Tsuruoka drew his eyes away from the comments flooding the internet.
With all the years he had spent following anime, he could more or less tell what kind of people were behind them. A small portion were probably newer fans, the type who preferred straightforward power fantasies and simple, instant gratification. But most of them were clearly paid accounts and haters trying to steer public opinion.
It seemed the four major networks still held quite a bit of hostility toward Kantoku Sora.
The corner of Tsuruoka's mouth lifted in a faint smile.
Although he was only a salaryman in his twenties, as one of Sora's die-hard fans, he had always kept an eye on the Kantoku's many rivals within the industry.
"Do they still not understand that these little tricks don't work on Kantoku Kamakawa?" Tsuruoka muttered, shaking his head. "If you don't have the actual strength to compete, a public opinion war won't save you."
His gaze kept drifting back to his watch.
Before long, eight o'clock arrived.
Without the slightest delay, the broadcast on the Southern Shikoku Alliance Network froze for an instant.
The second episode of Titans began right on time.
It was only the second time Tsuruoka had heard the fiery opening theme, Guren no Yumiya, but it still made his blood surge.
The anime picked up exactly where the previous episode had ended.
Uncle Hannes carried Eren and Mikasa away from the house where Eren's mother had just been killed.
But Eren did not forgive him.
"Just a little more… just a little more and I could have saved my mom!"
He pounded his fists against the head of Hannes, the man who had just rescued him, cursing him in a voice choked with rage, tears gathering at the corners of his eyes.
Watching that scene, Tsuruoka frowned.
Although he hated seeing haters attack Kantoku Kamakawa, he had to admit that not every criticism was completely baseless.
Eren's reaction, as the protagonist, was understandable. His mother had just died before his eyes. Losing control, falling into despair, and venting helpless rage was something most people might do in the same situation.
But why take it out on Hannes?
A person could lose their reason.
What they could not lose was their brain.
Did Eren really think that, if he had stayed behind, he could have saved his mother?
Wasn't that absurd?
In the end, the only difference would have been mother and son reuniting inside a titan's stomach.
And yet, in the very next moment, the way Titans portrayed its supporting characters made Tsuruoka feel a sudden, solemn respect for Sora's ability to build people on screen.
Hannes crouched down in front of Eren. There was no anger on his face, no resentment toward the boy who had just struck him with everything he had.
"You couldn't save your mother because you didn't have the strength."
Tsuruoka's heart trembled.
He was the kind of viewer who sank dangerously easily into a story's emotions, and at that moment, a painful tightness began to spread through his chest.
"I… I couldn't face the titan."
Tears spilled from Hannes's eyes.
"Because I didn't have the courage."
That voice, filled with hatred toward himself, made Tsuruoka's breath catch.
This was what character writing looked like.
That single line from Hannes, together with Carla's desperate "Don't leave me behind," was enough to make the audience feel, even if only for one second, that the people in that scene truly existed. They seemed alive, made of flesh and blood, fragile like any ordinary human being, filled with weakness, fear, and contradictory desires.
And honestly, it made sense.
Facing a fifteen-meter monster with nothing but a blade in hand, how many ordinary people could charge forward without hesitation?
The second episode continued. Eren, Mikasa, and Armin joined the tide of refugees and fled deeper inside the walls along with the rest of the city's survivors.
But then another disaster struck.
Ordinary titans had no clear purpose. They wandered aimlessly and devoured any human they saw.
In this second episode, however, a strange titan suddenly appeared, its entire body covered in something like armor, hot steam even bursting from its mouth.
With nothing but the brute force of its own flesh, it smashed through humanity's wall once again.
The problem was no longer limited to that outer town. Everyone living within the territory protected by Wall Maria was now directly exposed to the threat of the titans.
The entire episode was heavy, oppressive, suffocating.
The protagonist trio's escape. The people of Wall Maria being swallowed by titans. And then, to prevent the refugees from entering the two inner walls, the rulers behind those walls simply sent hundreds of thousands of them to fight the titans that had already invaded Maria's territory.
They called it an operation to retake Wall Maria.
In reality, it was nothing more than turning those refugees into cannon fodder so they would not consume the food and resources of the inner cities.
Eren, Mikasa, and Armin survived that fate only because they were still children, which allowed them to enter the Training Corps.
When the ending theme of the second episode began to play, Tsuruoka was left with an expression that clearly said he still wanted more.
The second episode had been almost entirely driven by drama. In the first episode, at least there had still been scenes of soldiers soaring through the air and fighting titans. In the second, what the audience saw was a one-sided massacre.
Without walls, humanity before the titans was as fragile as dry clay.
At the same time, the episode expanded the world more completely.
Still, the core issue remained the same: up to the end of the second episode, Titans was still relying on its brutal worldbuilding and bizarre, bloody imagery to attract viewers.
For now, no one had noticed anything especially unique or charismatic about the protagonist.
That night, the NatsuYume forum was swallowed by discussion.
"So this anime aired two episodes just to show the protagonist running away?"
"The pacing feels kind of slow. Don't tell me the next dozen episodes are going to be about the protagonist training in the Training Corps until he becomes the king of the recruits."
"King of the recruits? Don't make me laugh. What's the point of being king of the recruits in Titans? In the end, you're still just one bite for a titan."
"Damn it, this made me feel completely hopeless. Monsters that regenerate endlessly, don't die, don't feel pain, and only know how to devour humans on instinct… how are they supposed to fight back?"
"I don't get it either. And that armored titan definitely has something wrong with it, just like the colossal titan from the first episode. Why are the walls their target? Those two are definitely not normal."
"Could it be that elite titans have intelligence? Is this anime about an intelligent race of elite titans massacring ordinary humans?"
"So the main plot is already obvious. The colossal titan caused Eren's mother's death, which means the central thread of the whole story is killing the colossal titan. I'm right, aren't I?"
"Did that even need to be said? The real question is how long Eren's blade would have to be to beat that thing. To put it bluntly, even if he shoved an entire sword into it, the titan probably wouldn't even bother putting on a bandage."
"Kantoku Kamakawa should just stop developing this useless protagonist. How about making the titans the main characters instead?"
After two weeks on air, it was only natural that a protagonist who did nothing but run, cry, and lash out would not exactly be loved by the audience. Even so, once the second episode ended, the heat surrounding the work did not drop in the slightest.
The protagonist's characterization, so far, truly did not have many highlights.
But the supporting characters were written far too well.
Mikasa, Hannes, Carla, and several others quickly had their lines circulating among anime fans across Japan.
At noon, the ratings for the second episode of Titans were released.
5.81%.
As expected, although many viewers complained that Eren seemed far too weak in the second episode, the anime's ratings were still rising steadily.
A few days later, the third episode of Attack on Titan went on air.
The plot of this episode mainly focused on Eren, Armin, and Mikasa joining the Training Corps and becoming cadets on humanity's side.
There, the story introduced the audience to the vertical maneuvering equipment, that stylish and impressive movement system, as well as the titans' weak point: the nape of the neck.
So these monsters were not exactly immortal after all. They were more like cats with a sensitive spot they simply could not defend; once the nape was struck, they had no way to resist.
The episode also brought out important characters such as Reiner and Bertholdt.
And finally, Eren managed to give the audience a more positive impression of him.
Even when there was a problem with his vertical maneuvering equipment, he still managed to complete the Training Corps' objective.
The third episode reached a rating of 5.84%.
It was still climbing slowly, but there was a clear gap between that and the outside media's prediction that Titans would break past 6% within three weeks.
By this point, many anime fans were starting to grow impatient.
"So it's been three weeks since the premiere, and Eren still hasn't gone out to kill titans?"
"I don't get it. The pacing is so slow. Is this anime going to start high and then fall flat?"
"Don't tell me he's really going to spend ages training in the recruit camp, become the strongest newbie, and only then head out."
"This makes the plot feel so frustrating. The protagonist still hasn't really done anything. He's just buried in training. Did he forget the scene of his mother being eaten by a titan?"
"The biggest bug is still the protagonist's father. Didn't he go to a nearby town to treat patients? Eren and Mikasa almost died, and he still hasn't shown up to save his own children."
"Maybe he's already dead. With the fall of Wall Maria, it's entirely possible his dad got eaten by a titan while fleeing toward the inner city."
After three weeks on air, as the world of Titans continued expanding, discussion threads about the plot became more and more numerous.
At the same time, more and more fans were losing patience.
Eren seemed completely trapped in training.
But the fans had not forgotten his vow to drive out every last titan.
That was why, when the fourth episode of Titans aired, the work's first great turning point finally arrived.
Eren, Mikasa, Armin, and the other cadets graduated from the Training Corps and prepared to join the most dangerous regiment of all, the Scout Regiment.
However, just as the three of them were standing atop the wall with their fellow recruits, talking about the future, he appeared.
The colossal titan from the first episode, red like raw flesh, its muscles exposed, suddenly emerged behind Eren outside the wall in an exaggerated shot, almost like lightning tearing through the sky.
That massive head.
Those merciless eyes.
Before him, Eren looked no different from an ant.
That shot, together with the way the protagonist's stunned expression transformed into fury, closed the fourth episode.
And on that very same day, it became the hottest topic in the entire Japanese anime scene.