The rating for episode fourteen of Steins;Gate reached 5.19%.
In the second week of the spring season, it surpassed The Mystery of the Dark Detective and became the second most-watched anime of the cour.
In less than two weeks, ever since the second half of Steins;Gate began revealing the true shape of its story, its ratings had climbed at a terrifying speed. The momentum was so fierce that even the four major traditional networks began to feel enormous pressure.
Who could have imagined that an anime which had spent three months simmering slowly, almost too patiently, would suddenly unfold into a plot like this?
The current storyline of Steins;Gate shared so many structural similarities with Re:Zero that a large number of Re:Zero fans had immediately become loyal weekly viewers.
Drawn in by reruns on the Shikoku Broadcasting Alliance, those fans gathered quickly and, in just two weeks, caught up all the way to the latest episodes of Steins;Gate.
And after the time machine was created, all the supposedly slow build-up from the first twelve episodes suddenly became suspicious when watched again.
"So, in the first episode, that satellite-like machine that landed on the rooftop of that doctor's research conference building… was actually the time machine Suzuha used to travel to this era?"
"But that doesn't make sense. In the first episode, the machine was just sitting on the roof. It hadn't crashed into the building. So why did it end up embedded in the building after that?"
"Suzuha is the time traveler John. The reason she came to this era was to find the conditions needed to fight SERN and change the future."
"And why can the protagonist keep his memories after jumping between world lines? That still hasn't been explained at all."
"Now it's getting interesting. The Alpha world line and the Beta world line… I really didn't expect the story to have a setting like this. Within the Alpha world line, there are countless branch world lines, but because of world line convergence, Shiina is destined to die that night, at that exact moment. If they want to avoid that outcome, a small adjustment to the world line won't be enough. They have to make a major change to history, to the past itself, in order to move from Alpha to Beta."
"But what counts as a major change to history?"
"For example, inventing electromagnetism. Inventing the computer. Discovering antibiotics. Creating nuclear weapons. Inventing gunpowder. Those are events capable of changing the course of history. Whether a homeless man on the street dies today or tomorrow could technically create two different world lines too, but the direction of the entire world wouldn't change drastically because of that."
"So how is Okabe supposed to interfere with something that huge? Could he actually be an important historical figure capable of influencing inventions on that level?"
"Of course he is. He invented a time machine. Do you really think someone like that isn't capable of influencing world history? He's a key figure, someone who can make critical choices at major turning points. The entire world split into two great branches, the Alpha line and the Beta line, within the single week in which he created the time machine. You've watched this far and still don't understand?"
"This setting is so complex. But it's also incredibly deep. All of a sudden, the anime feels epic."
"Now it all depends on how Kantoku Sora handles the plot. This idea of shifting the world from the Alpha line to the Beta line… what exactly are the conditions? What kind of choice is powerful enough to alter the great flow of history?"
As Steins;Gate grew more popular, a huge wave of fans began rewatching the first twelve episodes, searching for foreshadowing that had been hidden from the very beginning. Many of them started asking themselves what they would do if they were in Okabe's position, trying to find a way out of that impossible situation.
In just two weeks, the entire public atmosphere surrounding the anime had changed completely.
And that sudden reversal left many people in the Japanese television industry stunned.
Could Steins;Gate, despite such poor early reception, truly turn everything around in its final stretch?
Naturally, the Japanese media did not let such a hot topic slip away. Every new article helped spread the work's name even further.
After episode twelve, Steins;Gate delivers a divine-level twist; the time machine built up across an entire cour finally reveals its true weight.
In just two weeks, Steins;Gate surges to nearly 5.2% in ratings, less than 0.3 points behind The Demon of Time, the highest-rated anime of the season.
Is this what genius Kantoku Sora meant by a slow-burn development? At the start of its new phase, Steins;Gate brings an unexpected surprise to Japanese anime fans.
A collective crisis strikes the four major networks. They must defend their position and market share this season. If Steins;Gate truly surpasses The Demon of Time, then the Shikoku Broadcasting Alliance will take first place for the cour in both live-action dramas and animation. For the Japanese television industry, that would be a massive shock.
At this very moment, the top executives of the four major networks were probably drowning in regret. Two years ago, no one paid attention to Sora. Even when Seiun TV sent representatives to discuss cooperation with him, their attitude had been unbearably arrogant. Who could have imagined that, in only two years, one young man would turn the entire Japanese television industry upside down?
Sora, a genius destined to leave a deep mark on Japanese television.
The media reports were very realistic.
They wrote about whatever ordinary viewers wanted to watch.
When Steins;Gate premiered in the winter season with weak popularity, those same outlets had led the wave of criticism and dismissal.
Now, they were the ones praising it.
For the four major networks, however, the situation had become a genuine headache.
At most, they could buy negative comments online to attack Sora and Steins;Gate, but the practical effect was limited.
After all, Sora had the Shikoku Broadcasting Alliance behind him. On top of that, he was also a shareholder in the network, and the station had long since prepared itself against underhanded tactics from its rivals.
Worse still, since his debut, Sora's private life had been far too simple. He lived almost entirely in workaholic mode. Even if someone wanted to dig up scandalous material from his personal life, there was nothing to find.
The four major networks were now openly hostile toward him, but in reality, there was very little they could do.
When March arrived, the weather began to warm.
The second season of Liar Game, ad, and Steins;Gate had already been airing for three weeks in the spring cour.
There was nothing much to say about the second season of Liar Game. Although its ratings had not risen, it had basically remained stable in first place for the season.
As for the first season of ad, its story was, by nature, a daily school-life narrative. Even in its later episodes, there were no dramatic fluctuations. Because of that, its ranking slipped to fourth place.
The reason was simple. In the previous week's episode fifteen, Steins;Gate reached a 5.36% rating, defeated Red Scales, and rose to second place.
As a result, Red Scales and ad each dropped one position.
In its two latest episodes, Steins;Gate also revealed the necessary conditions for Okabe, the protagonist, to move from the Alpha world line into the Beta world line.
The so-called Alpha world line was the course of the world in which SERN seized control of the time machine and established a global dictatorship in the future.
The Beta world line, by contrast, was a world in which SERN failed to take control of the time machine.
And whether SERN could seize that machine depended on one thing: whether the organization's global monitoring system detected the time-space message Okabe sent in the first episode of Steins;Gate, the one saying that Makise had been stabbed. From that message, SERN would be able to track the protagonists and eventually take possession of the time machine.
To prevent that from happening, the protagonist had to recover the old IBN 5100 computer, infiltrate SERN's system, and delete the intercepted message, thereby hiding the fact that they had created a time machine.
When the story reached that point, countless Japanese viewers felt chills run across their skin.
The message sent at the very beginning of episode one. The IBN 5100 computer. The reason the world line changed because of that message. Every piece of foreshadowing had finally been revealed.
"I feel like it'll overtake The Demon of Time in just a few weeks."
"Yeah. At this point, that's probably going to happen."
"It wasn't easy. It took four whole months to get here."
In the office, the company's three investors, Sora, Sumire, and Yumi, looked over the latest ratings report. A faint trace of emotion lingered on all their faces.
In truth, even now, Steins;Gate's viewership numbers were still far below Re:Zero. After all, when Re:Zero aired, there had been only one work capable of competing with it directly.
This season, however, six major anime productions were splitting audience attention. Because of that, the ratings growth of every title had fallen short of initial expectations.
"The production of Steins;Gate has already entered its final stage. In a few weeks, everything should be complete. The same goes for ad. Once that happens, the two production teams together will have nearly three hundred people…" Yumi brought up the subject at the right moment.
As a shareholder of the company, she was now involved in its management to a certain degree.
Staff allocation, internal transfers, parts of external cooperation, negotiations with partners - all of these were things she now planned and handled together with Sora.
"Some of them will be moved to the production team for the second season of ad. As for the rest…" Sora thought for a moment before continuing. "I'll arrange work for them as soon as possible."
"As soon as possible?" Sumire fell silent for a while, considering his words. "Sora, are you sure you can still withstand such an intense creative workload?"
"You've gone almost three straight years without any real break. Even if your creative inspiration is abundant…"
"No need to worry. It's not a major problem." Sora turned his head and smiled.
Deep down, he was only waiting for Steins;Gate, Liar Game, and ad to finish airing so he could see how many emotional points he would receive. Only then would he decide which works the company should produce next.
"By the way, how much cash do we currently have in the company account?" Sora suddenly remembered and asked.
He spent his days buried in work and truly had no time to keep track of such details.
Besides, money entered and left the account constantly. Following every transaction was far too tedious.
But if there was going to be a new production plan, they would need to arrange the use of funds in advance.
"Roughly… more than six hundred million yen," Yumi said.
Most of that money came from the box office share and merchandise sales of Five Centimeters per Second.
A smaller portion came from the Blu-ray and merchandise revenue shares of ad's first season and Steins;Gate.
Another portion came from the continuing earnings of all of Sora's past works.
Two Blu-ray volumes of the first season of Steins;Gate had already been released, with first-week sales exceeding seventy thousand copies. ad, meanwhile, had surpassed ninety thousand copies in its first week. The sales figures showed a clear positive correlation with the ratings data.
Once the remaining Blu-rays and merchandise for both anime were fully released, another large sum would flow into the company's account.
"If nothing unexpected happens, before the end of this year, our company's cash reserves should exceed one billion yen." As Yumi said this, she looked at Sora with a complicated expression.
One had to remember that the total assets of Noriko Animation, her family's company, were close to ten billion yen.
But in terms of cash flow on the books, Noriko Animation did not have more available cash than Yume Animation.
Noriko Animation, however, had developed over twenty or thirty years.
Yume Animation had existed for only three.
It was simply too exaggerated.
If one added the company's cash reserves to the copyright value of all the works Sora had created, Yume Animation could already be considered a highly influential company in the Japanese animation industry.
And all of that had happened in only three years.
"That much?" Even Sora felt a faint sense of unreality when he heard the number.
"Of course. For two consecutive years, you've taken a huge bite out of the Japanese animation market. And your luck has been excellent. Because the Shikoku Broadcasting Alliance needed your ability, it couldn't act like the four major networks and swallow most of the creators' profits during cooperation." Yumi looked at him with a smiling gaze.
"According to the old industry rules, a large portion of the money earned by these works would have gone to the broadcaster. Since it serves as the airing platform, it would definitely have forced its way in as an investor and taken a share. But now… that share is all in your pocket. Even so, the Shikoku Alliance hasn't lost out. High-rating works have raised the network's reputation, and the increase in advertising revenue can make up for that loss."
"Still, I have a suggestion, Sora. Since you're already a shareholder of the Shikoku Broadcasting Alliance, there's no point leaving unused money sitting in the bank gathering dust. It would be better to use it to increase your stake. Your works air on the Shikoku Alliance. The better its performance gets, the more dividends return to your hands. And most importantly, the higher your shareholding, the greater your voice within the network. In the future, when your works air there, you'll have even more leverage to negotiate benefits."
"That makes sense. I can consider it." Sora nodded.
By now, he had truly begun to feel the convenience of being a shareholder.
At the very least, whenever the entire Shikoku Broadcasting Alliance cooperated in the operation and promotion of his works, everything went remarkably smoothly. Internal conflicts of interest had decreased by a great deal.
"If Noriko Animation weren't a private company, I might even consider buying shares in your family's company," Sora said, looking at Yumi with a somewhat emotional tone.
"If you're interested, I can bring it up with my father. We could draft a plan for an equity exchange between your Yume Animation and my family's Noriko Animation. That way, both companies would become shareholders in each other." Interest immediately appeared in Yumi's eyes.
Considering Sora's potential, who could know what kind of valuable works he might create in the future?
"Forget it. I still prefer controlling my own company." Sora quickly waved his hand in refusal. Since everyone there was already close, there was no need to be overly polite.
"The way you say it, it sounds like you'd be the one losing out. Are you really so certain that you'll keep sailing smoothly through the animation industry the way you have until now? A deep partnership with Noriko Animation, joining forces with my family, would let you go much farther." Yumi pouted slightly.
"Of course it won't be like before," Sora replied with a smile.
Sumire and Yumi looked at him at the same time.
"In the future, we'll definitely grow faster and better than we are now."
He smiled again.
"When you invested in the company three years ago, did you ever imagine that, three years later, Yume Animation would grow tenfold and become the most profitable production company in the Japanese animation industry?"
"And now? Can you predict what the company will look like three years from now? Can you even predict where we'll be next year?"
Both Sumire and Yumi fell briefly silent.
"And besides, don't think Re:Zero is my limit." Sora's smile remained calm.
"Maybe my next work will surpass it completely, both in ratings and in commercial value."
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