To walk the road toward the God of Animation - and refuse to deviate even a single step.
If Natsume Yuujinchou could pull numbers like that while airing on Tokushima TV, strong enough to outpace works broadcast by the four major national networks across Tokushima, Kōchi, Ehime , and Kagawa… then the question practically answered itself: if it ever secured nationwide broadcast, wouldn't that momentum spread across the entire country?
The conclusion was too obvious to pretend otherwise.
Those four giant networks, headquartered in Tokyo with decades of dominance sunk deep into the industry's foundation, weren't just broadcasters - they were prestige, a default stamp of legitimacy, a golden signboard burned into the audience's memory. Any show that premiered there received a tidal push of attention simply by existing on that stage. And yet, even from a clearly disadvantaged platform, Natsume Yuujinchou had already begun to threaten the season's top contenders.
If everyone fought on equal footing - same platform, same conditions - it was hard to imagine any other outcome. Natsume Yuujinchou would have already become the cour's reigning title.
In only three weeks, its ratings didn't simply rise - they surged. It opened at 3.3 and had already climbed to 4.2, as if each episode gave viewers one more reason to stay.
And when people tried to identify the "why," one name was impossible to ignore.
Sora had taken on roles that were usually divided among entire departments - Kantoku, composer, scriptwriter - alone. It wasn't just talent. It was visibility. A kind of brilliance that refused to stay hidden. So after the third episode aired, the anime press pivoted with the speed of opportunists: they stopped praising only the work and began hunting the creator behind it.
Headlines hit one after another, louder each time, all competing for the same slice of heat.
[A genius Kantoku appears out of nowhere - who exactly is Sora, Kantoku of Natsume Yuujinchou?]
[Straight out of graduation and already thrown into the industry, shouldering the burden his father left behind: the bittersweet, inspiring year of Sora, Kantoku of Natsume Yuujinchou!]
[A few months ago, Maki never imagined he'd become a joke in the anime world because of a regional Tokushima title. He mocked Sora first - now he's been slapped back in public.]
[Ratings for The Dragon King Next Door stabilize around Tokushima; at this pace, Episode 4 of Natsume Yuujinchou is set to surpass The Dragon King Next Door across the entire surrounding region.]
[A prodigy's masterpiece: Natsume Yuujinchou is a rare breath of fresh air in this year's industry. Its creator, Sora, is now widely projected to take Best New Kantoku at Tokyo's animation circuit in December.]
[Full profile on Sora: a former classmate gives a special interview, revealing school-era anecdotes and trivia.]
[Revisiting the online exchange between Sora and Maki: Sora's line - "Why are you so impatient?" - perfectly captures Aihara's current state. He's surely praying Episode 4 of Natsume Yuujinchou collapses, because only that could keep him from becoming the industry's punchline.]
Behind all the noise, one uncomfortable truth kept pressing through: the threatened work wasn't only The Dragon King Next Door.
Card, Akane no Sora, and Maou Reincarnation were feeling the tremor too. In Shikoku, with Natsume Yuujinchou's word-of-mouth reaching an almost indecent pitch, even the "top three" positions of those productions looked less stable than they should have. Still, however irritated they might be, their teams hadn't committed the same fatal mistake.
Because Maki was different.
Months ago, he had openly mocked Sora and Natsume Yuujinchou. He had started the fight by choice - and now he was getting beaten with his face fully exposed. The contrast was brutal: Aihara's project had the biggest investment of the cour nationwide, every advantage stacked in its favor… yet it debuted in fourth place. And now, worse than that, it was about to be overtaken - first - by a regional anime.
He was the perfect case study. The kind of target the media loves, because it bleeds headlines daily. That was why, over the last few days, industry outlets seemed incapable of letting him go - dragging him out again and again, as if each new article were another shovel of dirt thrown onto his reputation.
For Maki, it had stopped being anger and turned into something heavier - something sticky, clinging to his skin.
He knew it. There was no point denying it.
He was already a joke in Japan's anime industry.
The moment he opened his account, a flood of comments hit him - mocking the "elite animation graduate" defeated by a teenage Kantoku fresh out of school. For someone proud, vain, obsessed with face and authority… it was a cut too deep to disguise.
Fourth place? He could swallow that. He could blame competition, scheduling, fickle audience tastes - anything that preserved his image.
But losing first to a regional anime? That felt like swallowing something truly revolting, the kind of disgust that crawled up the throat and twisted the stomach.
And there was an even nastier detail - one of those truths that only makes the feeling worse: most casual viewers didn't read ratings down to the final digits. They saw "4.22%" and assumed it was a tie.
But Maki wasn't "most viewers." He knew exactly what to ask for, what reports existed, where to pry loose the precise data.
Episode 3 of Natsume Yuujinchou had scored 4.228% across Shikoku.
The Dragon King Next Door came in at 4.223%.
It wasn't a tie. It was a loss.
And the worst part was that he also knew the thin "mask" hiding it would be torn off soon. If Natsume Yuujinchou kept its current pace - and everything suggested it would - then in two days, when Episode 4's statistics dropped, there wouldn't be a convenient rounding coincidence to save him. No more cover. No more "almost."
At that point, what could he even do?
Animation was a machine too large to turn on impulse. By the time a show is already airing and you realize the reception isn't what you wanted, half the production - sometimes more - is already locked in by budget and schedule. You can't truly "fix" it. There's no overnight miracle that transforms something the audience has stopped embracing.
And as if that weren't enough, there was Yumi Noriko.
Someone as vindictive as her, with a tongue that sharp, would never let this go. Ever since the Episode 3 numbers surfaced, she'd been posting piece after piece to ridicule Aihara - at a pace that bordered on absurd, sometimes four posts a day, as if his humiliation were her personal entertainment.
With her millions of followers, it became an avalanche.
On NatsuYume, the story spread the way a good joke spreads: repeated, clipped, exaggerated, reshaped into memes, turned into a punchline, a stock phrase, something people brought up for fun. The irony was almost cruel - most of the anime fans who lived on NatsuYume hadn't even watched Natsume Yuujinchou, purely because it wasn't airing in their region.
But nearly everyone knew the scandal.
Ninety percent - maybe more - remembered exactly how Maki had mocked first, calling Sora a "fake Kantoku," "trash without credentials," and how now his own work had been caught - likely to be surpassed - by Natsume Yuujinchou's ratings.
It wasn't the kind of shame that stayed with the public. It seeped into the industry itself - producers, colleagues, professionals. It became a mark.
No wonder Aihara hadn't slept properly in three days.
At the studio, he spent hours locked in his office, alone, and any attempt to approach him was met with shouting. Assistants became targets. Episode Kantokus and animation supervisors - people who needed to coordinate with him just to keep production moving - walked out tight-faced and drained, not from a lack of professionalism, but because it was impossible to communicate with someone who only wanted a place to dump his rage.
When Natsuyuki Shirasawa showed up, it was because the rest of the team insisted. She went in calmly, tried to talk, to pry open even the smallest crack.
Five minutes later, she stepped back out wearing the same composed expression as before.
The door closed softly behind her, muffling the cowardly line he'd thrown inside - as if the soundproofing existed for the sole purpose of hiding that kind of ugliness.
"What if it's because your script just isn't good enough? Then why did The Dragon King Next Door turn out so badly?"
Outside, several staff members waited tensely, as if hoping for a sign that things could be salvaged. In a white dress, her skin pale and her features almost too delicate for the grime of the situation, Natsuyuki Shirasawa simply shook her head.
"He's in a bad mood. There's no point pushing him right now. He'll recover eventually."
She said it without melodrama, with a poise that wasn't an act. Five years of success in the light novel world taught you a lot - especially how to recognize certain types. People who, the moment something goes wrong, blame the weather, the calendar, the world… anything but themselves.
Still, there was a "but" caught at the edge of her thoughts.
As she walked down the corridor, her lips curved into a small, beautiful smile - one laced with quiet irony.
Because the person who had looked at the original script she delivered and demanded sweeping rewrites, pointing fingers, insisting on "major revisions," meddling in everything…
Had been him.
Maki.
And now he wanted to dump the blame on her as if it were that simple.
She paused for a heartbeat, glanced back at his office door as if confirming her conclusion, then turned without hesitation.
And left the company.
Without looking back.
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