January 19th, the president's office at Starfall.
"President, here's your hot towel."
Yuzuki Amane handed the steaming towel to Yuta.
"Thanks."
Yuta took the towel, closed his eyes, placed it over them, and let out a long breath.
Last night, he had watched episode two of Radiant Warriors as well. All he could say was that while the first episode's plot had been very similar to Gurren Lagann, by the second episode the story had diverged considerably.
But even without following the Gurren Lagann template, the show was still incredibly strong. It might not even be worse than the real Gurren Lagann from the other world.
As for Clannad, Yuta had made his online rally, but whether it had actually done anything was still anyone's guess.
"President, Miss Fuji is here." Rika's voice suddenly cut through his thoughts.
Yuta pulled the towel off and opened his eyes, only to find that Rika had brought Aoi into his office at some point without him noticing.
Yuzuki had already left.
Yuta nodded at Aoi in greeting, then turned to Rika. "Rika, can you return this towel to Amane for me?"
"President, I've been wanting to say this for a while now. Could you please stop using me for little errands like this? I'm a production assistant, not your personal secretary!" Rika complained.
Yuta frowned. "Rika, come here for a second."
"What?" Rika looked confused as she took two steps forward.
Yuta stood up from his chair, raised his hand, and brought a karate chop down on top of Rika's head.
"Ow!"
Rika yelped and staggered backward clutching her head. "President, why did you hit me again?"
"Because you've been getting too cheeky lately." Yuta said this while extending the hand holding the towel and giving her a pointed look.
Rika stared at him with a face that said she understood absolutely nothing.
Yuta just stared right back, saying nothing.
After a good long standoff, Rika finally caved. She sighed, stepped forward, took the towel from his hand, and headed for the door, muttering the whole way. "Production assistants really are just tools. Why did I ever go blind enough to sign up for this job?"
Yuta heard her grumbling but let it slide.
Once Rika was out of the office, he turned to Aoi. "Sorry about that, Aoi. Must have been quite a show."
Aoi did not mind at all. If anything, she sounded a little wistful. "You really do get along well with your staff."
"You call that getting along?"
"If you didn't get along, she wouldn't complain to your face."
"I guess that's true."
Complaining to your face was always better than cursing behind your back.
"Anyway, that's not why I'm here."
Aoi got to the point. "Your online rally might have had at least some effect."
"So the gap didn't shrink for episode two?" Yuta asked quickly.
Aoi did not answer directly. She just pulled the ratings data sheet from her bag and handed it over.
Yuta took it and studied the numbers carefully.
The picture was not great. Even with the online rally, the gap had still narrowed. Last time, the difference between the two shows had been 0.23%. This time, it was down to 0.15%.
Based on this data alone, it was hard to say whether the rally had made any difference. But without it, the gap might have shrunk by more than just 0.08%.
Radiant Warriors was genuinely powerful.
"Aoi, even after rallying people online, the gap keeps closing. We need to think of something else, or by next episode they might actually pass us," Yuta said with concern.
A 0.15% lead should theoretically hold for at least one more week.
But Clannad had a specific problem: episodes two through four, while framed around a sibling relationship, were essentially the Sunohara arc.
A lot of Clannad's viewers were there for the cute girls. They were not necessarily interested in the male lead's buddy Sunohara. So episode three's ratings probably were not going to climb. They might even dip.
If one side went down while the other went up, getting overtaken was a real possibility.
Aoi had not considered the content angle, but she agreed that they needed another plan.
The shrinking gap was an undeniable fact.
After thinking it over, she said, "We need to attract people who aren't currently watching Clannad."
"I know that much. The question is how," Yuta said.
"You can write lyrics and compose music, right? How about writing some promotional songs for Clannad?" Aoi suggested.
Yuta: "..."
He knew a bit about music, sure, but his skill level was not exactly professional.
Write several promotional songs? Was she serious?
Besides, would a few promo tracks actually get people who were not watching Clannad to start? Could it really be that simple?
Wait a second.
Normal promotional songs might not cut it. But what if he brought over an absolute banger from the other world and worked in some Clannad promotion?
What about Gokuraku Jodo?
Yuta was still mulling this over when a phone suddenly rang.
Not his phone. Aoi's.
Aoi checked the screen and said, "Sorry, let me take this."
She answered the call and listened without saying a word.
Less than a minute later, she hung up and turned to Yuta. "Something happened at Tempest."
"What happened?" Yuta asked.
"When Radiant Warriors' first episode aired, there was a lot of praise, but also a fair number of negative reviews. That's normal. No anime gets zero criticism. The real problem is that on the 16th, a Tempest employee wrote in her online diary about how disgusting otaku were, how they didn't understand anything and just left random bad reviews, and how they didn't appreciate how hard production staff worked. She apparently forgot to set her diary to private, so the whole thing was posted publicly."
"Seriously?" Yuta was stunned.
"At first only a handful of people noticed the diary post and the backlash hadn't built up yet. But it blew up over the past couple of days. Starting from episode three, their ratings are probably going to drop," Aoi said.
Yuta did not know whether to laugh or cry.
He had just been worrying about getting overtaken in episode three, and out of nowhere came this incredible own goal from the competition. Well, at least this bought them another episode or two of breathing room.
That said, even though it was the other side's mistake, Starfall needed to take it as a warning too.
He should find some time to ask the Starfall staff if anyone kept an online diary. If so, they would need to be careful.
After all, who in their right mind kept a diary?
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