What came next was the ninth episode of the anime. After finally discovering that the source of the curse was a demonic beast hidden deep within the forest, Subaru ended up trapped there alongside Rem, surrounded by the massive hound-like monster and its entire pack.
Episodes eight and nine completely shifted away from the crushing anguish that had defined episodes six and seven. Rather than focusing solely on pain, the story began carefully deepening the growing bond between Subaru and Rem, letting the emotional temperature between them rise in a way that was impossible to miss. And at the very end of episode nine, the contrast between Rem's fierce, breathtaking oni form and Subaru being torn apart by the dogs as he tried to save her became the perfect final blow.
Those two episodes were, in every sense, the last full-force charge of Rem's supporters.
The same viewers who had been screaming for her death just a few weeks earlier suddenly changed their tune with shameless speed. Now they were saying it had all been a misunderstanding, that their feelings toward Rem had never changed in the first place.
The ratings for episode nine of Re:Zero closed at 4.96.
Just one step away from breaking through the 5.0 barrier.
At that point, anyone with a clear eye could already see it. Re:Zero surpassing 5 points during the summer cour was only a matter of time. Since episode six, the anime's reputation had continued to climb, and its score had now risen to 9.3.
At the same time, quite a few animation media outlets in the industry began stirring up the rivalry between Re:Zero and Dragon's Breath once again. In an instant, the competition between the two works became white-hot.
Before this, nearly everyone in the anime industry had treated Re:Zero as a guaranteed loser before Dragon's Breath. But now, the conversation had changed. As long as the quality held steady, there were already people who genuinely believed that in the second half of its broadcast during the autumn cour, Re:Zero might actually grow enough to catch up in popularity.
After squeezing out some time to participate in a few promotional events for the anime, Sora threw himself back into production and immersed himself completely in work. He had no interest in wasting energy on the endless noise online.
Re:Zero had been planned as a two-cour consecutive series spanning summer and autumn. But according to Sora's schedule, the current cour would only air up to episode twelve, concluding the mansion arc. After that, there would be a two-week break, and only then, in the first week of October, would the second half of season one officially begin with the Royal Selection arc.
In reality, what the studio was producing at that exact moment was already the latter half of the first season.
But by then, the television network had begun moving again. After watching the full story of the first season of Re:Zero written by Sora, the Southern Alliance TV Network sent Ryo Yukishiro over once more for negotiations.
The purpose was simple.
They wanted to begin discussions for the production of Re:Zero's second season.
"Season two..." Sora murmured, falling silent for a moment as he thought it over.
He had expected the network would want to strike while the iron was hot, but he had not imagined they would come this quickly. Still, from the perspective of market expectations, commercial value, and above all the bleak performance data the network's anime division had carried for the past decade, their urgency made perfect sense. On top of that, news had already broken that the Southern Alliance TV Network was planning to go public within six months.
It was obvious they desperately wanted Sora to accelerate production on Re:Zero season two so it could fill the anime slot for the winter cour beginning in January, giving the station far better annual broadcast numbers.
It was still only September. If he moved fast enough, and if he had a team willing to work themselves to the bone for four straight months, then finishing the production in time to air season two in January without any real gap wasn't impossible.
But that was far from normal.
Even an enormously successful anime usually took at least a year before returning with another season. In the original Re:Zero, there had been a gap of several years between the first and second seasons. Sora had no intention of dragging it out that long, but having the entire company wrap up a first season after more than half a year of nonstop work and then immediately roll into a second one... that was already beyond reasonable limits.
Even if his employees could endure it, he himself would burn out first.
Ryo Yukishiro seemed to have read his thoughts perfectly.
"The quality might suffer a little," he said, "but that can be handled by hiring more people. You can expand the team and begin work on season two while season one is still being completed."
"Mm..." Sora smiled faintly, but did not continue.
He did not need to. Ryo Yukishiro understood anyway.
Easy words.
Did hiring people not cost money? Did it not take time?
Every yen the company had was already being devoured by the production of the first season. At the moment, there simply was not enough room to move on a second. And while the Southern Alliance TV Network certainly could invest, that did not mean Sora was willing to let the station stick its hands into the project.
If he had refused to let the network interfere when the anime had not even become a success yet, then there was even less reason to allow it now.
Besides, he had no particular reason to exhaust himself for the sake of the network's upcoming public listing.
It was not as though he owned any of their shares.
Ryo Yukishiro smiled in return and, without any hurry, pulled a contract out of his briefcase.
The moment Sora took it and read the contents, his expression changed.
The posture the other side was taking in this agreement was far too humble.
In broad terms, the contract said this: as long as Sora could complete Re:Zero season two in time for the winter cour next year, every single right to the anime would remain entirely his.
In exchange, the Southern Alliance TV Network would pay forty million yen purely for the broadcasting rights to season two during that season.
Not only that, the network would also clear the entire road for Re:Zero in its winter lineup, pouring resources from across the station into promoting the anime, with the scale of promotion increasing by at least fifty percent compared to season one.
Faced with terms like that, Sora could no longer reject them so easily.
After all, the total production cost of the first season had only reached around fifty million yen. The amount the TV station had paid for broadcast rights had been insignificant by comparison; recouping the investment depended mostly on merchandise and licensing sales.
But the Southern Alliance TV Network's offer was practically saying this outright: they would shoulder most of the investment for season two, while all remaining profits would still stay in Sora's hands. In return, they wanted only one thing - that when January came, the network's broadcast numbers would look good.
The logic behind Ryo Yukishiro and the station's plan was simple.
On the surface, Re:Zero looked like nothing more than a two-cour series. But after reading the full script Sora had handed over, everyone on the network's side understood the same thing.
That story was not over.
The appearance of the Sin Archbishop of Gluttony before Rem in the final episode script, coupled with the development where she was reduced to a vegetative state, said everything.
Up to that point, there were two things Ryo Yukishiro and the Southern Alliance TV Network considered nearly certain.
First, there was a strong chance that Re:Zero would still lose to Dragon's Breath across the summer and autumn cours.
Second, breaking through 5.0 in ratings was inevitable.
Of course, that was still only their own assessment. With the summer cour already entering its final stretch, perhaps season one really would not surpass Dragon's Breath in the ratings. But both anime were half-year productions. The war would continue into autumn.
And in Sora's original plan, that was when Re:Zero would truly begin its counterattack.
The network, however, was thinking even more pragmatically. If season one failed to win in summer, then it would probably lose in autumn as well. In that case, the ideal scenario would be to wait for Dragon's Breath to end in winter, slide Re:Zero season two directly into the slot that followed, and let the entire winter anime market revolve around it with the support of the enormous fanbase the first part had already built.
If that happened, the flagship anime in the Southern Alliance TV Network's lineup would, for the first time in its history, become the most popular work of an entire cour.
As for the generous terms they had promised Sora, the station intended to make that money back later by squeezing it out of advertisers.
A second season of an anime with ratings above 5.0 carried completely different commercial weight. Advertising slots would naturally become far more expensive.
In the end, it was the same principle as always: the wool came from the sheep's own back. Without Re:Zero season two, the station would never be able to sell its ad slots at such premium prices. Advancing part of the expected future earnings to Sora so he could produce the second season was still an excellent deal for them.
"But in our current state... our manpower..." Sora shifted his tone slightly.
"That isn't a problem," Ryo Yukishiro replied firmly. "As long as Kantoku Sora can guarantee that the foundation of season two's script is already in place, then when it comes to recruiting staff and building the production team, we can help without conditions. We know plenty of top professionals in the industry and can introduce as many as you need."
Sora fell silent for a moment.
It would be exhausting. It would be brutal. It would demand blood.
But forty million yen was still forty million yen.
Letting an opportunity like that slip away would be downright foolish.
Even so, the finer details of the season two partnership with the Southern Alliance TV Network would still take a few more days to settle.
Then another Friday arrived.
And episode ten of Re:Zero aired.
That episode told the story of Rem dragging Subaru back alive from the demonic beasts during the fifth loop, only to realize that the curse placed on him was far more violent than she had imagined. In order to prevent Subaru from dying when the curse fully erupted, Rem chose to return alone to the beasts' territory and kill their leader, hoping to break the curse at its source.
The silhouette of the girl walking alone toward the forest, flail in hand, made countless hearts fall all over again that night.
If Subaru wanted to save Rem in the fifth loop, then Rem also wanted to save Subaru.
By that point, any viewer paying close attention could already see that clearly from episodes nine and ten.
After dying four times, Subaru had absorbed all the experience he had gained from the previous loops and was now almost perfectly avoiding every mistake, every emotional trap, every false step that had once led him to ruin.
Knowing that Rem liked the village children, he stayed by her side and played with them.
When the children were lured by the demonic beasts and drawn into their territory, he charged in alone despite the threat to his own life, rescuing the children and villagers while taking on an even stronger curse in the process.
And every time Rem faced danger, he threw himself in front of her without hesitation, protecting her again and again with his own body.
Because he had already died four times, the Subaru of the fifth loop no longer feared death.
His goal was not simply to survive.
His goal was to survive together with Rem.
That was why, in that stretch of the story, the place Rem occupied in Subaru's heart showed itself in every tiny detail. It was painfully obvious that she had already become more important to him than his own life.
A girl's heart does not always fall like thunder.
Sometimes it begins in small gestures, in quiet shifts, in feelings so subtle they are almost impossible to name.
And the change in Rem's attitude toward Subaru was so dramatic that viewers could see it with their own eyes.
As soon as episode ten ended, the response online exploded.
"Using your life itself as a confession... Subaru really makes me want to laugh and cry at the same time."
"If I were Rem and met a guy like that, I'd fall for him too."
"That final scene was insane. Subaru approaching Rem in her oni state in a situation that dangerous, just to strike her horn and bring her back to her senses... that was amazing."
"He protects her without caring about his own life, and on top of that he knows all those little things about Rem because of what he learned in the previous loops... this guy is ridiculous. I hate how jealous I am watching him get closer and closer to her."
"Subaru, your main heroine is Emilia. Rem belongs to us. Damn protagonist. How did I ever feel sorry for him before? The guy already has at least two girls who like him, and I'm still single from birth."
"Come to think of it, the summer cour is almost over, right? That means the mansion arc should be ending soon too. So in autumn, Re:Zero is going to move into a new arc, right?"
"Obviously."
"This is great. We still get to watch Re:Zero in autumn. Long live two-cour series."
"I just hope Kantoku Sora can maintain the quality going forward. If the autumn cour keeps up the same standard as the mansion arc, then I guarantee it - Re:Zero will overtake Dragon's Breath and win Best Anime of the Year."
As Rem's faction among the viewers grew at an explosive pace, the answer came the very next day.
Episode ten's ratings were officially announced.
Across fourteen prefectural broadcast regions, Re:Zero posted a 5.04.
The industry had already braced itself for the possibility, but the moment the number became official, many people were still left reeling.
He was only nineteen.
He had debuted just a year and a half ago.
He had already directed and produced three anime.
And now things had become even more absurd - his newest work had broken the 5.0 ratings mark.
Even Touga Kuze, who had been regarded as the greatest genius in the Japanese animation industry of the past decade, had only achieved that milestone two years earlier at the age of thirty-one with Dream of the South.
And now?
Were all the young Kantokus in the industry becoming this terrifying?