April 21st, Saturday.
Aoi came to Starfall and walked straight into the president's office, where she found not only Yuta but also a girl about five foot five with pretty features and a hint of baby fat in her cheeks.
"Aoi, thanks for making the trip," Yuta said, standing up.
"It's fine. Given the current situation, it wouldn't be great for you to come to Arcane anyway."
Aoi said this as she sat down without ceremony, then glanced at the unfamiliar girl. "And this is...?"
"My cousin, Kotone Mikage. She's a freshman in the literature department at Higashi-Waseda University," Yuta introduced her.
Higashi-Waseda University was seemingly a fusion of the University of Tokyo and Waseda University.
In any case, it was an elite institution in this world's Japan, a top-tier school by any standard.
Kotone had actually arrived in Tokyo at the beginning of April.
Yuta had taken time off to meet her at the station, escorted her to Higashi-Waseda University, and even helped her find a studio apartment near campus.
Today, she was visiting Starfall for a tour.
After introducing Kotone, Yuta then introduced Aoi to her.
Kotone gave Aoi a polite bow. "Miss Aoi, thank you for always looking after Big bro Yuta."
'Big bro Yuta?'
For some reason, Aoi felt a tiny prick of discomfort.
She pushed the feeling aside, looked Kotone over a few more times, and said, "No need to be formal. Can I just call you Kotone?"
"Of course." Kotone smiled and nodded.
"Higashi-Waseda University? That's really impressive."
"What school did you graduate from, Miss Aoi?"
"Hmm, I went to university abroad."
"Abroad! I'm so jealous. I've never been outside Japan."
"It's really not as great as it sounds."
The two chatted back and forth casually.
Yuta stood nearby, unable to get a word in edgewise.
Fortunately, Kotone was perceptive enough to know that Aoi had come here on business. She quickly turned to Yuta and asked, "Big bro, should I step out?"
"Yeah. Go find Rika outside and have her show you around Starfall," Yuta said.
"Okay!"
Kotone chirped sweetly, then left the office and closed the door behind her.
Now it was just Yuta and Aoi.
Aoi got straight to it. "You called me all the way here. What's going on?"
"It's about promotion," Yuta said. "Aoi, episode sixteen airs in four or five days. I think we need to do a major push right now."
"Arcane handles the promotional side, and we've been doing a good job of it consistently," Aoi said, looking a little confused.
"No, no, no."
Yuta shook his head. "What I mean is, we should hit it extra hard these next few days. Once episode sixteen airs, we probably won't need to promote anymore. Just run some previews for the next episode and that'll be enough."
"Hm?" Aoi was still confused.
Rather than explain further, Yuta rummaged through his desk, found the storyboard and script for episode sixteen, and handed them over.
Aoi took them with a puzzled look and started reading silently.
After a while, she suddenly looked up at Yuta. "Are you the devil?"
"Devil? What do you mean?" Yuta wore his most innocent expression.
Aoi set the script and storyboard down and sighed. "The audience is going to lose their minds over this."
"I know. That's why I need you to push promotion hard before episode sixteen airs," Yuta said calmly.
Aoi thought for a moment and asked, "Is it too late to change the script?"
"Of course it is. And the script can't be changed anyway. Changing it would strip the soul right out of it," Yuta replied.
"I feel like you have a death wish. I've never seen a story development like this before. When episode sixteen airs, the audience is going to explode. I'm even worried it might hurt episode seventeen's ratings," Aoi said with concern.
"Everything you just said is exactly what I'm expecting. That's why, after episode sixteen airs, all you need to do is push the episode seventeen preview hard," Yuta responded.
Aoi blinked. "What happens in episode seventeen?"
Yuta did not answer. He just found the episode seventeen storyboard and script and handed them over.
After reading through them, Aoi frowned.
She weighed the pros and cons for a moment, then said, "Understood. I'll follow your suggestion and ramp up the promotion over the next few days."
...
That very day, Arcane kicked their Clannad season two promotional campaign into high gear.
Clannad posters appeared everywhere. Several of the voice actors were pulled into recording appearances on variety programs to promote the anime.
One popular variety show even had a guest bring up Clannad, saying it was an incredibly unique and emotionally powerful anime, that it was suitable for all ages, and that anyone who had not seen it should give it a try.
With a massive promotional budget behind the push and Clannad's recent streak of stellar episodes, quite a few newcomers actually took the plunge and started watching.
Over the following days, questions like "Is Clannad really that good?" kept popping up online.
And underneath each one, enthusiastic fans would pile in with their answers.
"It's great. It's genuinely incredible."
"This anime won the Shiraishi Award for Outstanding TV Work. How could it not be good?"
"People still haven't seen Clannad? This show is a masterpiece. Especially season two, episodes nine through fifteen. One jaw-dropping twist after another. If you haven't watched it, seriously go catch up."
"I've been watching anime for years, and Clannad is the most emotionally moving show I've ever seen."
"You'll regret not watching it."
In short, after several days of aggressive promotion, Clannad's already sky-high popularity climbed even further.
So many people were puzzled: what was Arcane doing?
Logically, if you were going to dump a huge promotional budget all at once, you would want to time it with the story's emotional peak for maximum impact. Episodes nine through fifteen had been full of surprises, sure, but they probably were not the absolute climax.
Something did not add up.
Had whoever was in charge of promotion at Arcane lost their mind?
They were blowing this much on a single push. Did they not plan to promote anymore after this?
Or had something happened behind the scenes that forced Arcane to front-load all their promotional spending?
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