At Japan's current stage of development, the media was still tightly controlled by capital of every size. The internet was rising year by year, but the age of video platforms flooding the market - the kind Sora Kamakawa had known in his previous life - had not yet arrived.
That was why television stations remained the best promotional platform for anime, dramas, and audiovisual productions in general.
Even so, a work that aired outside the four major national networks could still achieve excellent results in the physical market and even overseas, so long as its reputation grew powerful enough to explode across online forums. Cases like that were not common, but every few years, one or two titles would emerge that managed to break through.
Six months ago, Voices of a Distant Star had been one such example.
And now, Natsume Yuujinchou had become another.
On NatsuYume, the series had built up such an absurdly strong reputation that it almost seemed exaggerated. Its towering score, the constant praise from anime journalists and industry commentators, the promotional support from Noriko Animation as the producer and distributor of its official merchandise, and the aftershock of the old public feud between Yumi Noriko and Maki - which had only spread the title's name even further - all of that had combined with one crucial fact: in Tokushima, Kōchi, Kagawa, and Ehime, Natsume Yuujinchou had already surpassed Akane no Sora in ratings and taken the top spot outright.
That combination gave anime fans across the country tremendous confidence.
And it was precisely that confidence that turned the BD release day of Natsume Yuujinchou into a phenomenon, one that lost nothing to the grand scene surrounding the BD launch of The Dragon King Next Door just a few days earlier.
At eight-thirty in the morning, long lines had already formed outside specialty stores in major cities. As time passed, those crowds were gradually absorbed, while inside the shops, the stacks of standard, collector's, and deluxe editions of the anime's BD began to shrink little by little.
And as fans from other prefectures returned home carrying their copies of Natsume Yuujinchou with eager anticipation, NatsuYume that day...
slowly began to stir.
By noon, many of the faster ones had already finished watching the two episodes included in the first volume and started flooding into the forum to post their reactions.
By the afternoon, terms like "Natsume Yuujinchou BD Volume 1" had already entered the site's top ten trending searches.
And by nightfall, all anyone had to do was open the anime section of NatsuYume.
Thread after thread was filled with discussion about Natsume Yuujinchou.
"Guys... I cried."
"I didn't believe it before when the people from Tokushima kept saying this anime was heartbreaking and beautiful. I thought you were just hyping it up out of bias. Today I bought the BD the moment it went on sale, watched it in my living room, and damn it... I'm a grown man in my twenties, and I ended up with tears in my eyes. My mom thought I'd gotten dumped by my girlfriend."
"The crazy part is that over the past month, people from the four prefectures had already spoiled a lot of the story while talking about the show, so I already kind of knew where it was headed. But when I saw that final conversation between Hishigaki and Natsume in episode one... I just couldn't stop the tears."
"Is it really that good? I just got off work and haven't gone to buy the BD yet. The way you're all talking... is Natsume Yuujinchou really more interesting than Akane no Sora?"
"Comparing it to Akane no Sora is... hard..."
"How do I put this? Akane no Sora is an action anime, so naturally it's different. Its budget was over thirty million yen, so the visual quality is definitely much better than Natsume. But... what I felt from them was completely different. Akane no Sora is a good anime. Natsume moved me. After watching it, it felt like my whole heart had been cleansed."
"I'd vote for Natsume without even thinking. Seriously. This anime only needs its story and its music. It's the work of a genius. Stuff like image quality doesn't even matter anymore."
"I finished the two episodes of Natsume Yuujinchou, and right now there's still this hollow feeling in my chest... Why can't I ever meet a boyfriend as gentle as Natsume in real life?"
"Before watching it today, I thought the site's 9.5 score for Natsume was ridiculously inflated. But after finishing the first two episodes, all I want to do is curse the idiots who didn't give it a perfect ten. Why did this series lose half a point? What exactly wasn't good enough?"
"My head is completely stuck looping the ending song, Natsu Yuzora. I'm done for. When is the music CD coming out? I want to buy it so badly!"
"I feel awful right now. Why do I have to live in the coastal region? People in Tokushima have already seen up to episode six, and I can only watch the first two by buying the BD."
"Can someone tell me what happens in the later episodes? I just wiped away my tears and now I'm dying to know what comes next!"
"Perfect score, perfect score! Anyone who hasn't bought the BD yet, hurry up and get it. This is absolutely the best anime of the season. If you skip it, you'll regret it."
...
The outcome was nothing like what many loyal fans of the quarter's flagship titles from the four major TV networks had hoped for.
Over the past month, the momentum behind Natsume Yuujinchou had simply been too overwhelming. A lot of people had secretly hoped that once the BD was released nationwide, the show would fail to adapt beyond those four prefectures and collapse under the weight of broader public opinion.
But the facts were merciless.
After nine o'clock that night, anyone opening NatsuYume could immediately see that nearly every discussion about Natsume Yuujinchou was filled with praise from top to bottom.
The anime's official forum account began gaining followers at a startling rate.
Sora Kamakawa's personal account was the same.
But the most shocking surge of all came from Yumi Noriko's account.
By then, almost everyone on the site knew that she had been one of the key investors behind Natsume Yuujinchou.
In the minds of many fans, without her, that anime might never even have come into existence.
On top of that, Yumi Noriko had been deeply tied to the production and broadcast of the series for months. Now that the BDs were being sold nationwide, it was obvious she would be among the first to reap the rewards.
That night, her comment section was flooded with enthusiastic praise. Countless fans showered her with admiration, saying that people like her - anime professionals willing to go all the way to Tokushima to discover and invest in a genius Kantoku - were the true pillars of the industry.
Sora's comment section, meanwhile, had turned into a different kind of battlefield. It was packed with Natsume Yuujinchou fans begging him to start planning the story for season two immediately, preferably so it could air seamlessly in January of the following year.
The account of assistant Kantoku Sumire was also filled with comments. But in her case, most of the discussion had very little to do with animation. Fans were busy debating whether the profile picture was really her, or whether there was some chance the person behind the account was actually just some scruffy guy pretending to be a woman.
The idea that a cute girl could hold a high-ranking position in an anime production team was still something many otaku found difficult to believe.
In any case, with the release of the Natsume Yuujinchou BD, Sora Kamakawa, Sumire, and Yumi Noriko had finally become recognizable names among a sizable portion of Japan's anime fanbase.
That day, Sora and Sumire stayed late at the company.
Neither of them yet knew the total first-day BD sales.
But judging solely by the reception and the atmosphere dominating the internet...
"Do you think there's actually a chance that Natsume Yuujinchou's BD sales could surpass the first volume of The Dragon King Next Door, which went on sale a few days ago?"
There was a trace of excitement and disbelief in Sumire's voice.
The November night wind was strong and cold. After finishing work, the two of them stood by the window, watching the flow of cars and pedestrians below the company building, unable to fully calm the unrest in their hearts.
After all, both were first-day releases.
And within that same time frame, the online discussion surrounding Natsume had been far more intense - and far more favorable - than the one surrounding The Dragon King Next Door.
"That was always one of our minimum targets."
Sora replied calmly.
He could draw countless classic anime masterpieces from the memories of his previous life.
But he also understood better than anyone that if an anime wanted to become a true national sensation - or even a global one -
then it had to walk hand in hand with the capital behind the industry.
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