By late afternoon, Shun Hagiwara was hammering away at his keyboard, fingers flying nonstop as he bounced between the fan group dedicated to Sora Kamakawa, the forums on NatsuYume, and heated comment threads packed with people who loved Sora's work just as much as he did. Whenever haters showed up, he argued with them without hesitation.
He had only been out of university for a year. Last year, the moment he stepped into the working world, reality had hit him hard. Those first few months after graduation had been brutal, the kind that dragged a person down so slowly and thoroughly they barely noticed how exhausted they had become until it was too late. And during the bleakest stretch of that period, the work that had carried him through it was Natsume Yuujinchou.
Every Sunday after watching Natsume, he would always end up moved by the anime's warmth and quiet healing tone. It was after that autumn season that he became a die-hard fan of anything Sora Kamakawa touched.
"Re0 kara Hajimeru Isekai Seikatsu..."
He murmured the title under his breath.
Truthfully, he had never liked this kind of anime very much. Isekai just wasn't his thing. But this was a work directed and written by Sora Kamakawa. That alone was enough. No matter what, he had to support it.
At eight that night, the tenth episode of Southern Alliance TV's main featured anime of the season began airing. Shun Hagiwara watched it half-heartedly just to pass the time. It wasn't exactly bad, but it wasn't memorable either. At best, it felt bland, the kind of series that filled twenty minutes without leaving anything behind.
Once the ending song played and the credits rolled, the thing he had really been waiting for finally arrived.
The broadcast froze for a beat, and Shun Hagiwara instinctively straightened his posture.
Part of him was eager to see something fresh, something truly good. Another part was afraid that Sora Kamakawa had really done what the online detractors had been accusing him of, making a shallow isekai full of fanservice, a disposable fantasy harem dressed up as a major production.
The screen went black.
Then a brisk, buoyant melody flowed out.
Several lines of text slowly emerged.
Re0 kara Hajimeru Isekai Seikatsu
Kantoku: Sora Kamakawa
Script: Sora Kamakawa
Music: Sora Kamakawa
The PV placed special emphasis on Sora Kamakawa, one of the most talked-about young creators in Japan's anime industry.
He's still handling three jobs by himself...
Shun Hagiwara let out a quiet breath.
At that instant, his confidence in the project rose noticeably.
Darkness split apart under a wash of light. A young man in a tracksuit appeared, standing in the middle of a bustling marketplace, staring blankly at the crowds and noise around him with a look of total confusion.
"So that means... I've been summoned to another world?"
A lively boyish voice rang out.
And then, one after another, the key figures began to appear.
A silver-haired girl in a snow-white dress, gentle and ethereal.
A blue-haired maid holding a broom.
A girl in a short skirt dashing swiftly across a rooftop.
A seductive woman hidden in the dark, gripping a strangely curved hooked dagger.
A handsome knight with an easy, confident smile.
And a middle-aged man in religious robes, with dark circles under his eyes and ridiculous bowl-cut green hair.
In the PV, the major characters of the first season appeared one after another in a rapid procession.
"Hm... so it's a harem romance isekai after all."
A trace of disappointment surfaced in Shun Hagiwara's voice.
Usually, when a PV focused heavily on introducing the female cast and their visual appeal, there was no real mystery left. That kind of thing almost always meant the same formula.
Just as he was regretting that Sora Kamakawa had not chosen to make a second season of Natsume Yuujinchou...
The music suddenly surged.
Fast, intense, and charged with emotion.
Styx Helix, the legendary track that in another life had become inseparable from Re0, began to play.
And in the PV, the tone changed instantly.
In the darkness, Natsuki Subaru stepped into a building.
Moonlight flashed, and cold steel followed.
That single cut was vicious.
In one brief moment of animation, the woman with the dagger radiated a cruel, life-and-death ferocity that made her feel truly dangerous. Then the next shot came without mercy: what Shun Hagiwara had assumed was the protagonist had his throat torn open, blood erupting as he collapsed to the ground.
The following image showed the silver-haired girl falling beside him, just as gravely wounded.
Then, in a sudden flash, the scene reset.
He was back in the bustling market from the beginning.
Shun Hagiwara sat up straight, his eyes fixed on the screen, unable to fully grasp what those two shots were supposed to mean.
But there had been blood in an isekai anime. Not just a little blood, either. The protagonist's throat had practically been carved open, and the silver-haired girl, who looked every bit like the heroine, had fallen beside him.
Was the PV implying that both of them would be killed?
That alone made it clear this was not going to be some light, cheerful, low-stakes fantasy adventure.
The images flashed again.
This time the protagonist lay collapsed on the ground, his expression twisted with despair and exhaustion. Standing before him was the blue-haired maid. Above them stretched an empty, vivid sky, so open and beautiful it felt as though the rest of the world had vanished, leaving only the two of them behind.
The visual quality was so stunning that the scene was breathtaking. In a single second, it caught hold of Shun Hagiwara's heart.
"I'm petty, filthy, pathetic... I'm worthless. I can't change anything... anything at all. I hate myself."
The young man's voice was heavy with regret and despair.
Then the girl answered him, her voice carrying hope, trust, and a warmth that seemed to pass straight through the screen.
"But you are my hero."
"The you who saved Rem... is a real hero."
There was something so soft and unwavering in the girl's voice that Shun Hagiwara felt it sink directly into him.
Styx Helix continued to pulse in the background.
He stared blankly at the television even after the PV ended.
Friday, July 4th, 8 PM.
A single line announced the broadcast date of Re0 kara Hajimeru Isekai Seikatsu.
Something inside him had been stirred.
And yet, looking at the material purely on the surface, there was nothing in the PV that should have felt especially groundbreaking. But the way the storyboards, music, and visuals fused together was simply too good.
That delicate beauty, that unmistakable sense of youthful ache, that emotional atmosphere only found in Sora Kamakawa's works, all of it came rushing straight at him.
What Shun Hagiwara did not yet understand was that this distinct style was something once described as the very essence of the Japanese anime sensibility.
A PV was only a preview. It would never reveal too much of the actual plot. But even in a short trailer, it was still possible to sense the overall tone of a work, the direction it was taking, the emotional texture hidden under the surface.
If this had been a fanservice-heavy harem anime, the PV would have lingered on the girls' bodies, on obvious visual bait, on the easy hooks meant to sell desire first and story second.
But Re0 was different.
Of course the female characters all looked incredible. Their designs were top-tier. But the PV spent no unnecessary time fetishizing them.
Its focus was clearly elsewhere.
Story. Story.
That PV had been centered on the story.
Shun Hagiwara drew a deep breath, and the weight inside his chest finally eased.
Once the anime began airing and the world gradually unfolded, this might become one of the biggest surprises of the summer season.
Online, the fans who had just watched the TV PV with him were already exploding with discussion.
"So who's actually the main heroine, that silver-haired girl Emilia or the maid Rem?"
"I like Rem a little more. The way she spoke to the protagonist was so gentle. He had to have gone through something horrible to sound that broken, and she still didn't reject him."
"Emilia seems great too. From those early shots, it looked like she died trying to protect him. But I do have one question. Is the protagonist really going to die in this anime? His throat was basically cut open in the beginning. There's no way he survives that normally."
"Who knows? In isekai anime, even if the protagonist gets chopped up and fed into a meat grinder, whether he lives or dies is basically up to the writer."
"But didn't Sora Kamakawa say before that this story was about death and life? I have a feeling that scene means something deeper in the actual show."
"Come on, what's the point of overthinking it right now? The anime starts in a month. No matter how much we guess, we'll probably be wrong anyway."
"True enough."
"Just based on the quality of that PV, I'm definitely watching."
"I really hope the story has some weight to it. I like the art style for the protagonist and the girls a lot. I just don't want the plot to turn out too cliché."
That night, the broadcast of Re0's TV PV became one of the biggest points of attention in Japan's anime industry.
A great many people working in the business were watching Re0 closely as well.
But the truth was still the same. A PV could show off production quality. It could showcase animation, compositing, music, direction, and atmosphere. But it could not reveal the soul of a work, its story, its worldview, the thing that truly determined whether it would endure.
That night, Sora Kamakawa and Sumire remained in the office, quietly reading through the online reactions to Re0's PV.
Only after a long silence did Sumire finally let out a breath.
"It doesn't look like there's much negative feedback."
"Well, naturally." Sora Kamakawa smiled. "Re0 may not have the biggest investment in the industry this quarter, but it's definitely one of the top productions. Even the antis can't force criticism where the craftsmanship is this obvious. But don't relax just yet. Once it starts airing next month, all those people will come crawling out."
"The early story of this anime..." He paused, then corrected himself after thinking ahead to where the story would eventually go. "Actually, every arc in this anime is pretty brutal. When the show begins, some people are definitely going to use that against it."
"If you already know that," Sumire said, looking at him, "then you should've adjusted the script from the beginning. Even if Natsuki Subaru has the ability to return by death, did you really have to make his deaths so painful? And on top of that, giving him such a fearful personality is going to make it hard for a lot of viewers to project themselves onto him. Fans who want a righteous, heroic lead might hate that."
"But if I changed that," Sora Kamakawa said after a brief pause, "then what would separate Re0 from the hundreds of other isekai series on the market?"
He stopped for a moment before continuing, his tone calm but certain.
"Trust me. The more painful it is for viewers at the start, the more satisfying it'll be later. And once Rem's storyline really comes in, I believe this anime's popularity will reach a level neither of us can predict right now."
"Rem's storyline is that strong?" Sumire asked, puzzled.
Even though the PV had highlighted a scene between Rem and Natsuki Subaru, the production had not reached that part yet. Based on the storyboards Sora Kamakawa had provided so far, Sumire actually didn't know much about the material near the end of Re0's first season.
"Yeah," he said after a brief pause. "It's that strong."
Out of all the anime he had seen in his past life, it was while watching Re0, when Rem laid bare her feelings to Natsuki Subaru, that he had truly understood what it meant for a supporting heroine to outshine the official lead.
It was also the first time he had seen a series where, even with Emilia already being immensely popular, the secondary heroine could still surge past her and take the spotlight.
And it was through that story that he came to understand the full meaning of that famous line.
If true love has a color, then it must be blue.
Time moved into June.
One after another, Japan's major TV networks began airing PVs for their featured summer anime lineups.
From that month onward, anime fans gradually pulled their attention away from the spring season and began turning their eyes toward summer.
After all, there was less than a month left before the new season began.
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