After episode thirteen of Steins;Gate aired, its reputation flipped. "It's good. I love it. Update quickly."
"I don't quite get it. Why does Tuturu have to die?"
"Take it as something fated to happen across different worldlines. There might be many such things, but Mayuri Shiina's death is one of them for sure."
"It's a bit oppressive and depressing."
"True. It still hooked me. Damn Shirogane."
"I thought it was a filler work during the broadcast of the three anime, Bleach, Naruto, and One Piece. Now it's getting more addictive."
"Twelve episodes of buildup is ridiculous, though. Good thing the author's name is Shirogane. Otherwise I would have given up after three episodes max."
"Same. If the screenwriter wasn't Shirogane-sensei, I'd have dropped this work."
"All I can say is Shirogane-sensei is invincible. He can even create a sci-fi themed work this brilliantly. When I saw episode nine, I genuinely thought Shirogane-sensei's lifelong reputation was about to get wrecked by this anime. These two reversal episodes have left me stunned."
"Never doubt Shirogane-sensei. That's the rule."
"Is it really that good? I dropped it at episode two. I hate slow-burn anime that play mysterious the most. How did the reputation take off again in just two or three months?"
"I can't say where the plot's going, but at least these two episodes are very pulling. You'd better pick it up and start following again soon. I have a feeling this anime is going to take off later. If you don't follow the weekly updates, you'll get spoiled by a bunch of people on the forums sooner or later."
"No need to just feel it. It's been twelve years. As long as Shirogane-sensei's works start gaining momentum, the later stretches are always better. I've never seen one crash midway."
"A twelve-episode slow-burn in an anime is wild though. It must have broken the records of the Japanese anime industry."
"It's not slow-burn, exactly. The earlier plot wasn't exciting, but it could still make people watch with their brains on. Compared to other anime in the same period, it's still more interesting."
At a glance, across the various anime forums in Japan, discussion threads on the Steins;Gate plot kept arriving.
It hadn't hit the peak popularity of the Big Three yet, but compared to other animation works on the market, it already showed crushing popularity.
Rei tracked the market discussion on Steins;Gate for a few days, and the small bit of tension in his chest eased.
"Even Steins;Gate can get through the early serialization stretch this well?"
Rei re-evaluated his popularity and fan loyalty in the Japanese animation industry.
Before this anime aired, he had been prepared to take fire from fans, media, and anti-fans.
He knew the risks weren't small. The reason he was still willing to produce the Steins;Gate anime in Japan, beyond the fact that the Shirogane brand wouldn't be wrecked by a few unpopular anime showing up from time to time.
Was that Rei loved this anime.
He pushed the office window open.
The strong wind from high up blew across his face, and what Rei saw was the construction tower cranes operating in clusters near the Shirogane Animation headquarters.
The surrounding environment looks rough now, but in another year or two, this area will become the central district of Tokyo and even the Japanese animation industry.
The same way Okabe turned Akihabara into an Electric Town in a certain worldline through future emails in Steins;Gate.
"In Japan, I, as a transmigrator, am also turning this old residential area into the Akihabara of Japan." Rei smiled.
Walking back to his desk, Rei looked at the viewership report for the Steins;Gate animation from last night and then put the report into the desk drawer.
7.12%.
That was the television viewership rating for the Steins;Gate anime last night.
Rei hadn't expected Steins;Gate to explode with excessive commercial value in the Japan dimension.
In Rei's previous life, the commercial value of this work itself was average.
It was high in reputation only.
Being able to replicate the trend of his previous life in the Japan dimension was enough.
To make money, develop the company, and build an animation empire in the Japan dimension, he still had to lean on commercial masterworks like the Big Three.
To earn reputation, launching works like Steins;Gate and Fullmetal Alchemist was the better play.
Across the following weeks, the three works of the Big Three ran steady.
At this stage, Naruto sat first among the three.
The plot had moved to Naruto learning the Rasengan under Jiraiya and getting pulled into the conflict between Tsunade, Orochimaru, Jiraiya, and the others.
In One Piece, the protagonist had entered the Grand Line, and the plot began to lead into the first ultra-large arc of the work.
The Alabasta arc.
The first boss the Luffy crew ran into after entering the Grand Line was one of the Seven Warlords of the Sea, Crocodile, the Sand Crocodile.
Looking at every character that had appeared across the entire One Piece series.
In Rei's view, the absurdity of Crocodile losing to the protagonist Luffy at this stage was no smaller than Shanks getting his arm bitten off by the Lord of the Coast. Like Enel, it was plot-driven, plain and simple.
Rei liked One Piece a lot.
That didn't mean the anime had no flaws in his eyes.
The biggest flaw was that the power levels stayed a mystery. Strength growth was built on idealism. At least Naruto and Bleach would have the protagonist do a symbolic week or two of special training to fool the readers. Look, their strength growth has a basis. In One Piece, the protagonist's Gear Two, Gear Three, Gear Four, plus the Nika Form, all just appeared out of nowhere. You could call it an alternative Deus Ex Machina.
The strong world-building and characterization covered up the flaws, and readers were too lazy to dig into it. If asked, the answer was that the entire Straw Hat Crew are geniuses.
Rei knew about the problems, but he had no way to change them.
He could only be a bit more restrained in the form of expression.
As for Bleach, after entering the Hueco Mundo arc, it was fight, fight, fight.
A considerable chunk of it was the protagonist's group facing off against fodder Hollows.
Popularity dipped, so it sat last among the three major manga.
By this point, the theory of the Three Great Shonen in the Japanese animation industry was widespread across the industry.
Across several consecutive weeks, the Steins;Gate anime kept airing.
The conspiracy of the organization SERN to control the theoretical knowledge of the Time Machine and through it control the world was uncovered.
The male lead Okabe, who kept leaping back to 48 hours ago, watched his loved ones get killed over and over. Through communication with Makise and exchanging information with other key characters, he learned about Worldline Convergence.
In the worldline Okabe was currently sitting on, the future would be controlled by the organization. SERN, having taken control of the Time Machine, turned the entire world into a Utopia-like world. Anyone who resisted was suppressed and killed. What would a terrorist organization do with the power to control the world?
The answer is simple. Spread terror.
What allowed the organization SERN to get this power was the male lead Rintaro Okabe and the female lead Kurisu Makise.
The prototype of the Time Machine they had researched and their actions of manipulating the worldline were captured by SERN, and they were then found and controlled with no trouble.
On this worldline, the organization SERN would control the world, and the other female lead Mayuri Shiina would die.
This was a result locked in to converge.
The main storyline of this work came out of this setup.
"Since Mayuri dies on this worldline, he can only jump to other worldlines, right?"
"It's brain-burning. I've been watching this anime for four months, and only now do I get that the main storyline runs like this."
"Isn't Okabe changing the worldline every time? Why does Mayuri's ending keep converging to death?"
"Pay more attention when you watch. Didn't it say? Every time Okabe time-travels, he triggers a small change in the worldline, but the overall direction stays the same, all on the main trunk of the alpha worldline. The alpha worldline is the worldline where the male lead Okabe sent a time email and got captured by the organization SERN.
This is the major event setting the world's direction. To change the ending where Mayuri dies, the world has to be flipped into a worldline where SERN didn't discover the Time Machine theory. In other words. Okabe has to delete every time-space email he's sent."
"Then Okabe needs to use an old computer, the IBN 5100, to hack into SERN's system and delete the information they captured about Okabe's time-space emails."
"Ts. So complicated. My head is exploding just listening to you guys explain the plot."
"The plot right now is the male lead has to eliminate the worldline changes caused by his previous time-space email actions one by one. At the open, the IBN 5100 was placed in the temple of Luka's family. His actions caused the worldline shift that made the IBN 5100 disappear. He has to return things to the original state, return to that worldline, and find the IBN 5100, right?"
"Exactly."
"Wild. The plot concept here. This is much better than Summer Time Rendering."
"Don't start a flame war. Summer Time Rendering is also good."
"This isn't a flame war. Summer Time Rendering is a plot about fighting monsters on an isolated island. Steins;Gate lays out a novel setting like worldline changes. The latter is more grand, plainly, and the main storyline of breaking fate is just great."
"I think it pulls me in more than the Big Three. The one unreasonable thing about this anime is that the Time Machine theory and the Phone Microwave don't exist in reality. Accept that setting and all the rest of the plot links up one beat after another. Isn't this stronger than the Big Three?"
"Don't start a flame war. I've had enough of the endless bickering from the Naruto, One Piece, and Bleach fans. Click into a bunch of anime forums and there are bound to be fans of these three families arguing about which anime is better and putting each other down."
"If Demon Slayer were still in serialization, would there be this much going on? Demon Slayer's viewership ratings and per-volume performance are both historical number ones, anime and manga both."
"I think the overall influence of Demon Slayer is about to get passed by the Big Three. On the list of animation IP values put together by world-renowned agencies, Demon Slayer's lead over the Big Three isn't much anymore. This is the advantage of long-running manga."
Time moved into November.
Rei's daughter, Hina, was about to celebrate her second birthday.
The weather began to turn cool.
"Another year is about to pass."
Looking at the yellowing leaves outside the villa window, Miyu's gaze carried a hint of complexity.
"Isn't the new year good? It's lively." Rei, sitting in the living room with tea, smiled.
"What's good about it? Doesn't it mean we're another year older?"
She and Rei had been famous for many years, but after this year, she and Rei would both be 28, heading toward 29.
In school days, time always felt slow. Six years of primary school felt like a lifetime, six years of middle school were worse, and after four years of university, one felt relief. Thinking it through, she and Rei had been out of school for five years, and time had moved so fast.
"Doesn't it also mean our cute daughter is another year older? Right, Hina?" Rei looked at his little daughter, who was playing with One Piece character figures not far away.
"Papa, Mama. Hehe."
Wearing a dinosaur children's outfit, Hina noticed Rei paying attention and trotted right over on wobbly feet, throwing herself into Rei's arms.
"In another year or two, she can visit anime conventions with us." Rei looked at his wife.
"You think far ahead." Seeing her daughter's smile, Miyu's sense of melancholy vanished, and she picked up Rei's thread. "In a year or two, the infrastructure near the Shirogane Animation headquarters will be fully built too.
You have a healthy mindset, thinking about visiting anime conventions of your own industry with your daughter. If I were you, I'd be thinking about how to pay back the loans owed to the bank."
"Setting aside that all the money earned in the previous ten years got poured in, you also borrowed another batch to do all this with the Tokyo government. You have nerve." Miyu said it like that, but there wasn't much blame in her tone. She was giving Rei a reminder.
"Don't worry. It's some debt. The Big Three has started flexing now. Any one of these three works alone can't compare to Demon Slayer back then, but the combined revenue of the three this year will pass Demon Slayer's peak by a wide margin." Rei smiled.
"When this infrastructure is finished, Shirogane Animation will also own the property rights of plenty of shops and houses. As long as this reconstructed area ends up forming a new ACGN holy land in Japan as planned, the initial investment will come back fast."
"What if it loses money?" Miyu said.
"Don't I still have a wife who's a top mangaka in Japan? You can support me then." Rei said with a serious face.
"Cough, cough." Miyu almost died laughing at his line. "You're so thick-skinned, you can even say things like that."
The two played around in front of their daughter for a stretch before they quieted down.
"I still haven't figured out why you, who were drawing manga just fine, decided to build an anime city in Tokyo. The money you've earned is enough for ten lifetimes. Is it necessary to take the risks?"
"If I've tossed and turned for so many years and the money I've earned just sits in the bank, wouldn't that be a waste of effort?" Rei looked at Miyu. "Like this, building a successful commercial district with a strong anime atmosphere, as long as the anime industry doesn't die, it might exist for decades or even hundreds of years.
It will last much longer than your life or mine. A hundred years from now, when fans of the Japanese anime industry come here, they will still know this place was invested in and built by a creator called Shirogane a hundred years ago."
"It's not exactly leaving a name in history, but at least it's leaving a name in the history of anime." Rei smiled.
A flash of envy passed through Miyu's eyes at that.
"That's nice. In your case, the anime industry a hundred years from now will record a genius like you. In my case, if I fade out of the anime industry for ten years, I expect not many fans will remember me. The anime industry is a cruel place like that."
"Easy to handle. When everything is wrapped, on the naming for this new district, I'll have the government personnel work characters from your name Miyu and our daughter Hina's name into the district name. As long as this anime district takes off in Tokyo and someone wants to know the story behind the name, they'll find our family."
Rei said it with ease.
"Can that work?" Miyu's eyes widened.
"Of course." Rei smiled. "Money talks. I've put trillions of yen in actual cash into this and borrowed plenty more for the old district development. A small request like that can be granted."
The daughter, Hina, tilted her head, watching her parents discuss with more and more excitement. A flash of confusion ran through her eyes.
She wasn't sure why they were happy, but she went along with it and enjoyed it.
When the clock reached eight in the evening, the couple, still deep in discussion in the living room, stopped at once.
They turned their gaze to the large television in the living room.
The latest episode of the Steins;Gate anime had begun.