On television, a news segment was playing an excerpt from an interview with Lin Zhiyan.
Lin Zhiyan's handsome face appeared, discussing the inspiration behind the main plotline of saving Itomori Town in your name.
"It was mainly inspired by the great earthquake that happened in '11. At the time, my previous anime hadn't finished airing yet, but production was complete, and I was conceptualizing a new Animation Project when the earthquake suddenly struck.
Earthquakes are Natural Disasters that humans cannot predict. However, anime can fulfill people's beautiful fantasies. I thought at the time, what would I do if I could predict the earthquake and know the exact time it would occur.
Of course, this anime is primarily focused on romance, and romance requires beautiful things, which earthquakes are not. So, I replaced the earthquake with a Meteorite splitting off from a beautiful Comet. Thus, we have the disaster in Itomori Town and the main plotline of the Male and Female Protagonists saving Itomori Town."
The inspiration for "saving Itomori Town" is different from the inspiration for "Body Switching," so naturally, Lin Zhiyan's answer was also different.
However, despite what he said, only Lin Zhiyan himself knew the truth: the inspiration for the plotline of saving Itomori Town in the original version of your name from the other timeline was indeed the great earthquake of '11—something Shinkai Makoto himself mentioned in an interview with Station C. But the words coming out of Lin Zhiyan's mouth were purely fabricated based on that fact.
Earthquakes cannot be predicted?
Perhaps they truly cannot be predicted by others, but for Lin Zhiyan, it wasn't unpredictable. It was just that even if he knew the exact time the earthquake would occur, he did nothing back then.
The reporter interviewing Lin Zhiyan naturally wouldn't know Lin Zhiyan's true circumstances. Since it was a news interview, not an Exclusive Interview, the segment featuring him ended after he finished speaking.
Of course, although the interview ended, the news subsequently mentioned the anime your name, discussing how popular it was and how high the audience's enthusiasm was. They also interviewed several viewers, asking them about their feelings after watching your name. The audience responses were all positive, such as: "Deeply moving," "I loved it," "Extremely good-looking"... After this segment finished and other news began to air, Lin Zhiyan, sitting in front of the TV, picked up the remote control and switched to another channel to watch a different program.
Beside him, Nanase Mayumi remarked, "You're on TV again."
"Mhm." Lin Zhiyan nodded.
"What's the box office total now? Is there a chance it will hit twenty billion this weekend?" Nanase Mayumi asked again.
"I checked this morning, and it was 19.3 billion. Hitting twenty billion this weekend will be a bit difficult, but it should be possible by the end of next week," Lin Zhiyan replied.
"It premiered on May 1st, and now, barely two and a half months later, the box office is close to twenty billion..." Nanase Mayumi counted on her fingers, then mused happily, "Do you think it's possible for it to bring in another ten-plus billion later, so that when it leaves theaters, it just surpasses spirited away and becomes the top-grossing animated film in Nippon?"
Lin Zhiyan chuckled and lightly patted Nanase Mayumi's head. "What are you dreaming about? Almost everyone who wanted to see it has seen it. How could it possibly bring in another ten Billion Yen at this point?"
Although your name has now become a National-Level Anime, its target audience is ultimately not as broad as spirited away's. It's mainly watched by young people; the elderly and children generally won't like this anime. At most, they've heard of it because of the relentless bombardment of advertisements and news coverage.
The entire Japan only has a population of just over 100 million, and a movie ticket costs Over a Thousand Yen. With the box office approaching twenty billion, the Attendance Count is close to fifteen million.
Attendance Count is different from the Number of Viewers. Some people, because the anime is super classic, will watch it a second, third, or even fifth or sixth time. But with such a limited population, an Attendance Count of twenty million would already be phenomenal. Even with twenty million viewings, it couldn't surpass spirited away's box office, as spirited away had an Attendance Count of around twenty-three million.
Ultimately, for a romance-themed anime, excluding the children's demographic, surpassing twenty billion at the box office is already proof of how incredibly successful your name is. It truly cannot surpass spirited away.
What's more, Hayao Miyazaki's new anime, the wind rises, is about to be released.
your name's Publicity Campaign was strong, but when it comes to pre-release Publicity Campaigns, it still couldn't compare to the wind rises.
At this critical juncture before the release of the wind rises, your name's only advantage was that it had already proven to be a highly successful anime with a stable commercial standing. In this situation, it wouldn't cause the public to focus all their attention on the wind rises, leading to your name being neglected.
In any case, the strong arrival of the wind rises would definitely affect your name's subsequent box office revenue.
In the other timeline, the wind rises premiered on July 20th. In the timeline Lin Zhiyan is in, although your name was still quite fierce compared to typical anime at this time, it did not cause the wind rises to be postponed; it still premiered on July 20th.
Then, in its opening week, after just two days, the anime unsurprisingly surpassed your name's box office for that week, claiming the Weekly Box Office Champion title with nearly one Billion Yen in sales.
However, to the surprise of many outsiders, although this anime won the Weekly Box Office Champion, its Positive Review Rate was significantly lower compared to your name.
It's not that the audience was dissatisfied with the anime; compared to other anime released during the same period, its satisfaction rate was undoubtedly the highest, but it still couldn't beat your name, which premiered in May.
Premiering to nearly one Billion Yen in two days looks quite high, but it still couldn't compare to your name's performance when it first premiered.
In the following weeks, the wind rises consistently dominated the Weekly Box Office Champion spot, but the rate of box office growth had a significant gap compared to when your name was dominating the charts previously.
Since the two anime premiered more than two months apart, it wasn't considered direct competition, but based on all available data, the wind rises could not surpass your name.
After realizing this point, many people quickly started discussing it online.
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