"It's been almost a year since we last saw Shirogane-sensei post a status comment like this, hasn't it?"
"Can't be helped. Since Demon Slayer, Shirogane-sensei has become a major mogul in the Japan animation industry. He doesn't really show his face in public the way he did back when he was a small-time creator."
"Among the trillion-yen tycoon class, though, Shirogane-sensei is approachable. Look, he still replies to fan comments and such."
"Shirogane-sensei hasn't reached the trillion-yen level yet, has he? That's too exaggerated."
"How has he not? Just the four animations, Demon Slayer, Bleach, Naruto, and One Piece, their combined IP value passes ten trillion yen by a wide margin."
"IP value doesn't equal Shirogane-sensei's income, though. There are tens of thousands of people making a living off this interest chain."
"Shirogane-sensei takes the lion's share, no question. The work IPs are his, and the IP adaptations for anime, games, and so on are also developed and operated by companies under his command. It's just that Shirogane Animation isn't listed. Otherwise, with the added value of so many past work IPs, Shirogane-sensei would have that level of wealth in terms of share price alone."
"Does net worth from share prices even count?"
"Why wouldn't it? Look at the people on the Japan Rich List. Every one of them has a net worth in the trillions of yen, but it would probably be hard for them to come up with three to five hundred billion yen in cash themselves.
At least for Shirogane-sensei's Tokyo Old City Reconstruction Plan, he put in a trillion yen in cash himself. Otherwise it would be impossible for the Tokyo government and banks to give him low-interest loans with this kind of ease."
"Why always discuss how much Shirogane-sensei's net worth is? Either way, he's the number one wealthiest person in the animation circle, no question. And that's just for now. Once the Old City Reconstruction Plan finishes in a year and a half, Shirogane-sensei will hold the property rights to a bunch of shops in the area near Shirogane Animation. The annual rent collection then will be staggering."
"We'll have to wait and see if the area near the Shirogane Animation headquarters can really develop after the reconstruction. If we're being strict, that place wasn't a prosperous area of Tokyo before. It only got a bit better after the Shirogane Animation headquarters was placed there.
Now, with the old city reconstruction, using some gimmick like an animation tourism holy land or an ACGN fan gathering place may not lead to any good development."
"That area isn't suitable for finance or the internet, no question. But with Shirogane-sensei there, is there any need to doubt the feasibility of creating an ACGN fan commercial district? Come on. If it takes off, anyone from all over the country traveling to Tokyo who's even slightly tied to ACGN fandom will go there for a pilgrimage."
"Exactly, many people don't understand how great Shirogane-sensei's advantages are in doing this. Let me put it simply. For any future anime or game works Shirogane-sensei creates, as long as they involve a modern theme, and it doesn't need to be much, just by embedding relevant real-life scenes in the anime or games and having the protagonist walk around this area for a bit, within a few years, the information will be implanted in the heads of all anime fans."
"And with Shirogane-sensei holding large-scale anime conventions here on a steady rhythm, and maybe putting himself out a bit to appear at these conventions in person. Before long, with Shirogane-sensei's popularity, this area will become a hit among the ACGN fan community."
"Is it really that simple? I don't believe it."
"Hehe. We'll see in two or three years. Talking more on the internet now is useless."
Online discussions around Rei always end up veering off track.
Some were envious, some were jealous, some were covetous, and some offered blessings.
In fact, most people were clear that if Shirogane Animation and Shirogane kept developing step by step like this.
In twenty years, no, maybe in ten years, a giant conglomerate in the Japanese animation industry would be born. By then, the influence of any large manga company or major television station would pale in comparison to Shirogane.
Within Japan, the scenario many Rei fans had been waiting years for, where the entire Japanese animation industry unites to boycott Rei, was all but impossible.
The reason was simple. Rei's works in the Japan dimension weren't just eating up market share and taking away others' livelihoods.
They were making the cake bigger.
The revenues of most established animation companies hadn't declined in recent years. In fact, they had even seen some growth because the animation market had been heated up by Rei.
No matter how popular works like the Big Three, Hunter x Hunter, and Demon Slayer became, they wouldn't squeeze out the survival space of other seasonal anime.
This was true in Rei's previous life, and it was true in the Japan dimension.
The money Rei could earn wasn't something that would be distributed to other companies if everyone teamed up to knock him down or crush him.
Without a megahit like Elden Ring, would other games in the PC game market of Rei's previous life have sold tens of billions more? Without a runaway hit like Your Name, would other films released the same season have gained an extra ten billion in box office?
How could that be possible?
In the same way, if Japan didn't have Rei, the fans who paid for the Big Three and Demon Slayer wouldn't have bought merchandise for other anime instead.
Peers watched Rei develop a multitude of animation work IPs and even establish an animation tourism city industry in the Tokyo area. Beyond envy and jealousy, it was hard to hate him for real.
In the entire Japan animation industry, this kind of thing was something only "Shirogane" could achieve.
If someone else did this? How could there be daily online discussions about whether it would succeed while the industry was still under construction?
Why would these ACGN fans be interested in an animation tourism district under construction? Wasn't it because this was a project led by Shirogane? The Shirogane Animation headquarters was here.
After completion, Shirogane would be here too.
In itself, when this many people were paying attention to this matter, it had already succeeded.
December.
The Big Three and Steins;Gate kept their broadcasts going.
The plot of a single arc in the Big Three often spanned dozens or even hundreds of episodes, and there wouldn't be a plot point that would stand out to fans every week.
In most cases, the content of the aired episodes was the protagonist fighting fodder and filler plots.
This was the case for Bleach above all.
Before episode three hundred, the two animations Naruto and One Piece had close to no filler in terms of the original plot line. As for the excessive flashback plots that took heavy criticism from fans in Rei's previous life, that was just the animation production team adding scenes and creating filler themselves.
But Bleach.
From the moment Ichigo and the others entered Hueco Mundo to the final rescue of Orihime Inoue, there were too many fodder Hollows showing up.
The battle scenes looked great, and the fights were cool. The main reason the audience found it boring was that the characterization of the supporting cast was poor. The audience only wanted to see Ichigo's battles, or at the very least, Kenpachi or Byakuya Kuchiki would do.
The characters Yasutora Sado and Uryu Ishida had no popularity. Watching their battles made it easy to fall asleep.
On top of that, the power scaling in Bleach was unstable, and signs of it starting to collapse were beginning to emerge.
In recent plots, there had been quite a lot of criticism for Bleach.
Steins;Gate, after entering the later stages of the plot, became more god-tier with every episode, and the fans' evaluations grew higher and higher.
After Okabe and Makise confessed their feelings to each other, Okabe pressed the enter key on the keyboard in grief.
Deleting that evil D-mail with his own hand.
With the cause for SERN's world domination gone, everything in the Alpha worldline collapsed into nothingness.
The world returned to a worldline with a divergence rate above 1.0, where Kurisu Makise had long since died.
Okabe, Hashida, and Mayuri Shiina lived ordinary college lives together on the Beta worldline.
As long as Okabe didn't become curious about the Phone Microwave, the device capable of sending D-mails, and try it again in this lifetime.
The Alpha worldline would become a non-existent world.
Then, in the latest episode, the most mind-blowing part came.
Even after returning to the Beta worldline, even with Makise sacrificed.
The future of the world didn't get any better.
Suzuha still returned from the future in a time machine.
In the future, a world war would break out among nations over time machine theory.
The root of everything lay with Makise.
In the first episode, during the scientific research seminar held by Makise's father, her father was a hack who knew nothing.
But Makise's research was a decisive breakthrough for the creation of a time machine.
In the Alpha worldline, the creation of the time machine was a combination of Makise's theory and the protagonist Okabe's stroke-of-luck experimental results. The research results were stolen by SERN.
On the Beta worldline, because Makise died, her research was stolen by her father and taken onto a plane, then controlled by national powers.
On this timeline, this outcome was also converged and wouldn't change no matter what.
To change the outcome of the future world war, Suzuha from the Beta worldline traveled to this era in a time machine to find the Okabe who had just returned from the Alpha timeline and have him travel back with her to July 28th.
To save Makise.
If they could save Makise and hide or destroy her research results, the world war could be avoided.
After Operation Save Mayuri on the Beta worldline ended, the final plot of this anime, the final arc.
When the main storyline of saving the already deceased female lead, Makise, emerged.
Steins;Gate fans worldwide were in an uproar.
"This is the plot I want to see."
"What do you mean you can't have your cake and eat it too? I want both. Why do I have to choose one over the other in an anime?"
"Why is Shirogane-sensei so popular? Other creators in Japan should learn from him. This is the reason. His plot arrangement has elevated the theme, and we as the audience are satisfied. It's not like some anime that force a tragic ending for no reason at all."
"Hahaha, Operation Save Little Angel Makise begins."
"Is this the Steins;Gate line? Awesome."
"But there's one thing I don't get. Suzuha said this plan was formulated by the future Okabe. Since they belong to the same worldline, it means the future Okabe also went to the past with Suzuha during this period to save Makise and failed. Everything the current Okabe is experiencing is the past of the future Okabe. He already knows he will fail, so why send Suzuha to this era?"
"So. Isn't it because the time machine was researched in the future?"
"You don't get it. Everything in this world is predetermined. When a traveler in a time machine comes to this world, the time traveler themselves is part of the history of the era they traveled to. History won't change. It won't change just because of something like a time machine. In the Steins;Gate setting, at least within the large frameworks like Beta and Alpha worldlines, there won't be any change unless you jump to another worldline."
"Hmm. It is a bit of a tongue-twister, but thinking it through, it's true. The future Okabe knows everything the current Okabe is going through. Since he knows, and he didn't save Makise back then, why go through the extra trouble?"
"I can't figure it out. We can only let Shirogane-sensei reveal it."
Seeing the doubts of the group of fans online, Miyu's head also began to throb.
"Why? I feel like the fans are right. You said in media interviews that there's only one world in this story and no multiple parallel universes. If so, why would the future Okabe go through the extra trouble?" Miyu looked at her husband, her eyes full of confusion.
"It's true that only one worldline exists in reality. That's the world where the protagonist Okabe exists. Other worldlines collapse into possibilities after a change," Rei said as he closed his laptop.
"But. The protagonist is the Reading Steiner. He can ensure he maintains his memories after a worldline change, while others cannot. To borrow an old saying. He stands apart from the cycle and is no longer bound by the rules others are."
"What does that mean?"
"For others, as soon as the worldline changes, they lose their memories, so everything in the world is predetermined. Even if you have a time machine, if you can't ensure you keep your previous memories after the worldline changes and keep adjusting your behavior based on the results of the change, then the world will stabilize in the end and converge into the result it was meant to converge into," Rei explained.
"But Okabe is different. He has the power to change things. The premise is. He must believe that he can change it. Once he gives up, then everything becomes predetermined for good."
"I don't understand." Miyu's eyes were dazed and cute.
"It's normal not to understand now, but it doesn't affect the appreciation of the main Steins;Gate plot. After Steins;Gate ends, there's a prequel work, Steins;Gate 0. That work tells the story of the future Rintaro Okabe's life path and his entire life, the one who sent Suzuha back to have the past Okabe save Makise."
Miyu's head throbbed at hearing this.
"Are you even human? There's a Steins;Gate 0 too? While you've been in heavy serialization with works like Hunter x Hunter, One-Punch Man, the Big Three, Demon Slayer, and Attack on Titan these past few years, you still had the mind to conceive such a complex and mind-bending plot like Steins;Gate?"
"Yeah. Talent." Rei brushed it off with that reason as usual.
Miyu mocked him at that.
"How shameless, praising yourself like that?"
Over the next week, Steins;Gate kept airing.
Okabe followed Suzuha's suggestion and returned from the future to July 28th, the day Makise was killed.
And then.
The truth was revealed.
Why was Makise killed in the first episode and then seen by the Okabe of July 28th?
The reason was simple.
It was the Okabe from a month in the future who, under the plan of an even older Okabe from ten or twenty years later, traveled back to that day in a time machine with Suzuha.
To save Makise, he got into an argument with Makise's father, and then.
Ended up killing Makise.
So, the entire plot of Steins;Gate was that the Okabe of July 28th witnessed the scene where the "August Okabe," who had arrived in a time machine, killed Makise and left her lying in a pool of blood. The July 28th Okabe didn't see who the murderer was.
In his panic, he ended up bringing the Phone Microwave into existence and sent the first D-mail, causing the worldline to shift from Beta to Alpha.
After experiencing despair and struggle on the Alpha worldline and returning to the Beta worldline in the end, he became the August Okabe, and to save Makise, he went back to July 28th, and then. Killed Makise.
The logic was a closed loop.
The time machine and the traveler themselves became components of the historical event.
Seamless and indestructible.
This was the power of fate.
This plot left all of Japan and even Steins;Gate fans worldwide stunned.
Holy crap, how do you solve this plot?
How on earth can Makise be saved?