January 25th. Episode three of both Clannad season two and Radiant Warriors aired.
Just as Aoi had predicted, Radiant Warriors' ratings dropped, falling by a full 1.35%. But Clannad did not fare that well either, dipping by 0.8%.
Regardless, the gap between the two shows had finally stopped shrinking. In fact, it widened, jumping from 0.15% to 0.7%.
The diary incident had truly been a gift from the enemy. Unfortunately, that kind of blunder would only happen once. There was no way it could possibly happen a second time.
That was what Yuta thought. But before long, something unexpected proved him wrong.
February 1st. Episode four of both shows aired.
On Clannad's end, the story and animation were rock solid as always. The Sunohara sibling arc had even moved quite a few viewers.
Radiant Warriors was a different story entirely. Starting with this episode, the tone shifted dramatically. The serious battles gave way to goofy slice-of-life comedy, and a significant number of viewers felt that the animation quality and several supporting characters' designs had fallen apart.
That night, the internet erupted.
"What was that? Was that even the same show?"
"The quality was way below the first three episodes."
"Did they outsource the whole thing?"
"This is only episode four. They can't already be behind schedule, right?"
"Kind of disappointed. If I'd known, I would have watched Clannad instead."
Plenty of people left negative reviews.
But there were just as many defenders, and their arguments made sense too.
"You guys are ridiculous. Yes, it's a mecha anime, but that doesn't mean every single episode needs a battle scene."
"Exactly. Clannad's main draw is being a tearjerker, but it doesn't make people cry every single episode either."
"Hot-blooded mecha can't have a lighthearted daily life episode? What kind of logic is that?"
"Where did the art fall apart? I didn't see it."
"It looked fine to me."
"Those supporting characters were totally flat in the first three episodes. Giving them more personality now is an improvement."
...
The two camps could not agree, and before long, a full-blown argument broke out.
Of course, it was just fans going at each other, so it was not that big of a deal.
What really blew everyone's minds was when Radiant Warriors' producer, Toma Shigure, waded into the fight. He posted a public statement on social media.
[Could you amateurs please stop pretending you know what you're talking about? This show's production schedule is perfectly comfortable. Nothing fell apart. The storyboarding, episode direction, and animation supervision for episode four were all handled by a different person, which is why the style feels different. But this episode was always intended to be a lighthearted daily life installment. That has absolutely nothing to do with quality issues.]
[Furthermore, I personally think this episode was very entertaining, and even our studio president loved it. If you don't like it and think the art fell apart, that's a you problem. Giving an anime bad reviews just because it doesn't match your personal taste? You people really don't appreciate how hard production staff work.
The diary incident from before had not even fully died down yet, and now Toma Shigure had gone and openly mocked the audience again. The backlash exploded.
Furious viewers flooded the comments under his post with scathing criticism. Tempest's official website got brigaded too.
The whole anime community was talking about it overnight.
The end result: when Radiant Warriors episode five aired, the ratings dropped by nearly another full percentage point. Toma was forced to resign under pressure and issued a public apology.
When Yuta heard about the incident, he was completely floored.
He had not even done anything, and the opponent had already gone down.
But it was precisely this incident that jogged his memory. In the other world, Gurren Lagann had gone through an eerily similar debacle during its early episodes.
Radiant Warriors really was a lot like Gurren Lagann.
Yuta had watched episode four himself, and the style was definitely different from the first three episodes. He could understand why some people called it a meltdown, but it genuinely was not one.
First off, this single episode had eleven key animators, several of whom were quite skilled and had solid reputations. The animation director was talented too.
Second, the technically difficult cuts had not been called out at all. It was the easier cuts that people accused of falling apart. Unless it was intentional, that made no sense.
They were only on episode four. There was no reason for a scheduling crunch this early.
The real explanation was probably exactly what Toma had said: the storyboarding, episode direction, and animation supervision had all been handled by a different person.
This episode's storyboards, direction, and animation supervision were all done by someone named Kobayashi Hiroya, who was different from the person in charge of the first three episodes.
Kobayashi Hiroya had a very distinctive personal style, which made the difference immediately noticeable to viewers.
Audiences had gotten used to the style of the first three episodes. When episode four suddenly looked different, some naturally assumed it had fallen apart.
As for the supporting characters whose designs had supposedly been ruined, well, those designs really had changed. But those characters had not been very important to begin with, so they had been drawn in a very generic, one-note way. Kobayashi Hiroya apparently decided that was not good enough and redesigned them.
The new versions were much more lively and expressive.
By all rights, that was an improvement, but making that change this late in the game was bound to get pushback.
None of that mattered for the ratings war though. For the time being, Radiant Warriors was no longer a threat to Clannad.
Of course, as long as they did not keep shooting themselves in the foot, Radiant Warriors could still recover its ratings through strong storytelling later on. But Clannad season two had its own major twists planned for the second half, and when those hit, catching up was not going to be easy for Radiant Warriors.
Going forward, the real battleground would be DVD sales.
DVDs would not go on sale until late March or early April at the earliest.
That was still a long way off. And while these two incidents had tanked Radiant Warriors' ratings, they might not necessarily affect sales by that point.
So Yuta and Aoi could not claim victory just yet.
But Yuta's luck seemed to be running strong, because in late February, another piece of good news came his way.
This time it was not an assist from the competition.
It came from an organization called the Shiraishi Award Selection Committee.
In short: Clannad had won an award.
Not season two, which was still airing. Season one had won. But a season one win would certainly help boost the currently airing season two's profile.
The winners of the various categories were announced on February 25th, with the awards ceremony to be held on March 3rd at the Shiraishi Art Museum in Tokyo.
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