"It's already episode seven, and they still haven't confirmed who the female lead is?"
"This is so frustrating! Damn you, Jing Yu, stop stringing us along."
"What's even the main plot of this drama? Why are the Angels attacking the city? I'm starting to feel like the Angels aren't even the real villains — maybe it's actually the organization the protagonist belongs to. Especially that father of the main character, Gendo Ikari — he totally looks like a villain."
"I don't care about any of that, I just want to know which girl wins in the end."
"Same here. My biggest wish watching this show is that Rei Ayanami ends up as the female lead. My second biggest complaint is — why on earth does Rei Ayanami like such a soft boy like Shinji Ikari?! Jing Yu, come on, when you designed these characters, could you at least consider the needs of us manly-man viewers? Watching a weakling male lead totally kills the vibe. Wouldn't it be better if he were a tough guy like Kenshin? It's not like you can't shoot slick action scenes."
"Just give the robot a long sword and use the Hiten Mitsurugi-ryu, right? Gotta admit, that's some creative thinking."
Episode seven pulled in an overall viewership of 11.45%. The last few minutes leaned a bit into avant-garde surrealism, which caused a slight dip in the numbers, but overall it wasn't a major problem.
After this week's update, the spring season of Great Zhou's TV drama circuit has reached its midpoint. As usual, Jing Yu remained a one-man show dominating the charts. However, the six major TV stations cleverly avoided the airing time slot of 'Neon Genesis Evangelion', leading to a fierce ratings battle in other time slots.
Among the top three networks, their shows this season all averaged over 7% in ratings, with solid online buzz. Jing Yu watched some of them and noticed they were quite innovative. The narrative structures, character settings — male and female leads — all had a faint air of otaku flavor. It all gave him déjà vu, like he was watching his own past works.
"Looks like the screenwriters of Great Zhou have finally wised up. They realize the market's taste has shifted in my direction. If they can't beat me..." Jing Yu set down the report.
"...they might as well copy me and join the wave."
That's just how the market works. In his previous life, Japan's anime industry used to be a dazzling field of diverse genres. But then, after 'K-On!' blew up, the industry collectively realized — making money could be that easy. Just draw cute girls doing cute things and boom, you're viral. Who would still bother making complex story-driven anime? The whole industry turned into a moe-fest.
Later on, people realized that shut-in otaku loved isekai overpowered MCs — the kind of stories with long-ass titles and plotlines where some dude gets sent to another world and beats everyone up. If it had absurd comedy, OP power fantasies, and required zero brain cells, it would get viewers. That gave rise to wave after wave of isekai anime.
Bandwagoning is an eternal truth. The screenwriters of Great Zhou weren't stupid. Once they saw how thoroughly Jing Yu's new styles crushed the old-fashioned mother-in-law workplace dramas, they said, Fine — we'll copy that too.
"Give it ten or twenty more years, and maybe Great Zhou's industry really will turn into a mega-sized version of the Japanese market — full of moe shows and isekai power-trip dramas," Jing Yu laughed at himself.
It wasn't impossible. Whether in society or a specific industry, history tends to repeat itself.
Without Jing Yu, Great Zhou's drama scene might have gone in a totally different direction. But in the past few years, his disruptive presence has dragged the entire industry closer and closer to the otaku-style atmosphere of Japanese anime in his past life.
Still, Jing Yu didn't intend to dwell on it.
It was already a trend for the industry to mimic the styles of his shows when creating new dramas. According to company research, over 30 TV stations across Great Zhou had expressed interest in robot-themed dramas for the upcoming season.
Of course, not all these stations had the money or time to spend a year and a half producing just one series like Jing Yu.
But even if you're broke, there's still a way to shoot a show. Think 'Ultraman' tokusatsu: if you can't afford top-tier CGI, just go for budget models. Get people in rubber suits to play robots and kaiju, use miniatures to make them look big — it's all about building atmosphere. It's doable.
Great Zhou's drama makers definitely had the skill and imagination for that. In fact, one local station had already jumped on it.
In mid-February, they released a teaser for their summer season drama, titled 'New Century Robot Warrior'. That blatant attempt to ride 'Evangelion''s coattails earned the fury of Jing Yu's fanbase. But the station was just trying to leech some attention. There's no way they'd dare plagiarize the story — otherwise Jing Yu would sue them into bankruptcy.
Jing Yu wasn't going to waste energy dealing with them.
After all, his own company had just launched three new drama projects this week: 'Castle in the Sky', 'Your Name', and 'Voices of a Distant Star'.
With his current popularity, there was no way he'd waste the exposure. No matter the budget, if the company was producing a drama, he was definitely going to cameo in it.
In 'Castle in the Sky', Jing Yu played Muska — the big bad of the series. The intelligence chief of the world government army seeks to capture the heroine and harness the floating city's ancient technology to fulfill his dreams of world domination.
He couldn't exactly play a thirteen-year-old boy anymore, but a thirty-something villain? Still within range.
This was his second villain role. The first was Gilgamesh, which had gone over pretty well, so this one probably wouldn't be a problem either.
But 'Your Name' and 'Voices of a Distant Star' were different. Jing Yu still looked young enough to convincingly play a high school boy, so of course, he'd take the male leads in both. His looks and acting chops were more than up to the task.
At this point in Great Zhou, you literally couldn't find a more popular or influential actor to lead two productions.
As for the female leads, 'Voices of a Distant Star' cast a freshly graduated actress who was recently signed by the company. Jing Yu figured acting with her would also be a good way to give her a boost.
The heroine of 'Your Name', of course, would be played by his girlfriend Yu Youqing. In the past, he cast her just to "keep the profits in the family." But now, after so many collaborations, audiences had come to expect the trio of Jing Yu, Xia Yining, and Yu Youqing. Any production with the three of them practically came with tens of millions' worth of built-in publicity.
These three productions had started filming so early precisely because they involved a fair amount of visual effects work. Getting a head start meant better post-production turnaround.
As for 'Fate/stay night', that would begin filming at the end of the month. Titles like 'The Girl Who Leapt Through Time' and 'The Garden of Words' were handled by external companies and cast entirely with outside actors. Jing Yu didn't have the bandwidth to shoot all of them himself, though he might cameo in a few scenes.
From mid-February onward, the entire company had been operating at full throttle.
Before, when Jing Yu had no projects filming, his 400-person team had all been loafing around — goofing off and coasting through the workday. But now that several productions had launched, the whole company turned into a factory of overworked wage slaves. Jing Yu himself had finally resumed his grueling 7-to-0-7 lifestyle.
Start filming at 7 a.m., finish at midnight, no days off. The boss himself was setting the pace for the whole company.
Meanwhile, Episode 8 of 'Neon Genesis Evangelion' aired smoothly.
In the first half, Asuka and Shinji, maybe out of boredom, maybe due to the loneliness of living together, kissed. They weren't dating, but the kiss still shocked fans.
No one expected two high schoolers to be so bold. It was a stark contrast to the timid, shy characters Jing Yu had played in the past.
But that kiss set off a celebration among Asuka fans — finally, a win over the Rei Ayanami fanbase.
Then came the second half of the episode...
An Angel attacked. Shinji, in his impatience, got himself trapped inside the Angel's imaginary space — his life hanging by a thread.
Just another embarrassing failure for Shinji. By now, fans had had enough.
"From episode one to eight, can this guy man up for once? Stop being a burden!"
"Sure, we know the plot armor from Jing Yu will keep you alive, but could you at least try to act like you have a brain? Be a little cautious?"
"And fine, you ran off and got wrecked by the Angel and ended up stuck in some imaginary dimension. But now you're in there howling like a ghost because you're scared of dying?"
"What are you even screaming for? Worst-case scenario — you die!"
"You're the male lead of this show, act like a man, will you?!"
"For viewers who really immerse themselves in the story, watching you is just plain embarrassing. You're making us feel like garbage, too!"