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The following day, the ratings for the first episode of Code Geass were released.
The average rating hit a staggering 5.02%.
In the eyes of veterans, this figure was viewed as something utterly absurd and logically impossible, yet upon deeper reflection, they had to admit it felt within a predictable range of normalcy given the circumstances.
After all, with the success and the records of Madoka Magica and Cyberpunk backing him, Haruto's influence was simply that massive.
He possessed a legion of devoted fans and an equally vocal, massive army of dedicated haters. Regardless of which camp they belonged to, everyone tuned in to watch. Even those who wanted nothing more than to tear the work apart and slander it had to watch the broadcast first just to find a specific target for their criticism.
The various news media outlets in the animation field finally had a substantial topic to discuss. The spring season had been remarkably lackluster and bleak, with low overall hype and even lower engagement from the general fan base.
Many anime bloggers, video creators, and official media platforms had seen their traffic and views plummet. While the upcoming summer season looked similarly quiet in terms of high-budget productions, the presence of Code Geass alone was proving to be enough to carry the weight of the entire market.
Headlines across Japan blared.
[Code Geass Premiere Hits 5.02%, Shattering the All-Time Record for a Debut Broadcast in the History of Animation.]
["Can Lelouch actually maintain this explosive start, or is it a fluke? This writer is quite doubtful, as the plot of the first episode felt somewhat confusing and overstuffed with too much information.]
[Millions on AniSphere Forum Award it a Near-Perfect Score of 9.5. From this moment on, the true King of the industry has returned."
Everyone was also looking toward the upcoming year-end awards.
[The selection for last year's Best TV Anime is currently in a heated evaluation phase, and it is almost a certainty that Cyberpunk: Edgerunners will take home the Gold Award. If this goal is achieved, Haruto will become the only creator in history to win this prestigious prize two years in a row.]
[With the ratings of the Lelouch premiere being so supernatural, one has to wonder, if it maintains this level of heat, will this year's prize also fall into its hands? Does Haruto have a chance to pull off an unprecedented triple crown of consecutive gold awards?]
For two days straight, the animation community did nothing but heap praise upon the show from every possible angle. This was partly due to the "blood and tears" lessons learned from the past.
When Madoka Magica first aired and the early plot felt slow, many critics and media outlets who branded it a failure were later ruthlessly mocked and "whipped" by Haruto's fans, becoming permanent industry laughingstocks. During the era of Edgerunners, many media outlets took secret payouts from the Big Three animation studios to smear the work, only to have their faces beaten and swollen when the show became a historic hit.
Even if the plot hadn't fully revealed its true depth yet, journalists preferred to over-praise it now rather than risk having their reputations destroyed by his fans later.
Within the Haru-Yuki Animation Studio, the atmosphere was one of relief.
The two hundred-plus employees who had been operating under intense, high-pressure conditions for over half a year finally felt that heavy weight lift from their shoulders.
The very air in the office was filled with a sense of accomplishment and lighthearted joy. Haruto sat alone in his private office, reviewing the next episodes and scanning the company's long-term projections and schedules. His total workforce was expanding at a rapid pace and would soon officially break the three-hundred-person milestone.
While this made his studio a mid-sized operation in terms of total headcount, their creative power was top-tier.
Most of his staff were elite professionals scouted from other major firms, specifically hired to handle the creative tasks while the repetitive grunt work was outsourced to secondary partner companies. However, recently, even Haruto was beginning to feel that he was reaching his absolute limit.
Managing a high-budget anime, a top-ranked manga, and a record-breaking light novel series simultaneously was draining his mental and physical energy.
"Why the long face? I saw that expression the moment I walked in," Yukino said, stepping quietly into his office while carrying a small bag of pastries and gently closing the door behind her.
"I'm just realizing that humans have their limits. Even for someone like me, there are times when I feel a bit overwhelmed and powerless," Haruto admitted with a weary, self-deprecating smile.
Yukino's eyes widened at first with a mix of surprise and curiosity, but she quickly realized he was referring to his workload.
"So, what's on your mind?"
"It is about the company's work assignments. Right now, we have nearly three hundred people, and all of them are focused entirely on producing a single series like Code Geass. It feels like a waste of resources, but I simply don't have the energy to begin another series right now," Haruto said, shaking his head.
Yukino paused for a moment, choosing her words with extreme care. "Haruto, what exactly is your ultimate goal in this industry? Do you want to build a truly legendary studio, or do you just want to be known as a legendary creator?"
"Is there a difference? Those two goals shouldn't be mutually exclusive, right?" Haruto replied, sounding genuinely curious.
"If you only want to be a great creator, you've already achieved that goal. The results of Madoka and Edgerunners are likely peaks that no second creator will ever be able to surpass."
"However," she said, picking up a small piece of cake with a plastic fork and offering it to him, "if you want to build a titan that exceeds the scale and influence of the Big Three, the company cannot rely solely on your brain. A truly great studio needs a high volume of diverse output that you don't necessarily have to write every word for yourself."
Haruto took a bite of the offered cake, and Yukino finished the rest herself. "You're right," he mused. "I only have two hands. No matter how much I work, I can't keep hundreds of people fully occupied every single day with my scripts alone if the company wants to continue growing."
"Up until now, Haru-Yuki has operated like a massive personal studio for my projects. We have the individual hits, but we lack the scale of the industry giants."
"So, what are you thinking?" Yukino asked, feeding him another piece of the pastry. "Do you still intend to expand the company's scale?"
"Naturally," Haruto smiled. "I'm only twenty-one years old."
"I'm not prepared to stop here. Regardless of anything else, the timing, the environment, and the talent are all currently in my favor; there is no reason to remain stationary."
They spent the next half-hour discussing strategies until the conversation eventually drifted back to his personal stuff.
"My university life only has one year left. To be honest, I'm starting to feel a bit of a sense of tension and pressure," Haruto noted.
"Tension? Over what?" Yukino asked, looking at him.
"Over the goal of becoming the absolute number one figure in both the manga and light novel industries before I graduate."
Yukino blinked and stayed silent for a second. Sword Art Online was already the top-selling ongoing novel in the country and ranked sixth all-time. Initial D was a top-ten historical manga, and the first volume of the Hunter x Hunter tankobon was about to drop. "Why are you so obsessed with the graduation timeline?"
"Because being the king of every field in the industry while I'm still a student is a cool story," Haruto said, a triumphant and somewhat mischievous grin breaking across his face. "If you achieve it when you're eighty, what's the point? It loses its meaning. If you want to make a name for yourself, you have to do it while you're young."
Yukino laughed softly. "I swear, only when you discuss things like this do you actually sound like a boy who fits his actual age. Time really does pass quickly. When I first met you, you were in high school. Now, your third year of college is coming to an end."
"And yet, you are still just as beautiful and cute as the first day I laid eyes on you," Haruto added.
Yukino gave him a playful glare and rolled her eyes, but she couldn't hide the happiness and joy in the corner of her smile.
After Haruto organized a meeting with the company's executives, the following day, the HR department had already compiled a list of top-tier talent and veterans that they needed to scout and recruit for the next round of expansion.
Haruto had zero interest in the slow process of training rookies from scratch; with billions of yen currently sitting in the company's bank accounts, he preferred the direct and efficient approach of hiring established pros to get the job done.
Two days later, the first volume of the Hunter x Hunter tankobon was released simultaneously across Japan.
The manga plot was currently entering the fourth stage of the exam, the high-stakes game of stealing tags on a deserted island.
This was widely considered the most thrilling and brilliantly written segment of the entire arc, and the fans were completely invested. The haters had almost entirely vanished into the background, and the community was now focused entirely on dissecting the minute details of the plot.
This overwhelmingly positive atmosphere served as a massive catalyst for the sales of the physical volumes.
Given Haruto's current stature in the industry, neither the fans nor the media were particularly shocked by the astronomical and record-breaking sales figures. He had reached a level of prestige similar to industry legends; the public expected nothing less than excellence from him. Whether a work shattered records or simply performed at the top of the charts, it was viewed as the natural and expected result of his reputation.
Then came the broadcast of the second episode of Code Geass. This episode served as a pure showcase for the protagonist Lelouch's strategic and tactical brilliance. While the fans still didn't understand the principles behind the power he received from the mysterious green-haired girl, the rules were becoming clear: he possessed a power of absolute command that could force anyone to obey him through direct eye contact.
The episode depicted a gritty urban skirmish between the resistance forces and the massive Imperial military. Lelouch managed to seize a Knightmare Frame by using his new power to force a pilot to open the cockpit and surrender his machine. Acting as a double agent within the Imperial ranks, he infiltrated their command and communication network, deduced the enemy commander's strategy through analyzing the radar data, and established a direct radio link with the resistance forces. What followed was a brilliant, small-scale tactical masterclass where Lelouch commanded the resistance from the shadows.
Admittedly, many of the tactical details of his command were somewhat far-fetched and might not hold up to intense logical scrutiny, as the show was clearly leaning into the "super-genius strategist" archetype.
However, for the average fan, the sheer thrill and satisfaction of seeing Lelouch outmaneuver a superior and arrogant force was more than enough.
By the end of the second episode, his true objective was finally revealed!
He was using the chaos of the battle to infiltrate the Governor's area and get close enough to assassinate Prince Clovis.
The episode successfully reinforced Lelouch's persona as a brilliant, somewhat arrogant, and deeply entertaining protagonist. Just as it had happened in the original world, a small group of critics emerged to complain that the plot relied on "dumbing down" the enemy to make the hero look smart. They argued that it was unrealistic for a colonial governor protected by tens of thousands of soldiers to be reached so easily by a single student.
But as far as the vast majority of the fans were concerned, logical consistency took a backseat to pure entertainment value.
In a medium like anime, the primary metric of success is how much fun the audience is having. If logic ever clashes with the "cool factor," logic is almost always the one to lose. After all, nobody quit watching Naruto because the son of a village hero was treated like a pariah for no reason.
Those minor leaps in logic did absolutely nothing to slow down the massive wave of discussion and excitement that followed the second episode.