I'm Not A Master, I'm A Director
Chapter 420: You Entertainment People Are All Scheming
"Garden of Sinners is an ambitious story. My expectations for this series are completely different from Fate, because each has its own theme and message to convey."
Whenever Shinji did publicity, he always came across as approachable. As long as he faced a camera, he never dropped that perfectly professional smile.
The "great" politician Jim Hacker once said it best: "When you're in front of a microphone, assume it's on." The same principle applied here—so long as a camera lens was pointed at him, Shinji wouldn't allow even the slightest slip.
"The IMAX camera gives me many conveniences. The amount of visual information it captures far exceeds traditional cameras. The resulting image is sharper and brighter, making magical effects far more dazzling on screen."
Unfortunately, this was a morning interview, and time was limited. Shinji couldn't go into much detail.
So after briefly explaining the advantages of IMAX and giving viewers a pitch for the IMAX big screen, he concluded:
"Without strong visuals, even the best film can't fully come to life. I believe this special camera technology represents the future of the film industry. I'll be making more IMAX films in the future as well."
Hearing this, the reporter immediately leaned forward, eyes shining with excitement.
"So does that mean you've already started preparing a new movie? Which one will it be—Fate? Garden of Sinners? Or a brand-new series?"
Shinji only smiled mysteriously. "The project has just begun. You'll know when it's officially announced."
Watching Shinji's interview on TV, Yukikaze Manabu frowned deeply.
The publicity for Garden of Sinners was overwhelming. Was it simply that Type-Moon had deep pockets? News about the film seemed to appear everywhere, anytime.
This all-out marketing campaign made him, a devoted fan of Pirates of the Caribbean, feel a tremendous sense of pressure.
Compared to the aggressively promoted Garden of Sinners, Pirates of the Caribbean had solid word-of-mouth—but its publicity was noticeably weaker.
Recently, the first thing Manabu did every morning was check the two films' ratings on IMDb.
The gap in their scores was enough to ruin his mood for days.
Thanks to the efforts of him and a group of like-minded people—or at least, that's what he believed—the rating for Garden of Sinners had dropped to 9.1.
But Pirates of the Caribbean had stalled at 8.8, refusing to climb any higher.
This morning, its IMDb score even dropped another 0.1 point, falling back to 8.7.
This didn't match the flood of positive reviews currently filling the comment section. Even a fool could tell something was off.
According to IMDb's statistics, nearly 50% of recent ratings overlapped between the two films, and most of them were extreme—one very high, the other very low.
Clearly, someone was manipulating the scores.
Manabu didn't need to think hard to guess who was behind the tampering with Pirates of the Caribbean. It had to be Shinji Matou and those brain-dead fans of Garden of Sinners.
That's right—when he gave Garden of Sinners low scores, it was fair and impartial. But when Shinji's fans did the same to Pirates of the Caribbean, it was cheating.
Yukikaze Manabu's double standards were that blatant.
Turning off the TV, he opened his computer. With a bit of time left before work, he sent out another mass email, calling on his movie-loving friends to intensify their offensive.
"Make sure we push Pirates of the Caribbean past Garden of Sinners as soon as possible! Drag that trash movie down from its pedestal!"
Just sending messages wasn't enough. On his way to his part-time job, Manabu kept dialing phone numbers one after another.
"Koshigaya! You've got to mobilize everyone around you to rate Garden of Sinners. Remember—lowest score only!"
"Matsumoto, I need a favor. Get all your friends involved."
. . .
Meanwhile, inside a Western-style house in Misaki City, Alice was browsing through a freshly received email. She couldn't help but burst out laughing.
"Ordering takeout, then asking the delivery guy to help rate the movie… What kind of genius came up with such a ridiculous idea? Hahaha~"
But after laughing, Alice thought it over carefully—and realized the plan actually worked.
First of all, most delivery workers rarely used IMDb. That meant they were fresh "signals" who hadn't rated either film yet. After days of score battles, the fan accounts on their side had already exhausted their votes. They urgently needed reinforcements.
Second, delivery workers were in the service industry. As long as the request wasn't excessive, they usually agreed to customers' demands. Asking them to register an IMDb account and leave a rating probably wouldn't be refused.
"…Looks like even bad ideas can be useful sometimes."
Alice crossed her arms and muttered to herself while staring at the email.
She absolutely could not allow Garden of Sinners to lose its No.1 position on the hot movie rankings!
Ever since IMDb had existed, whenever Shinji released a film, it always claimed the top spot. This glorious tradition could not end with Garden of Sinners. Especially not when the reason for its fall wouldn't even be the movie itself, but a group of shameless troublemakers stirring chaos behind the scenes!
In truth, Alice had another goal in mind.
Shinji's fan clubs had always been loosely organized. She wanted to use this rare opportunity to unify the scattered groups into a more cohesive team. That way, organizing future fan support activities for Shinji would become much easier.
"Let's do it! We're winning this battle!"
With Alice's voice cracking as she shouted, the war over IMDb ratings officially erupted.
Although Alice's actions looked extreme, she was merely representative of Shinji's more passionate fans.
After Garden of Sinners gained popularity, its dark aesthetic quickly attracted a core audience. These fans didn't care about other viewers' opinions. While loudly proclaiming Garden of Sinners as a masterpiece, they also quietly belittled other works.
It wasn't just Pirates of the Caribbean that suffered. Classic films like The Godfather, The Shawshank Redemption, and The Silence of the Lambs frequently became collateral damage.
The situation was very similar to what happened when Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba exploded in popularity in Japan.
Some extreme fans dismissed other classic anime entirely, labeling Dragon Ball, One Piece, and Detective Conan as outdated relics or niche titles, while insisting only Demon Slayer deserved to be called a national-level phenomenon.
It was basically a real-life reenactment of that famous line: "Everyone here is trash."
In terms of numbers, these extremists were actually rare—maybe one in ten thousand at most.
Unfortunately, the fanbase was huge, and these people were especially loud.
In fact, such "problem fans" often had an impact that exceeded the concern of "one fan equals ten haters."
Alice's actions were relatively restrained. At most, they only resulted in a few delivery workers receiving some rather… unusual orders.
You had to know that some of the more fanatic fans of Kimetsu no Yaiba in Japan would even send emails to random strangers. The messages were things like:
"Demon Slayer is so good—if you don't watch it, you're not Japanese."
"You still haven't watched Demon Slayer? How do you even have the nerve to stay alive?"
"There's no way someone hasn't watched Demon Slayer, right? Right? No way?"
—Messages that, frankly, could get someone reported to the police.
If you wanted an even more extreme example, there was the shooting during the premiere of The Dark Knight Rises in the United States. That was already at the level of incomprehensible madness.
It could only be said that once humans became obsessed, there was almost nothing they wouldn't do.
Fortunately, even in her fervent state, Alice still retained a bit of rationality. To avoid causing trouble for Shinji, she kept the "war" limited to IMDb ratings.
Thankfully, ever since his debut, Shinji had accumulated a huge fanbase. Some people might have only watched his movies and knew nothing else, but at the very least, they were familiar with the name "Shinji Matou."
Because of this, when Alice and the others mobilized people around them, many—though slightly annoyed—felt that participating in such an event once in a while was actually kind of fun.
And so, under the coordination and rallying of several leading figures, hundreds of thousands of movie fans surged toward IMDb like a tidal wave.
Their goal was simple: lower the rating of Pirates of the Caribbean so it could no longer threaten Garden of Sinners.
And, if possible, push Garden of Sinners' score back up.
When Shinji originally designed IMDb's scoring mechanism, he deliberately chose what looked like a highly democratic averaging system—mainly to make it easier for his hired reviewers to manipulate results.
Of course, the actual algorithm wasn't simply "add all scores and divide by the number of voters," but concentrated clusters of high and low scores could definitely influence the overall trend.
So when it came to ratings, even without professional vote manipulators, ordinary fans had plenty of room to sway outcomes.
Usually, a film receives the most ratings—and the highest scores—right after its release.
You could imagine: after watching emotionally charged films like Fate or Garden of Sinners, audiences left the theater stirred up. In that state, it was hard to make rational judgments.
They were too excited—so excited they overlooked flaws and made irrational evaluations.
That was also why, after all these years of Shinji using hired voters, fans never noticed. The "helpers" appeared precisely when everyone was most hyped, so unusually high scores didn't raise suspicion.
By the time people calmed down and thought more rationally, those hired voters had already adjusted the ratings downward.
On the other hand, humans as social animals tended to exhibit "collective unconscious" behavior.
In plain terms—blind conformity.
When something was surrounded by overwhelming praise or criticism, most people found it hard to stick to their own judgment.
It was like when everyone around you praised a new anime. Even if it didn't suit your tastes, most people wouldn't outright say "I don't like it." At the very least, they'd acknowledge it as a good show.
Garden of Sinners and Pirates of the Caribbean were currently trapped in exactly that situation. Their fanbases were clearly divided, directly opposing one another.
The result? Arguments only grew more intense.
"Master, have you seen what's been happening on IMDb these past couple of days?"
A few days after the "war" broke out, Jeanne excitedly approached Shinji, who was resting in his office.
Facing Shinji—who sat behind his desk slowly stirring his coffee—she said, "If you haven't, you should take a look. It's really lively."
"Did something happen?"
Compared to Shinji, Shiki Ryougi, who was also idling in the office, seemed more curious.
Shinji took a sip of coffee before replying calmly:
"What else? It's still about the rating battle over the Garden of Sinners film."
Although he hadn't paid close attention, Alice had messaged Shinji before mobilizing the fans, so he roughly knew that the two fanbases were clashing.
"Shinji's fans are review-bombing Pirates of the Caribbean, and Pirates of the Caribbean's fans are doing the same to Garden of Sinners."
Jeanne briefly explained to the confused Shiki, then deliberately joked:
"I even went to IMDb and dropped a low score on Pirates of the Caribbean. Gotta keep up with Master's pace, right~?"
Shinji raised an eyebrow as he sipped his coffee. He glanced sideways at Jeanne, as if blaming her for stirring trouble.
Ryougi Shiki pinched her chin thoughtfully.
"Garden of Sinners hasn't been overtaken yet, right?"
Jeanne nodded.
"It's still number one on the hot movies list, but the score has dropped to 9.0."
"And Pirates of the Caribbean?"
Shinji was curious how much pull the film had in this parallel world.
"It's fallen to 8.3," Jeanne reported with a cheerful smile. "Master's fanbase is larger, more dedicated, and more enthusiastic. In comparison, Pirates of the Caribbean's scattered supporters are already running out of steam."
"Oh~"
Ryougi suddenly looked at Shinji and offered a completely unreliable suggestion.
"Shinji-kun, don't you have professional reviewers on IMDb? Why not just declare victory?"
"Don't stir the pot," Jeanne complained. "The referee stepping onto the field to rig the match is going a bit too far."
After saying that, she even looked at Shinji, hoping he'd agree.
Unexpectedly, Shinji set down his coffee and shamelessly said, "Yeah. It's about time to release them."
"Eh?!" ×2
Even Ryougi exclaimed, "I was joking!"
But Shinji continued calmly, "Shiki-nee, tell the IMDb side to find a way to raise Pirates of the Caribbean's score a bit."
"…Shinji-kun, are you overworked and sick?"
Seeing her gaze full of concern-for-a-fool, Shinji shot her a look back and shook his head.
"A battle is only interesting when it goes back and forth. If Garden of Sinners is too dominant, it doesn't even count as a fight."
"Besides, it's just an online rating. Winning or losing isn't the key, the key is spreading publicity."
Both Jeanne and Shiki froze. They hadn't expected someone to play it like this.
"Perfect timing too. Garden of Sinners' box office momentum has been slowing these past couple of days. This online war can act as a stimulant."
"…"
"…"
Neither Shiki nor Jeanne knew what to say.
They could only conclude: people in the entertainment industry all had dark hearts.
"Once Pirates of the Caribbean's score starts rising, notify the media and have them report on this. The bigger the buzz, the better."
Resting his chin on his hands in a pose reminiscent of Gendo Ikari, Shinji issued his orders.
"Be careful to hide the source. Don't let the media know it came from us."
"Should we inform Disney as well?" Jeanne asked.
"No." Shinji shook his head. "Contacting them would give people leverage. Don't worry—they're an old-hand entertainment company. They know what to do."
"Got it. I'll notify the IMDb side now."
Shiki stood up as she spoke.
"Right," Shinji called out to her again.
"Tell them to control the score carefully. Don't accidentally let Pirates of the Caribbean surpass Garden of Sinners."
"…Wait, who was it that said not to care about online ratings?"
"Even if it's a virtual match, I don't want to lose. Falling behind Disney? What a joke."
"…You're really petty, Shinji-kun." Shiki couldn't help but mutter.
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Tn: I updated the story once every 2 days, but if you want to see more chapter of this story ahead of time, please go to my Patreon.
Latest Chapter: Chapter 455: Shinji — My Awesomeness Has Exceeded Even My Own Expectations[1]
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[1] https://www.patreon.com/Thatsnakegirl/posts/im-not-master-im-160861502?collection=31097
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