Yūki Chinatsu, whose physical age had reached the level of a mature woman while her mentality hovered somewhere between a little girl and an old man, still counted as a normal woman in this world. People like Uehara Etsuki and Morishita Aoi, whose talents were clearly far above average, were not especially rare either.
Only Busujima Murasaki puzzled Kamiyā Yuu the most.
All along, Busujima Murasaki's abilities in various areas had not appeared particularly outstanding compared with those of people like Uehara Etsuki. Her appearance was also inferior to Uehara Etsuki's, and because their character attributes overlapped, it was easy for people to get the illusion that she was merely a servant following behind Uehara Etsuki.
That was not referring to her status, but rather that as long as Uehara Etsuki was present, Busujima Murasaki's presence would not be especially strong.
That was how ordinary people felt.
In reality, however, the strange feeling Kamiyā Yuu sensed from her was not much weaker than what he sensed from Uehara Etsuki.
She was different from ordinary women—or rather, different from normal people. She was like a monster lurking in the darkness, making Kamiyā Yuu feel uncomfortable all over.
The change in Busujima Murasaki's attitude toward him over the past few days made Kamiyā Yuu sense a faintly bad trend.
This monster, which had originally been hiding in the dark, was now staring straight at him as prey with cold, cruel eyes.
All kinds of signs allowed Kamiyā Yuu to grasp somewhat the unknown side of Busujima Murasaki.
Since her attitude had changed only after he displayed a few moves, considering that she had been trained since childhood as a close-combat bodyguard, could Busujima Murasaki have a hidden "berserker" attribute?
In so many films and television works, characters with such dark pasts usually have a bloodthirsty and battle-hungry side.
Kamiyā Yuu could accept a formal kendo match, but was the kendo match Busujima Murasaki mentioned really the same as what he imagined?
He glanced almost imperceptibly at Busujima Murasaki beside him.
It was hard to imagine that this woman, who possessed both the heroic air of a career woman and the classical temperament of a yamato nadeshiko, had such a side.
He thought inwardly, This parallel world has many things that seem similar yet different compared with my previous world, as if reality and fantasy are interwoven. Looks like I'll need to check the data after returning to the consciousness space. Busujima Murasaki may have a character template similar to Kuroneko.
Having reached a tentative conclusion, Kamiyā Yuu set the matter aside for now and focused his attention back on the backend statistics displayed on the laptop in front of him.
In less than five minutes, this otherworld version of the 'BILIBILI' bullet-comment video website would officially launch.
...
The ones waiting for 'BIUBIUBIU' to launch were not only Lin Ye and Kamiyā Yuu, but also users interested in 'Warship Girls Collection' and licensed anime.
["Holy crap, five minutes left! Is my computer broken? Why does it feel like time isn't moving at all!? — Shower on the Bed, Ice Under the Bed"]
["Damn, husky, my computer has the same problem! — Lolitas Are Justice"]
["Stop messing around. Five minutes left. I'll post some shipgirl art for you guys to lick first. — Conquering Your Little Heart"]
["Give me Shimakaze first! Swimsuit version, preferably! — Six Trillion Years and Three Days"]
["Please give me a damaged CG of Cat! — A Tree tree."]
["You truly are a gentleman. — Aloof Orange"]
[Six funny coins. Give me a mackerel first! — Lolitas Are Justice"]
Li Anping looked at the refreshed comments under the pinned thread and fell speechless. After thinking for a while, he posted several screenshots he had saved from the game, immediately drawing all sorts of "unsightly" comments from the users in the thread.
Things like "Filthy otaku are disgusting!", "Can lolicon matters really be called perversion?" and "How can you slander someone's innocence out of thin air?" drew all kinds of forum users over to watch and laugh. The thread was filled with a cheerful atmosphere.
He was a Chinese international student in Japan, and also one of the earliest thirty thousand players to come into contact with 'Warship Girls Collection'.
The game had been discovered by a fellow Chinese international student who was a fanatical gaming enthusiast. That person had also been very interested and dragged a large group of Chinese students into the pit.
They had never expected that after the game reached thirty thousand registered players, registration would close. They had expected even less that the game would later develop such a series of legendary events.
Most of the Chinese international students who had been dragged in sold their accounts after 'Warship Girls Collection' accounts were hyped up to a high price of 300,000 yen.
Only Li Anping and that gaming enthusiast continued playing this browser-based development game.
Needless to say, that gaming enthusiast was the type who would never stop until he cleared a game. Unfortunately, even now, with the Chinese server of 'Warship Girls Collection' about to launch, that grinding emperor's game account combat index was still only equivalent to that of a wealthy pay-to-win player. He was still more than a hundred thousand miles away from graduating from the game.
For Chinese international students who came to Japan, things were fine if their family background was good. Those from ordinary families, however, could basically only live while both working and studying due to Japan's high cost of living.
They attended school during the day, then worked as convenience store clerks or in small factories in the evening and at night. If they did not have student dormitories, they could basically only rent cheap 1K apartments. Some did not even have bathrooms, requiring them to go to public bathhouses to bathe and coin laundries to wash clothes.
If an international student had an introverted personality, things were even worse.
Most Japanese people appeared kind and friendly to outsiders on the surface, but in reality, they possessed a strong sense of exclusion. Needless to say, there was regional discrimination. In major cities like Tokyo, speaking with a countryside accent could easily invite discrimination from those around you.
If the person was a foreigner, Japanese people were very likely to maintain a friendly and kind attitude, while secretly making things difficult for them, especially if they were Asian.
If a foreigner went to a convenience store to buy something, they would absolutely see the manager's one-hundred-percent enthusiastic smile. If they came to apply for a job, they might see the same smile, but even if the store had an urgent hiring notice posted, they would still be told very politely, "I'm sorry, but we just filled the position a moment ago."
In Japan, Chinese international students generally relied on referrals from seniors to find work.
When one student was about to return to China, they would introduce their job position to another student. This habit had already become a tradition among Chinese students in Japan.
For Chinese students from ordinary families, under such pressure that could almost be considered a matter of survival, selling a game account worth 300,000 yen was very worthwhile.
Li Anping's family background was decent. He did not lack that 300,000 yen, so he decided to keep experiencing the fun of the game.
He discovered that this game was practically magical. Its system design was exquisite, progressing from simple to complex and giving players a period to learn and adapt. The pacing for each stage of gameplay was extremely well designed. The more one played, the harder it became to stop.
Before he knew it, once he had fully adapted to the vast and complex game system, he realized that the truly interesting parts had only just begun.
Li Anping also had to admit that the beautiful Japanese anime-style female characters, the shipgirls, were extremely attractive.
He had once grinded for an entire month just to obtain a shipgirl who had little practical use, but whose character design had been personally drawn by Kamiyā Yuu.
He would never forget the moment he bought an in-game wedding ring and gave it to that shipgirl.
Her happy expression, her lines, and her wedding dress illustration made Li Anping feel that even if he had to grind another three months, it would all have been worth it.
When the Japanese server first launched in January, Li Anping bought a personal board called 'Warship Girls Collection' on Longteng, a large Chinese gaming forum he often browsed, and began recommending the game everywhere.
The result exceeded his expectations.
Originally, he only wanted to pull a few Chinese gaming enthusiasts into the pit so they could play Battlefield Mode together and complete the social missions arranged in the game.
Yet unexpectedly, the game itself attracted more and more Chinese players. He was like a fuse that had lit a barrel of explosives.
By early February, his private board 'Warship Girls Collection' already had more than ten thousand daily IP visits.
Coincidentally, around that time, news also spread that the Chinese server of 'Warship Girls Collection' would soon launch.
The game's excellent reputation, combined with the beautiful Japanese anime-style shipgirls in the promotional ads, attracted large numbers of interested players to the 'Warship Girls Collection' board.
The growth in the board's popularity made even the founder of the Longteng forum envious. Some game teams were even willing to spend hundreds of thousands of RMB to purchase the private board he had created.
Most Chinese players still did not know how to bypass the firewall. They could only look enviously at gameplay videos and guides posted by players who could, waiting eagerly for the Chinese server to open.
Some players had not even touched the game yet, but they could already discuss 'Warship Girls Collection' game theory with complete confidence.
Now, in mid-March, even before 'Warship Girls Collection' had launched, the forum board's popularity had already surpassed that of ordinary AAA game boards.
According to the official website of 'Warship Girls Collection', more than 600,000 players had pre-registered for the game.
To outsiders, such popularity might be understandable for an AAA single-player blockbuster or a large-scale online game. But for a casual browser game to achieve such results was truly unbelievable.
Only players who had truly come into contact with 'Warship Girls Collection' understood that even this level of popularity was far from the limit of the game's potential.
Thus, on this afternoon, more than one hundred thousand players on Longteng Games' 'Warship Girls Collection' board were waiting for the Chinese server of 'Warship Girls Collection' to open.
...
Some were waiting for the game, and naturally, others were waiting for 'BIUBIUBIU' to launch.
Tang Chao leaned against the sofa in his office and yawned boredly.
With his right hand, he moved the mouse to refresh the webpage, waiting for the so-called 'BIUBIUBIU' bullet-comment video site to go online.
He was not interested in the so-called bullet-comment function. He simply wanted to support the licensed versions of 'RWBY', 'Puella Magi Madoka Magica', and 'Magical Girl Nanoha'.
Was he a loyal fan of Kamiyā Yuu?
Tang Chao himself found it difficult to define.
He liked the style of these three anime very much. Every vivid character touched his heart. In his bedroom, he even had expensive full-character figure sets from 'RWBY' and 'Magical Girl Nanoha'. Once figures for 'Puella Magi Madoka Magica' were released, he would definitely order them from Japan as well.
However, he did not know much about Kamiyā Yuu.
In his own words, why should he pay attention to a man whose appearance he did not even know?
Ding-dong!
A different notification sound came from the computer speakers. The refreshed webpage displayed a cute animated girl twisting her waist and waving cutely. Soon, it connected to the so-called bullet-comment video website.
"It does look pretty decent."
Tang Chao muttered as he looked at the video site's homepage.
The video homepage was very well designed. Looking at it felt comfortable on the eyes. Various videos had clear categories and tags, yet they were not crowded together in a complicated way.
Most importantly, there was not the slightest trace of advertising across the entire interface.
After registering an account, Tang Chao's first action was to search for the 'RWBY' section and enter the video playback page to check other viewers' comments.
For a work he liked, he was always happy to see others offer praise for it too.
"127 viewers are watching with you."
"450 viewers are watching with you."
"2,598 viewers are watching with you."
The number of viewers for 'RWBY' rose at an astonishing rate. The comments refreshing below the video were also full of content that would make 'RWBY' fans smile knowingly: faction disputes, CP alliances, and arguments that looked utterly irreconcilable yet also felt oddly familiar.
The familiar opening scene of 'RWBY' appeared.
Tang Chao, who had already watched it several times, was just about to close the video page and look at the comments for the next work when he noticed viewer comments slowly drifting across the top of the video.
He realized this was the bullet-comment function from the promotions.
"First!"
"So this is bullet comments? Doesn't this block the video content? Useless feature!"
"Wow~ it feels pretty interesting!"
"Ruby! Ruby! The red three-times speed is about to appear! So excited!"
...
Tang Chao also became interested. He carefully typed a greeting on the keyboard.
"Hello everyone, I support the Red-White faction!"
"Hello."
"So you can chat on the same screen? Feels like there are more bullet comments now. My eyes are going blurry."
"Red-White is heresy! Red-Yellow sister yuri is the truth!"
"Nonsense!"
An intense faction war began inside the video.
Tang Chao naturally continued watching 'RWBY' while paying attention to those amusing comments, occasionally writing his own thoughts and debating with other bullet comments.
Before he knew it, two hours had passed, and 'RWBY' had reached its ending.
Yet Tang Chao still felt unsatisfied.
'RWBY' with bullet comments had given him a completely different experience, as if countless friends who liked the same work were watching it beside him.
The interesting parts became even more interesting. The funny parts became even more hilarious. Some sweet scenes made countless viewers smile knowingly.
After thinking for a while, Tang Chao opened the 'Puella Magi Madoka Magica' section, intending to watch from beginning to end this work that had amazed him the most.
"Damn, I actually didn't notice this foreshadowing before."
"Such a complicated setting. I hope the protagonist gets a good ending."
"Please pay attention to this background. In the setting, Walpurgisnacht is a plural existence of witches. Many witches in these backgrounds haven't appeared yet, such as this mermaid witch..."
...
After watching it once, what left the deepest impression on Tang Chao was the bullet comments analyzing the anime's plot and foreshadowing.
Only after reading the bullet comments did he suddenly realize that many parts were connected.
He had to praise the animation studio's meticulous attention to detail.
Knock, knock.
The sound of knocking interrupted Tang Chao's thoughts about the plot of 'Puella Magi Madoka Magica'.
"Come in."
"Manager Tang, has the product survey report been completed? President Qian has already started urging us several times."
"Survey report!?"
Tang Chao froze.
Come to think of it, he had originally planned to check the comments on the licensed 'RWBY' and then organize that so-called survey report.
The company's higher-ups had already urged him several times about it...
Why did I forget something this important...
Tang Chao lowered his head and silently looked at the bullet-comment video website displayed on his computer.
This damned website is going to die sooner or later. This thing is poisonous!