiyan understood what Atsushi Hosokawa meant.
The original manga of "Kaguya-sama: Love Is War" is clearly more interesting than "Demon Slayer," yet Lin Zhiyan let L.S animation produce "Kaguya-sama," while having L.S Produ produce, or even headline, the production of "Demon Slayer"?
He couldn't understand it.
Lin Zhiyan naturally couldn't say that he had witnessed with his own eyes just how popular "Demon Slayer" would become.
He didn't explain in detail either, but instead said: "You seem to have misunderstood one point. The fact that I assigned the production of that anime to L.S animation doesn't mean I don't think highly of it. On the contrary, the importance I place on 'Kaguya-sama' is not much less than that of 'Demon Slayer.' Moreover, whether the original manga is brilliant or not is not the most important thing..."
After a pause, he added, "If the original manga isn't exciting enough, we have to find ways to make it exciting. If the original is already very exciting, we have to make it even more so. As long as the original work isn't too poor, there's no point in obsessing over it. Ultimately, if it's not exciting enough, that's even better—it highlights the caliber of our animation production company all the more."
Atsushi Hosokawa was taken aback for a moment.
After two or three seconds, he bowed to Lin Zhiyan and said, "Thank you for your guidance, President. I have learned a lot."
In fact, despite the original Demon Slayer manga appearing not exciting enough, it had already survived the period where it was nearly canceled and was now indeed one of the manga titles heavily promoted by Shueisha.
Several companies had wanted the animation adaptation rights to this work. Had it not been for Lin Zhiyan stepping in personally and declaring in the initial project proposal that Demon Slayer would be the flagship animation for L.S Produ in 2019, they probably wouldn't have been able to secure it.
As for "Kaguya-sama: Love Is War," it is, after all, a slice-of-life comedy anime. Animations of this genre often do not sell particularly well, so there wasn't much competition among companies for the adaptation rights. Lin Zhiyan didn't even get involved personally when negotiating for the rights initially; instead, he had the head of the production department, Kenichi Matsumoto, handle it.
Of course, Lin Zhiyan not getting involved personally wasn't just because he knew the anime's sales wouldn't be stellar; it was also because he had been reborn from the year 2022 of another timeline and knew that the later parts of the original manga were quite disappointing.
It was certainly a good thing to secure the animation rights for "Kaguya-sama" now, and Lin Zhiyan would ensure it was produced with great care, but... he would only let L.S Animation produce three seasons of this anime.
Once the third season, "Ultra Romantic," was finished and the male and female leads had successfully confessed their feelings, the anime would be considered complete as far as he was concerned. If Shueisha requested it to continue after that, he would let another animation company take over; in any case, his own company wouldn't jump into that fire pit.
He was prepared to carry out the same maneuver for the Attack on Titan anime, although it was still too early, and the time for such an operation had not yet arrived.
Ultimately, his L.S Produ and L.S animation were just animation production companies; they had no say over the original work. Even if the anime wanted to change the ending, it would require the consent of the original creator, and the likelihood of that was slim to none. As long as he wanted to continue collaborating with manga publishers in the future, handing it over to another animation company was the most appropriate course of action.
This was only because the first few seasons of these two works had decent quality, popularity, and reputation; otherwise, Lin Zhiyan wouldn't even have bothered to negotiate for their animation adaptation rights.
In this respect, Demon Slayer was completely different. Although its later storyline could only be described as passable—not particularly excellent—at least it wouldn't be a disaster. Coupled with the massive commercial potential of this work, there was nothing wrong with making it L.S Produ's flagship anime for 2019.
Lin Zhiyan understood this well enough in his own mind, but there was no need, nor was it possible, to tell anyone else. He could only say a few seemingly sensible words to hoodwink Atsushi Hosokawa.
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