Time entered the end of the year.
Rei's daughter Hina was already three years old and had inherited the unique interest in manga from Rei and Miyu.
She often spent time standing behind the study where the couple, Rei and Miyu, worked, watching them draw manga.
Rei was doing fine. 90% of the work for the Big Three was now handled by assistants, a model very similar to how Gosho Aoyama drew Detective Conan in his previous life.
He was a bit better than Gosho Aoyama, though. At least Rei still drew the story storyboards himself. He didn't set up a screenwriting team like Aoyama, who was only responsible for the romance and the direction of the main plot while everything else was done by assistants.
Miyu was different. The manga Reincarnation was a work ranked fourth in popularity on Dream Comic, after all. Not as popular as the Big Three, but its average sales per tankobon volume were over 16 million copies. Miyu was very serious about her manga and spent the vast majority of her time every day immersed in her work.
After watching so much, her daughter Hina followed suit and even began to ask Mama and Papa to teach her how to draw manga.
"If things keep developing like this, maybe Hina could become a mangaka even earlier than you did back then." Rei looked at his daughter's scribbles on the manuscript, his expression turning a little solemn.
Whether someone has talent can be seen at a glance.
It was hard to tell with story creation for now, but Hina had talent in learning manga drawing, no question. The things she drew were a mess, but her storyboard perspectives were pretty good, imitating the couple.
"Forget it. What's so good about being a mangaka in this era? If our daughter submits a manga at thirteen or fourteen like I did, the biggest mountain in the Japan manga industry would be you, who is forty and still in the golden creative period of a mangaka. Shirogane. The money you've earned is enough for her to spend for ten lifetimes.
It's better to live a happy life without thinking about anything and just live a mediocre life like this." Miyu looked at her daughter's focused expression while learning manga, her eyes showing both relief and heartache.
She was a once-in-a-decade genius among Japan mangaka, having submitted manga at thirteen. Now twenty-nine, she had at last created Reincarnation, a top-tier popular manga in Japan with an average sales volume of 16 million copies.
But what about Rei?
Bleach sold 29 million copies per volume, Naruto sold 35 million, and One Piece sold 38 million.
This was a result that made not only Miyu feel despair but all mangaka of this era feel despair. Among the popular serialized manga currently on the market, the one ranked fourth in average sales only had 23 million copies. Her Reincarnation, looking only at average sales per volume, ranked fourth in the same period.
If their daughter stepped into the manga world in the future, she would face continuous pressure from her father and mother, especially when compared to Rei. Just thinking about it was despairing.
"Stepping onto the path of a mangaka doesn't mean you have to be number one. As long as you like it, that's enough." Rei said in a soft voice.
"You only say that to me and our daughter. You tell others to take it easy, but if your own results were ever surpassed by someone else, you'd probably be so upset you couldn't sleep well for a month." Miyu rolled her eyes at Rei, calling him out.
"Haha." Rei gave an embarrassed smile at that.
"In another two weeks, Clannad will be finishing too, right?" Miyu switched the subject.
"Yeah." Rei nodded.
"Our daughter has been obsessed with your work lately. She doesn't understand the ones with more complex plots, but she's seen Spirited Away four or five times, and she gets excited every time. There's also Clannad. She only half-understood the romance plot of the first season, but she's smart and gets the parent-child plot of the second season for real."
"Is that so?" Rei's expression was surprised.
He had been too busy lately. All the work for the anime district he'd invested a trillion yen in building in Tokyo was piling up. According to the timeline, most of the planned buildings would be completed by the middle of next year. He was negotiating with dozens or even hundreds of companies in Japan about moving in, so Miyu was often the one accompanying their daughter at night. Rei wasn't aware of these things.
"You'd better have a better ending for this anime." Miyu looked at Rei. "Nagisa Furukawa is dead, there's no helping that. But Ushio Okazaki. Our daughter really likes this character. If you make her cry later, I won't let you off easily."
"Ahem. Don't worry. The rest of this anime."
Miyu looked at Rei with curiosity.
"It is the most heart-healing ending among all my works."
"Heart-depressing?"
"Healing, curative, do you get it?"
"You said the same thing before Nagisa Furukawa died."
"I promise not to lie to you this time. If I lie, I'm a puppy. You have to watch until the very end."
For the next two weeks, the Clannad anime revolved around the warm daily lives of the male lead Tomoya Okazaki and his daughter Ushio Okazaki.
The vast majority of Clannad fans in Japan, media included, fully believed that the end of this anime would follow a warm path.
From the love between the male and female leads in the first season, to the marriage, the birth of the daughter, and the death of Nagisa Furukawa in the second season. To now, the male lead and his daughter resolving their issues and living together again.
From youth campus romance to family drama, watching the dozens of episodes of the Clannad anime felt like experiencing the male lead's entire life.
There was constant controversy during the broadcast, but the ratings climbed on a steady rise, and the reputation went from a peak to a trough and then back to the highest peak.
Quietly, the popularity of this work had reached a level on par with Bleach, the weaker of the Big Three. In the latest data compiled by various major media organizations, Clannad still couldn't compare to One Piece and Naruto, but compared to the Bleach whose Hueco Mundo arc plot seemed a bit bloated, it did not fall behind.
But all of it, all the praise from fans across the network for Clannad and Shirogane, came to an end at the end of episode 20.
At the end of this episode, Ushio Okazaki, who had risen to become the most popular character in all of Clannad, fell ill.
It was the same illness that Nagisa Furukawa had since she was a child and that took her life in the end.
The ACGN fans in Japan had seen countless works. As soon as this plot point showed its head, how could these fans not guess the subsequent development?
Before Nagisa Furukawa died, the fans in Japan thought Rei was just joking and that it was impossible for him to let the female lead die.
Now.
"Shirogane, I advise you to be kind."
"You're not going to let Ushio Okazaki die, are you? Is this a plot a human being could think of?"
"Just let the world be destroyed."
"I can't accept this. Regarding Nagisa Furukawa's death, I could just convince myself it was to better shape Ushio Okazaki. But if you also write Ushio Okazaki to death, what does that become? Shirogane, have you lost your mind?"
"It must just be a joke, right?"
"It was the same before Nagisa Furukawa died. Everyone thought it was a joke, and what happened? From that day on, I knew that Shirogane's works don't joke around. He can even kill off the female lead. Nothing can stop him now."
"Has Shirogane-sensei really achieved so much success that he's letting himself go? Why must he design such a clearly problematic plot?"
"I don't get it. If Clannad really kills off Ushio Okazaki, I'll be a Shirogane hater for the rest of my life. I'll never buy merchandise for Shirogane's works again."
"Me too. If Ushio Okazaki is really killed, not just for Clannad, but including the Big Three, I'll only watch the TV animations for free and never pay for Shirogane-sensei's merchandise again."
"Count me in."
In mid-December, in less than a week, the Clannad fans on the internet were filled with resentment again.
This situation left a group of media and peers in the Japan anime industry silent.
The first season of Clannad was fine. It was a simple school youth romance animation with a bit of supernatural elements.
In the second season, the plot was like a roller coaster.
It started with good reviews, had bad reviews in the middle, and then reached its highest praise in the later stages, with ratings even slightly leading the Bleach anime after it began broadcasting.
Now. With only two weeks left until the end of this anime, its reputation had reached the lowest since the start of the entire series.
The audience's anger had been stretched into a tight string by Clannad's back-and-forth plotting and depressing deaths.
Now, it only took one episode of unsatisfactory plot for it to explode in full.
Ayaka looked away from the fan comments on the mobile forum. She wasn't the aggressive type of fan, and no matter what direction the subsequent plot of Clannad took, she shouldn't be too broken.
She could feel the resentment that the Clannad fan base in the Japan anime world had built up at this time, though.
"Tonight, there's a high probability of a good show." Ayaka took a deep breath.
She watched the commercials playing on the TV screen. There were five minutes left until the broadcast of the twenty-first episode of Clannad's second season.
"Shirogane-sensei, please don't lose your head. I even rejected my boyfriend's request for a date to make time tonight to watch the Clannad anime. Don't you dare actually write Ushio Okazaki to death."
Ayaka couldn't help but have similar complaints and a bit of resentment in her heart.
Then, it was eight o'clock in the evening.
The familiar theme song of Clannad played.
The light and slightly sad OP song let Ayaka immerse herself in the plot along with the OP visuals, recalling the cliffhanger from the end of last week.
Ayaka's gaze became serious.
Right at the start, the sad BGM began to play.
Beside the ill Ushio Okazaki, all her family members were gathered around her.
Sweat seeped from her flushed face, and she looked very uncomfortable.
Ayaka's heart ached.
She knew these were fake, entirely fictional characters, just drawings, but after following the show until now, she couldn't control her emotions.
It took forty episodes for Nagisa Furukawa to change the audience's impression of her from a dead weight female lead in the first episode to a virtuous wife and mother, a wonderful wife in the second season.
Ushio Okazaki had only appeared for five episodes.
She had already become the best-crafted daughter character in the Japan anime world, bar none.
This past month, every episode involving Ushio Okazaki's plot had been a massive hit with no negative reviews.
And now.
The anime plot kept broadcasting.
Tomoya Okazaki quit his job to take care of and accompany his daughter full-time at home.
His daughter's fever wouldn't subside for a month.
Ayaka's heart began to tighten.
Ushio Okazaki was very sensible. She was uncomfortable, but she just endured it. Even when she was very weak, she insisted on changing her clothes herself, insisted on not having her father help her go to the toilet, and worked hard to eat by herself so as not to trouble her father.
When bored, she would look at the dango daikazoku plushies beside her on the bed and smile.
If she had any wish.
I want to go on a trip. To go on a trip with Papa.
Ushio Okazaki, lying on the bed looking at her father with longing eyes, was met with the male lead's refusal.
The reason was simple.
How could she go on a trip when she was so seriously ill? Wouldn't that worsen her condition?
"Damn Shirogane. I really. Why isn't it you who's suffering?"
Ayaka had always felt that her emotional control was good and that she wouldn't be broken by this plot.
Now.
She had overestimated herself a little.
She kept telling herself to stay calm.
She couldn't stay calm.
The child Ushio Okazaki was crafted too well, so well that when she just looked at you with her eyes open in the animation without saying a word, it was hard not to feel heartache for her situation.
Ushio Okazaki asked her father to take her on a trip more than once.
The first time she and her father resolved their issues and she felt his fatherly love was during a trip.
To her, traveling with her father represented the happiest thing in the world.
Even though her body was now so uncomfortable that she couldn't stand up and was in a lot of pain, it couldn't dampen her desire for it.
Autumn ended, and winter arrived.
In the anime, Ushio Okazaki's illness had not improved and had lasted for several months.
She had been on her sickbed the whole time, but her desire to go on a trip had never changed.
Only, her body was becoming weaker day by day.
[I want to go on a trip.]
[Can we go after you get better?] Tomoya Okazaki responded gently to his daughter again.
[I want to go now. Now. I want to go to the Flower Field.]
Ayaka's eyes turned red in one beat.
The Flower Field, the place where Ushio Okazaki and her father resolved their issues, the place where she cried in her father's arms for the first time.
In the animation, Ushio Okazaki looked at her father with pleading eyes.
[All right.] Tomoya Okazaki put down his water cup.
Ayaka's heart sank further and further.
This.
Why did it feel like a person fulfilling their dying wish?
Please don't, Shirogane, you wouldn't be this cruel, right?
The BGM came out to finish her off at this moment.
The father and daughter packed their simple luggage and walked out of the house.
Tomoya Okazaki wanted to carry his daughter on his back.
Ushio Okazaki insisted on walking herself.
[Off we go. Let's have fun this time.]
[Wooo.] Ushio Okazaki responded happily.
Ayaka already felt like crying.
As they walked, Ushio Okazaki's physical strength grew weaker.
Until at a certain moment, Ushio Okazaki, holding her father's hand, fell forward.
[Dad, where are we now?]
Ushio Okazaki asked in a weak voice.
[We're already on the train.] Tomoya Okazaki was almost crying.
[It's so dark? Is it already night?]
[Yeah.]
Ayaka's fists clenched.
It was the middle of the day, what do you mean night?
Can Ushio Okazaki no longer see?
She was already so physically weak.
[Dad.]
[I love you so much.]
[Dad loves you the most too.]
This was the final conversation between the father and daughter.
Ushio Okazaki's hand slipped down as heavy snow fluttered in the sky.
Tomoya Okazaki held his daughter's body, calling her name in panic and crying.
At this moment, Ayaka felt her whole body go numb.
That unspeakable depressing feeling rushed into her mind, turning into an anger that couldn't be suppressed in the end.
She, who had never been broken while watching anime, was truly broken tonight.
She, who used to mock others on forums for getting so invested and hysterical over an anime, was now hysterical herself.
The end of this episode was interspersed with a scene whose meaning was unknown, showing The Girl in the World That Ended and the Robot meeting the end of their lives in the freezing snow.
It was just like the situation Tomoya Okazaki and his daughter were currently facing.
Ayaka could see that this anime had been using the experiences of the Robot and The Girl in the World That Ended as a metaphor for something.
Important information was lacking, though.
At this moment, her mind was occupied by anger.
She couldn't analyze anything useful from the plot at all.
Then the scene shifted again, returning to the opening scene of the first episode of the first season.
The boy about to go to school on the slope met the girl hesitating at the school gate.
Here, the boy had two choices.
Talking to the girl, Nagisa Furukawa, leads to all the plot points from the first episode of Clannad until now.
If he chooses not to talk to her, will Nagisa Furukawa's fate change?
If I were Tomoya Okazaki, after seeing the future ending, that talking to her would lead to them falling in love, Nagisa Furukawa dying of illness, and them having a daughter who would die of illness in the winter of her fifth year.
Then would I still choose to talk to Nagisa Furukawa and fall in love?
If she had not met him, if she hadn't gotten pregnant and fallen ill from a forced delivery, then Nagisa Furukawa wouldn't have died?
It wasn't stated in the plot, but at this moment, Ayaka understood what the boy in the visuals was hesitating and struggling with.
He only needed to give up his own love, happiness, and future, give up the possibility of falling in love with Nagisa Furukawa, to exchange it for the possibility of another life for her.
Then if it were me, how would I choose?
Ayaka's expression was stiff. She felt the deep meaning the animation was trying to express.
And then. She couldn't make a choice.
Only.
Nagisa Furukawa never once regretted meeting you from beginning to end.
Ushio Okazaki never once regretted having a father like you from beginning to end.
Then Tomoya Okazaki, will you regret it?