Japan's New Year holiday ran from December 29th to January 3rd, but Yuta gave the Starfall staff a few extra days off, with work officially resuming on January 8th.
January 11th, Thursday. The standard quitting time was eight in the evening, though it was common for people to stay late.
Normally Yuta didn't mind that at all, but tonight, the moment the clock hit eight, he stepped out of his office and addressed the room. "Anyone who has a TV at home, no overtime tonight. Get home, turn on the TV, and watch our anime."
Everyone looked puzzled.
"President, are ratings really that important?" Rika asked on behalf of the group.
Anime wasn't like live-action dramas. Dramas lived and died by their ratings, but anime was usually judged by disc sales. Ratings were just a reference point, and most anime studios didn't even pay attention to them.
Last time, when the first season aired, Yuta hadn't stressed over ratings at all. His sudden concern this time was genuinely confusing.
But someone quickly connected the dots to the rumors floating around online and blurted out, "President, is our anime really competing against Tempest's Radiant Warriors?"
"Yes." Yuta nodded.
He still didn't mention anything about Aoi. He just said, "From now on, every Thursday night, I need everyone to turn on their TVs at home and tune in to the second season. If you absolutely have to stay late, at least call your family and ask them to turn the TV on for you."
"Alright."
Nobody had strong objections. They were just puzzled.
In reality, Starfall's handful of employees would have virtually zero impact on the ratings numbers. But every little bit counted.
It would be devastating if they lost to Radiant Warriors by a fraction of a percentage point.
"President, what about those of us who don't have a TV at home?" Rika suddenly asked.
"If you don't have a TV, then you don't watch. What am I going to do, force you to buy one?" Yuta said flatly.
"No, what I mean is, maybe we should buy a TV for the office?" Rika suggested tentatively.
"We'll talk about that later." Yuta didn't commit.
Starfall's current office space was already getting cramped. According to the plan in his head, once the second season was done, the company would need to move to a bigger location.
If they were going to buy a TV, it could wait until after the move.
"Alright, those of you with TVs at home, get going."
Yuta waved them off.
Once the staff had filed out in small groups, he tidied up his office and headed home himself.
He got home a little past nine.
Yuta turned on the TV, but not to TBS. He switched to TV Asahi.
He had told his people to watch Clannad, but he personally needed to study the competition. Going in blind wasn't an option.
Before ten o'clock even rolled around, online discussions were already heating up.
"Ten o'clock is almost here. Clannad or Radiant Warriors?"
"Do you even have to ask? Clannad, obviously!"
"Ha, Clannad is trash. Radiant Warriors is what real men watch!"
"Did you just call Clannad trash? Drop dead!"
"Clannad can move people to tears. Can Radiant Warriors do that? If not, shut your mouth!"
"Radiant Warriors can get your blood pumping from just the PV alone. Can Clannad do that? If not, you shut your mouth too!"
...
The show hadn't even started yet and a flame war had already broken out. That was to be expected. These were two completely different types of anime. While plenty of people wanted to watch both, the actual audience overlap wasn't that high.
People who liked school slice-of-life didn't necessarily get the appeal of mecha, and mecha fans didn't always connect with school slice-of-life.
Add in the widespread suspicion that Arcane had deliberately pitted the two shows against each other, and a war of words was inevitable.
The bickering lasted right up until 10 PM sharp, then suddenly went quiet.
In front of his TV, Yuta watched intently.
"BOOM BOOM BOOM..."
Explosions right from the start.
Through the flames of the blasts, the silhouette of a white mecha emerged.
The male lead piloted the mecha at breakneck speed into enemy territory, firing rounds with a rhythmic clatter.
The enemies panicked and scrambled to fight back, but nothing they threw at the male lead's mecha even scratched it.
"BOOM BOOM BOOM..."
Another chain of explosions.
The male lead's mecha then shot upward in a streak of white light. The title Radiant Warriors flashed on screen, and the opening theme kicked in.
"Definitely a show where they threw money at every frame," Yuta muttered as he watched.
Budget aside, the storyboarding was decent at least. Everything else was hard to judge from this alone.
Also, the opening sequence felt vaguely familiar to him, though he couldn't quite place it.
Since the anime's selling point was hot-blooded mecha action, the OP was naturally the kind of intense, pumped-up anthem that got your heart racing.
After the OP, the episode title appeared: "Light."
What followed wasn't a continuation of the pre-OP sequence. It was a fresh start, or rather, the real beginning. First, a shot of a light fixture overhead. The camera tilted down, revealing the male lead.
Unlike the confident, battle-hardened version from the cold open, this version looked like a boy of about eleven or twelve. His clothes weren't flashy at all. They were worn and dirty in several places.
Next to him stood a tall, skinny older boy with no shirt on.
"Hikaru, see that light above us? It's bright, sure, and it stings your eyes. But it's a fake light. We can only see the real light if we get to the surface," the older boy said.
Hikaru was the male lead's name. The older boy was the show's deuteragonist, Leo.
"The surface?" the male lead murmured, then said, "But I heard it's really dangerous up there. The village chief won't let us go either."
"Heh."
Leo grinned. "You're a man, aren't you? Who cares about danger? If the chief says we can't go, we just sneak out."
The words had barely left his mouth when a gruff voice boomed out. "Hey! You two! Get back to work and quit slacking off!"
"Oh crap, it's the chief!" Leo yelped and vanished in a flash.
The male lead didn't run. He obediently picked up his shovel and got back to work.
"Work" in this case meant digging through earth.
The village was built underground and needed constant excavation to expand outward.
On top of that, there were valuable things buried in the earth. Sometimes while digging, you'd uncover treasures.
The male lead wasn't thinking much about it, until he dug up a glowing object shaped like a key.
He had no idea what it was, but it was obviously something special, so he quickly pocketed it.
When the workday finally ended, he went looking for Leo. But the moment he found him, a violent tremor shook the ground.
Dirt rained down from the ceiling, and then a monster appeared.
Everyone nearby fled in terror. Leo, however, didn't even flinch. He declared he was going to take the creature down.
But a monster was still a monster. No amount of bravado could help Leo actually beat it, and he quickly found himself in serious danger.
Just as he was about to be crushed, a red-haired girl appeared, opened fire on the monster with a gun, and shouted over her shoulder, "Why aren't you two running? Are you stupid?"
"A real man never retreats, no matter how strong the enemy!" Leo declared defiantly.
The male lead, on the other hand, was already shaking like a leaf. He just refused to abandon Leo.
While they were talking, the monster swung a massive arm at all three of them. The red-haired girl grabbed the male lead and Leo under each arm and sprinted away.
The monster wasn't about to let them go and gave chase. While fleeing from the creature, the three of them stumbled upon a white mecha hidden underground.
The mecha's forehead was glowing, and at the same time, the mysterious key-like object the male lead had found earlier started glowing too.
What followed was the male lead climbing into the mecha and fighting the monster with Leo and the red-haired girl aboard.
"BOOM BOOM BOOM..."
More budget-obliterating action sequences.
After they finally took the monster down, the mecha blasted out of the underground world and up to the surface. But what awaited them wasn't the true light they had been searching for. It was a massive horde of monsters.
The first episode ended there, followed by the ending theme.
After watching the whole thing, Yuta finally realized why it had felt so familiar.
This was basically Gurren Lagann. Of course, the character designs, monster designs, and mecha designs were all significantly different from Gurren Lagann. But the first episode's plot was strikingly similar.
Gurren Lagann was the anime widely hailed as "the most hype show ever made." When it aired in 2007 in the other world, both its popularity and sales had been absolutely explosive.
This was very, very bad.
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