At the autograph session on the convention floor, there were reporters there as well, and some of them were clearly fishing for drama. One in particular, with ill intent written all over the question, deliberately asked Maki what he thought about Natsume Yuujinchou rising to the top of the ratings across the four prefectures of Shikoku - and about the fact that its first BD volume would also be going on sale in two days.
His expression darkened on the spot. Then he glanced at the beautiful and composed Natsuyuki Shirasawa standing beside him. She gave him a look that said everything without words: don't say anything reckless. Just brush it off and move on.
Having already learned from the last incident, Maki did not speak carelessly this time. He simply kept a dark expression on his face and ignored the reporter's question altogether.
Of course, that only made things worse.
That same night, entertainment media outlets took his evasive reaction and exaggerated it without mercy. Headlines added fuel to the fire, twisting his silence into all kinds of speculation. By the time he saw the reports spreading online, smearing him and painting his reaction in the worst possible light, Maki ended up spending yet another sleepless night, too angry to rest.
Then November 14 arrived.
And the moment the date turned, anime fans across the country felt their spirits rise. They all knew it.
What they had been waiting for was finally about to come.
In major cities, the promotional posters for The Dragon King Next Door that had still been hanging everywhere the day before were quietly taken down. In their place, a new image appeared: a gentle-looking boy with chestnut hair, a fat orange cat, and a high school girl in uniform with a face full of confidence. The poster of the two of them standing together with the cat drew attention almost instantly.
The brush-written title Natsume Yuujinchou resting across the green Book of Friends in the boy's hands gave the whole image a refined, lingering charm.
Across NatsuYume, bloggers and video creators from every anime-focused section began, almost in unison, releasing promotional videos that day, introducing Natsume Yuujinchou and sharing spoiler-free impressions of the series.
As creators with over a million followers on NatsuYume, they had already received deluxe editions of the original BD discs from Noriko shi Animation ahead of time, before the official November 15 release. Along with that, they had been paid a certain amount to produce promotional impression videos and recommendation content.
Yes, they had accepted money for promotion.
But whether it was for the sake of that money or because the series genuinely deserved it, their praise for Natsume Yuujinchou was strikingly consistent.
Almost all of them described it in the same way.
The best anime of the autumn season.
No exceptions.
And over in Tokyo, Yumi Noriko joined forces with Noriko shi Animation to pull off something even bigger.
At a large-scale convention event in Tokyo that day, attended by tens of thousands of people, she appeared on stage not only as a famous anime influencer with tens of millions of followers, but in cosplay as "Tsubame," the little youkai who had appeared in episode six of Natsume Yuujinchou just a few days earlier. More than that, she even performed a dance live at the event.
By that evening, "Yumi Noriko cosplays the little youkai from episode six of Natsume Yuujinchou at a convention!" had already climbed to the number one trending topic on NatsuYume.
It reached the top in only a matter of hours.
That kind of explosive momentum was obviously not something Natsume Yuujinchou alone could yet generate at its current level of influence. The truth was much simpler: Yumi Noriko herself was a huge internet celebrity. She could casually cosplay almost any character and still send a platform into a frenzy.
But behind that wave of attention, a good portion of the heat had also been bought and pushed by Noriko shi Animation. The goal was obvious - to build momentum for the upcoming BD release of Natsume Yuujinchou.
For an ordinary anime title, even if Noriko shi Animation were acting as the producer and distributor of the merchandise, they would never spend this much time, money, and promotional effort helping with marketing. At most, they would make a token gesture and move on.
But Natsume Yuujinchou was no longer just another ordinary title.
At this point, its name had already grown strong enough within the anime industry that many fans were eagerly anticipating its merchandise. Its commercial value was becoming impossible to ignore. And besides that, there was another factor everyone understood without saying aloud: this was the work personally invested in by the chairman's only daughter. For the operations department, tilting a bit more of the company's resources in her direction, helping her build a visible success, and flattering her in the process was hardly a bad move.
That night, Sora Kamakawa and Sumire, along with the others, could only stare in stunned silence at the number one trending video on NatsuYume - Yumi Noriko's cosplay dance as "Tsubame."
The blue yukata, the white ornamental mask covering her eyes, the light brown hair swirling as she moved, the serene smile on her exquisitely beautiful face, the turning hem of her robe, her slender pale calves -
The video repeatedly mentioned Natsume Yuujinchou in its tags, and at the very end, the closing text on screen read:
"Natsume Yuujinchou BD Volume 1 - Nationwide Release on November 15!"
In a single day, the video surpassed two million views. Tens of thousands of comments flooded in, along with a barrage of scrolling reactions filled with things like "beautiful," "gorgeous," and "Yumi Noriko is my wife."
Only then did Sora and Sumire truly realize just what kind of internet celebrity Yumi Noriko really was.
Not long after that, a call came in from her.
The moment he picked up, her smug, triumphant voice rang through the phone.
"So, Sora? Pretty amazing, right? I told you your investor was incredible."
"Amazing. Seriously, really amazing... Thank you."
At that moment, Sora found himself at a loss for words. He even felt a little guilty.
To put it bluntly, although she had only invested six million yen into Natsume Yuujinchou, the promotional and advertising value created by all of these extra efforts had already exceeded that amount by far.
Even someone as thick-skinned as Sora could not help wondering whether he had taken advantage of Yumi Noriko far too much.
A wealthy second-generation investor personally cosplaying a character at a convention and performing a dance on stage to promote the work - although it was obvious Yumi herself seemed to be enjoying every second of it, Sora was still genuinely moved.
"Good. As long as you know that." On the other end of the call, Yumi sounded deeply satisfied after hearing his response.
Then her tone shifted slightly, becoming more serious.
"All right, Sora. As an investor in Natsume Yuujinchou, I've already done everything I can. Even if the series is only airing on a platform like Tokushima TV and started out with weaker conditions than the big national titles... I still don't believe what all those Natsume Yuujinchou haters keep saying. That no matter how high its rating is, no matter how much praise it gets, it'll just end up like Voices of a Distant Star... sitting in fifth place in the BD market."
She paused briefly before continuing.
"To be honest, I've already picked a fight with Maki's fans and Natsuyuki Shirasawa's fans. After making this much noise, I really don't want to hand those people a chance to mock me later. So what happens next is simple. Whether Natsume Yuujinchou is just a niche series that only managed to dominate ratings in four prefectures, or whether it's the kind of work that can win over a huge following across the entire country - that depends on the BD sales starting tomorrow."
In plain terms, that was all there was to it.
Everything else that could be done had already been done.
What remained now was to see just how high the ceiling really was for the work Sora had created.
"I understand..." Sora paused for a moment, then smiled. "At the very least, I believe this much. Natsume Yuujinchou's sales numbers will definitely surpass The Dragon King Next Door."
...
Another day passed.
Then came Friday, November 15.
Early in the morning, in major cities across the country, large crowds began gathering in the otaku shopping districts of their respective cities, clustering in front of BD and disc stores before opening time.
For days now, news and discussion surrounding Natsume Yuujinchou had been impossible to escape online.
The recommendation videos from major anime creators on NatsuYume, Yumi Noriko's convention cosplay, reports from anime media outlets, and the month-long curiosity that had been building ever since the series began airing - all of it overlapped, layer upon layer, until public anticipation had reached an almost feverish level.
Because of that, the scale and momentum of the fans gathering in those shopping streets to buy the BD were in no way inferior to what had happened a few days earlier during the release of The Dragon King Next Door's first BD volume.
And the fans lining up there were all absurdly outgoing. It did not take long at all for complete strangers to start chatting as though they had known each other for hours.
"This is the so-called masterpiece people online have been hyping for over a month. I just hope it doesn't disappoint me."
"If only one or two people said it was good, maybe I'd doubt it. But if anime fans from all four prefectures are all praising it, then it can't be fake. What I really want to know is whether it's actually better than Akane no Sora."
"If it's really as touching and good as the internet says, then it'll be worth it. At least then I won't regret showing up here at seven in the morning to line up."
"I'm mostly here because of that video of my queen Yumi Noriko. I just want to see which youkai from Natsume Yuujinchou she was cosplaying at the convention."
"Didn't people from Tokushima already say it was a youkai from episode six? If that's what you're waiting for, you probably should've come back in a few weeks when volume three comes out."
"Anyway, today the anime fans of Japan will finally find out what this series is really made of. I just hope that by this afternoon its reputation doesn't collapse. The expectations around Natsume Yuujinchou are already ridiculously high. If the BD comes out and everyone takes it home, watches it, and thinks it's only average... then forget it. It'll definitely end up trending for all the wrong reasons."
As conversations passed back and forth through the line, the sun slowly rose higher into the sky.
Before long, the time reached eight-thirty in the morning.
And across otaku shopping districts throughout Japan, Natsume Yuujinchou's first BD volume officially went on sale, one store after another.
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