When the BD of Voices of the Stars was released six months ago, it sold just over twenty thousand copies in its first week. Half a year later, the total had already reached eighty-seven thousand.
With Voices of the Stars as a benchmark, much of the anime industry believed that the first BD volume of Natsume Yuujinchou would sell a little better in its debut week.
Just a little.
Even so, no matter how optimistic people were, no one imagined it would break thirty thousand copies in its first week.
In the history of Japan's anime market, there had never been a title broadcast by a regional station that crossed that line right out of the gate.
But that day, Natsume Yuujinchou rewrote that record.
It did not merely pass thirty thousand. It reached thirty-eight thousand copies in its first week.
Yes, that figure still fell short of the forty-five thousand copies Akane no Sora had sold in the same window. Even so, across the entire anime market, not a single media outlet or loudmouthed anti-fan dared to use that fact to mock Natsume Yuujinchou.
Quite the opposite.
Among the five most influential anime of the fall season, the three titles ranked third through fifth in first-week BD sales had become the laughingstock.
Third place: Card, 32,148 copies.
Fourth place: Reincarnation of the Maou, 29,458 copies.
Fifth place: The Dragon King Next Door, 28,654 copies.
In any other season, those numbers would have looked perfectly normal. No one in the industry would have batted an eye.
But this time was different.
Losing to Natsume Yuujinchou, an anime that had premiered on a provincial broadcaster like Tokushima TV, was something no one could explain away. In the eyes of the entire industry, that meant the Kantoku, the episode Kantokus, the scriptwriters, the key animators… every last one of them had a share of the blame.
The moment the numbers were published by the media, NatsuYume turned into a battlefield in less than two hours.
The fans of Sora Kamakawa, Sumire, and Yumi Noriko looked as though they had been injected with pure adrenaline, stirring up storm after storm across the forum. Their targets were those three productions without the slightest hesitation.
And among everyone involved, the one who ended up as the clearest symbol of humiliation was, without question, Maki.
"I'm dying here. Remember three months ago, when Kantoku Maki puffed out his chest and said Kantoku Sora Kamakawa was some wild amateur, and that comparing Natsume Yuujinchou to his work was an insult? Turns out he was right after all. It really was an insult... just not to the side he thought. Hahaha!"
"Where are Natsuyuki Shirasawa's brain-dead fans now? Three months ago they wouldn't stop mocking and insulting Yumi Noriko, saying she was fame-hungry and desperately trying to ride the popularity of Maki and Natsuyuki Shirasawa. So what now? Your idols' anime got completely crushed by Natsume Yuujinchou in both BD sales and public reception. What a beautiful slap in the face."
"And don't forget, Natsume Yuujinchou airs on Tokushima TV. If I remember right, out of the 117 major broadcasters in the country, Tokushima TV ranks around nineteenth. Seiun TV, where The Dragon King Next Door airs, is number one. That show had a budget of forty-seven million yen. Natsume Yuujinchou only had eleven million. And even with that gap, it still got slaughtered in both sales and word of mouth. That's beyond embarrassing."
"If they add a 'Biggest Clown of the Year' award at next month's Tokyo animation industry awards, Maki and Natsuyuki Shirasawa are winning it without competition."
"You Yumi Noriko and Sora Kamakawa fans are pretending to be blind. Natsume Yuujinchou was praised by over a hundred people in the industry, had a huge promotional campaign before the BD release, and had already been trending on NatsuYume for ages. Those high sales didn't come out of nowhere. There are a lot of factors involved here. Stop acting like this was some unbelievable miracle."
"Oh, sure. So because The Dragon King Next Door failed to break out through quality and word of mouth, failed to earn media praise, and failed to build real hype on its own, that's somehow because our Yumi Noriko and Kantoku Sora Kamakawa blocked your path? Sorry about that, then."
"Losing by itself isn't a big deal. Card and Reincarnation of the Maou also lost in first-volume BD sales, so why isn't anyone cursing out those teams? Because their Kantokus had class. They didn't use their status as veterans to suppress a newcomer like Kantoku Sora Kamakawa. Why did Maki become a joke? Because he had every advantage and still got completely destroyed by Kantoku Sora Kamakawa."
"Heh. The fall season isn't even over yet. Natsume Yuujinchou has only aired seven episodes so far. You Natsume fans are talking way too big right now, but let's see what happens if the story falls apart in the second half. And besides, the anime industry runs deeper than you think. Sora Kamakawa is acting too arrogant. If he keeps making anime in the future and his reputation slips even a little... heh. All the hate you people are attracting for him now will come back to bite him."
"So when you can't win with skill, you switch to fantasy, is that it? Kantoku Sora Kamakawa is only eighteen. No matter where his career goes from here, he'll still end up above Maki. You really don't need to worry about him."
The arguments raged on without end.
A critically acclaimed anime does not always become a commercial success. And by the same logic, a hugely profitable title often comes with terrible ratings and a shaky reputation.
But what Natsume Yuujinchou achieved in that fall anime market sent an unmistakable message to the entire industry:
this was an anime that excelled in both commercial performance and critical recognition.
The day after Natsume's fans had their moment of triumph online, major anime media outlets across the country began publishing article after article praising Natsume Yuujinchou far beyond the usual level.
Even though Akane no Sora had posted the highest first-volume BD sales out of the five biggest titles of the season, the focus of the coverage was not on it.
It was on Natsume Yuujinchou.
People in the industry knew exactly how to weigh these things.
Akane no Sora's first-place sales figure was undeniably dazzling.
But Natsume's second place...
the value of that result was explosive.
If the conditions of the two anime had been swapped, and Akane no Sora had aired on Tokushima TV instead, there was a very real chance its first BD volume would not even have made the season's top five.
After all, in Japan's television world, besides the four major Tokyo broadcasters, there was also the powerful Southern Alliance TV network, whose signal reached fourteen prefectures. Their flagship anime this quarter, Idol Girlfriend, had sold twenty-four thousand BD copies in its first week alone, enough to place fifth among all new seasonal premieres.
In Tokushima, at the headquarters of Yume Animation.
It was the third time that quarter that the entire staff had gathered for a celebration.
At an izakaya near the company, dozens of people crowded around a huge wooden table, drinking and cheering. In the center of the room hung a bright red banner with large formal characters written across it:
[Natsume Yuujinchou Celebration Party!]
And honestly, it was only natural.
At that point, Natsume Yuujinchou's ratings across the four prefectures of Shikoku had already stabilized above the flagship anime aired that same season by the four major national networks.
And in the BD market, it was temporarily ranked second in the entire country.
For a low-budget anime produced on just eleven million yen and launched on a regional station like Tokushima TV, holding a celebration was not merely understandable.
It was inevitable.
Everyone there had a fierce excitement burning inside them, something too strong to keep bottled up. And sometimes, the only way to let that kind of feeling out was through alcohol, noise, and laughter.
After all, every one of those people had worked in the anime industry for years.
And yet, that past month had been the most glorious month of their lives.
Who would still dare say that the animation scene in Tokushima was weak?
Who would still dare claim that Yume Animation only knew how to produce failures?
Even the voice actors involved in the show had reaped obvious rewards. Shiro Asano, the voice of Natsume Reiko, and, who played Nyanko-sensei, and, the voice of Natsume himself, had all gained a surge of recognition in the industry, leaping straight into the season's top twenty popularity rankings among seiyuu.
For them, a career path that had once seemed narrow had suddenly opened up in dazzling fashion.
Sora Kamakawa wore a perfectly tailored black suit. Youth still softened the edges of his features, but that night he looked especially refined, clean, and striking.
Beside him, Sumire wore a red dress cut with elegant simplicity. She had taken care with her makeup and pinned her hair up into a neat bun. Her fair skin only made her delicate beauty stand out more, the kind she usually kept hidden beneath her habitual coldness. Her slim figure, her posture, and the rare smile on her face naturally drew attention.
But the most surprising thing was that smile itself.
For most of the celebration, her lips held a light expression far removed from the calm, distant, almost untouchable coolness she usually showed in everyday life.
At the table, Sora Kamakawa sat in the center, raising drinks and chatting with the heads of every production department on Natsume Yuujinchou.
As assistant Kantoku, Sumire sat to his left, speaking with the mid-level staff and the younger members of the team.
Even Ryūnosuke, a man known for his restraint and self-control, could no longer hide the smile on his face whenever he looked at Sora Kamakawa.
And that made perfect sense.
His background art studio had worked back-to-back on Voices of the Stars and Natsume Yuujinchou, two productions directed by Sora Kamakawa. Because of that alone, his name was now echoing through the anime industry with newfound force.
Starting next season, he no longer intended to take on the low-paying subcontract work that usually came from the Tokushima region. Two major animation companies from Tokyo had already approached him with offers for far bigger projects. Because of that, his studio had even begun hiring new staff on a large scale.
High-value background art subcontracting jobs from two major productions had come knocking on his door of their own accord.
Just by opening that door and building connections in the core of Tokyo's anime industry, the future was already promising far more opportunities of the same kind.
And all of it...
had been brought to him by Sora Kamakawa's two works.
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