Inside the President's Office at L.S Production
A visitor arrived: Aoki Ume.
"Mr. Hayashi, I never heard Puella Magi Madoka Magica was a dark and depressing animation!" Aoki Ume complained.
Lin Zhiyan had someone serve her tea. Seeing her huffing and puffing, he waved his hand. "Teacher Aoki, please calm down. Whether it's a dark animation or not shouldn't have any negative impact on you."
"It does! How could it not?"
Aoki Ume snorted. "I was responsible for the character designs, and at your request, I adopted a style similar to Hidamari Sketch. The first two episodes of Puella Magi Madoka Magica were fine, but the third episode—blood splattered on a stone platform! Now even Hidamari Sketch is being teased as 'blood-splattered sketches.'"
After all, the characters in both works shared the same art style. With Puella Magi Madoka Magica exploding in popularity after Mami Tomoe's death, Hidamari Sketch was naturally affected.
Lin Zhiyan was well aware of this teasing.
He didn't take the teasing seriously, instead smiling and saying, "Even if you're being teased, your personal popularity and recognition are skyrocketing, and the sales of your manga tankōbon are surging. Isn't that a good thing? Moreover, as far as I know, there's already a proposal to adapt your manga into an animation. Perhaps you could even ride the wave of Puella Magi Madoka Magica's popularity when that happens."
"This..." Aoki Ume was suddenly at a loss for words.
After all, Lin Zhiyan was telling the truth.
Teasing aside, her manga sales were indeed skyrocketing, and her personal popularity and recognition were undeniably increasing.
As a four-panel manga, her work was considered extremely niche compared to Shueisha's mainstream action-adventure titles. Even after releasing tankōbon volumes, few people knew of her or her manga before the Puella Magi Madoka Magica anime aired.
Now, more people recognized her, her fame had surged, and her popularity had at least doubled.
There was no denying that.
Still...
After a moment's thought, she countered, "My recognition is rising, but it's negative publicity. And this popularity is just a temporary boost from the current hype. Once that fades, it might disappear entirely."
"If we're talking about negative publicity, aren't I the one who's worse off? But what does it matter? Once the anime finishes and a little time passes, everyone's resentment will fade. By then, I'll still be the Lin Zhiyan everyone loves, and you'll still be the Teacher Aoki everyone adores. As for popularity fading after the hype dies down, I can only say that it's inevitable. The real question is how you seize the moment and transform it into genuine, lasting popularity."
Lin Zhiyan saw no problem with this. As long as he didn't go out of his way to make enemies during this period, things would smooth over once the storm passed.
Of course, this all depended on the quality of the later episodes of Puella Magi Madoka Magica. If they failed to deliver, the massive hype generated by the third episode's viral moment would inevitably consume Lin Zhiyan, turning both him and the anime into a laughingstock.
In that regard, Lin Zhiyan remained confident, so it wasn't really a concern.
Aoki Ume had originally assumed that since she had been deceived, confronting Lin Zhiyan would put him on the defensive, and he would feel at least a little embarrassed.
But now...
Hearing him frame it as if she had only benefited and faced no downsides felt absurd.
The problem was, her logic sounded quite reasonable, leaving her speechless.
As she was considering how to respond, Lin Zhiyan suddenly added, "Teacher Aoki, you shouldn't be so easily swayed by your initial impressions. Puella Magi Madoka Magica may seem like a depressing anime right now, but whether it's truly depressing or ultimately healing is still uncertain. There's a theory that it's 'first depressing, then healing,' and others say, 'If the ending isn't depressing, then it's not depressing at all.'"
He paused, then continued, "This is only the third episode. There are nine more to go. It's far too early to judge whether this anime is depressing or healing, don't you think?"
"Are you saying the ending will be happy?" Aoki Ume's interest was immediately piqued.
Lin Zhiyan nodded. "Exactly. I guarantee a healing ending. I'm the script supervisor, so I can vouch for that."
After a moment's thought, he added, "Of course, I understand why you're upset, Teacher Aoki. How about this—I'd like to treat you to dinner sometime as an apology."
Aoki Ume hesitated briefly, glancing at Lin Zhiyan before finally agreeing weakly, "O... okay."
After comforting Aoki Ume, Lin Zhiyan continued to chat with her about various topics, including the Hidamari Sketch animation, the latest manga series serialized in Houbunsha's magazines, music, food, and more.
Only after Aoki Ume left in high spirits did Lin Zhiyan resume his work.
He would certainly not accept interviews, and appearing on television was out of the question. If Aoki Ume hadn't been such an important partner, he wouldn't have even wanted to see her.
Now that he had handled her, he could devote all his energy to the animation production.
After the third episode was released, the animation's popularity exploded. The buzz was unprecedented, and being the first high-definition animated TV series to be both produced and streamed in HD, it attracted many viewers who weren't originally interested in anime. As a result, DVD pre-orders surged.
With about two months remaining until the official release of the first DVD volume, the pre-order numbers alone far surpassed the average sales per volume of most popular anime. The series firmly held the top spot on the new anime DVD pre-order rankings, and the combined pre-orders of the second through fifth ranked series couldn't match the pre-orders for Puella Magi Madoka Magica.
On the new anime popularity rankings, Puella Magi Madoka Magica firmly held the top spot, leaving the second-ranked anime far behind.
Among female characters, the most popular was also Senior Mami Tomoe from Puella Magi Madoka Magica.
The most popular male character was not from Puella Magi Madoka Magica. This was mainly because the anime's most important characters were female. The male characters with significant screen time were primarily Sayaka's childhood friend Kyosuke Kamijo, as well as the protagonist Madoka's father and brother, but all of them were minor supporting characters.
Even with Puella Magi Madoka Magica's immense popularity, it was impossible for such insignificant supporting characters to top the male character popularity rankings.
In summary, while it was too early to say if its commercial success would surpass the original version from another timeline, as another chart-topping hit after Lelouch, it was impossible for the anime to fail.
There was no need to worry about that. The next priority was to maintain the quality of the anime's subsequent episodes.
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