Since episode twelve, Attack on Titan's reputation had completely reversed.

Rei's standing in Japan's anime industry was established. Once the reputation of one of his works became overwhelmingly positive, most anime fans would try it out of curiosity regardless of whether they normally watched combat or darker series.

People did not have inherent genre preferences. The reason some people said they did not watch certain genres was simply that the available works in those genres were not interesting enough. For any genre, a story compelling enough would attract people who would not normally engage with it.

Rei himself, as an example, did not particularly enjoy shoujo anime, but works like Kimi ni Todoke, Ao Haru Ride, and The Wallflower were still enjoyable to him.

He occasionally watched Cardcaptor Sakura. Attack on Titan followed the same logic in reverse. In theory, female viewers should not be drawn to bloody and dark anime. In practice, in his previous life, the proportion of female fans for Attack on Titan had remained consistently high. At the offline screening of the first season finale, over eighty percent of the audience had been female.

In Japan's anime community, the same pattern was emerging.

Ion TV understood this well. Years of collaborating with Rei had established that his anime consistently achieved above seven percent in primetime and maintained above four percent in reruns.

Placing Attack on Titan in late-night slots, early morning slots, or on the station's secondary channels provided multiple entry points for new viewers.

There was no shortage of ways for new fans to discover it.

Visibly, as late June arrived, Attack on Titan's popularity began climbing sharply.

Simultaneously, Shirogane Animation began its final promotional push with Ion TV and Illumination Production Company for Your Name, releasing in twenty days.

The established bundling strategy with Attack on Titan was fully deployed. Previous commercial partners, including offline milk tea chains and electronics retailers, had already begun pre-sale warming for Your Name co-branded products.

They were waiting for July 16th, when offline stores and online platforms would feature co-branded merchandise combining Your Name and Demon Slayer characters.

Rei returned from the graduation trip and began the offline promotional tour.

By this point in his career, the marketing machinery around a new Rei release had developed its own momentum. Attaching the Shirogane Animation name to a project was sufficient for fans to begin promoting it spontaneously without any promotional spend required.

In previous years, third place in the summer box office was considered a strong result for an anime film. This year, among the five major summer releases, Your Name was the most anticipated before opening day by a significant margin.

Most people expected its box office to fall well below the Demon Slayer film. It was still not something the other four competing films could approach.

The pre-release promotional period began, and time moved into July.

After the first major arc of Attack on Titan concluded, the plot entered new setup material. Eren stood trial. A new character appeared: the only other figure in the work capable of matching Eren's intensity, Captain Levi, 1.6 metres tall and introduced by immediately delivering a kick to Eren's face that became instantly iconic in Japan's fan community.

With Captain Levi, Vice Commander Hange, and Commander Erwin now present, Attack on Titan entered its next chapter.

"So tired."

Rei was sprawled in a chair after returning from a promotional event that afternoon, not inclined to say anything further.

Since graduating, there had been no reason to remain in the villa near the university. He had used part of the past two months to buy a property in the same villa complex where Misaki lived, spending under 4 billion yen on it. He had moved from his old residence more than thirty kilometres away.

The new house was two hundred metres in a straight line from Miyu's.

It was probably the only significant personal expenditure Rei had made since his income had reached its current scale. He had no interest in tobacco, alcohol, cars, yachts, luxury goods, or games. His primary personal interest was bringing works from his previous life into this world, and reading what the audience said about them afterward.

Across the study, Miyu was bent over her storyboards with total concentration. Rei had been sprawled in the chair without a response for some time.

"You are not even going to respond? Some emotional support would be appreciated."

"What emotional support. I am more tired than you are. Touch of Glass finished over a month ago and the Dream Comic editorial team is already asking about my next work. I have been sitting here for a week trying to conceive something and my hair is starting to fall out."

She looked back at him with a resentful expression.

"How do you never get stuck on the plot? Seven years. I have never once seen you miss an update because of a block."

"Talent," Rei said, with his usual expression. He walked over, bent down, and rested his head on her shoulder to look at the storyboards.

"Don't look. I could not think of the plot before. Now I definitely cannot."

"Romance manga?"

"Not entirely. Like Touch of Glass, it's a romance-fantasy. Before, Touch of Glass was criticized by fans for having romance plots that felt too taken for granted, and that the author clearly hadn't been in a relationship.

This time, I'll let them know that for a genius girl who started with shoujo manga and has already been in a relationship, her creative strength will rise to a terrifying level..."

"Impressive," Rei said.

"Speaking of you, next month, besides the release of the Your Name movie, there's also a new anime, Higurashi: When They Cry, set to air on July 3rd, right?"

"How come I don't see you promoting this work at all?"

"As for Higurashi: When They Cry, it's inevitably a work that won't have high ratings right after it starts airing," Rei laughed.

"And it's a semi-mystery type of anime; you have to watch the whole thing to understand what the story is actually about. Plus, it overlaps with the release of Your Name, so I don't have the energy to get distracted."

"However, Summer Time Rendering and No Game No Life, which launch in October, might receive some key promotion."

The couple's conversations were always like this.

"Hmm."

Although they were dating, a significant portion of their lives was focused on their work. Miyu cared about the reputation and performance of Rei's works. Rei was also thinking about how he could help Miyu with her new work to improve its performance.

"Anyway, it's settled. No matter how busy you are this month, on July 16th, the premiere day of Your Name, you have to clear your schedule and go watch it with me," Rei said as he stood up.

"Hmph..." Miyu brushed the hair by her ear; the side where Rei's head had been resting was slightly red at the roots.

"A romance anime, right? Your romance works all end in tragedy, and you still want to drag me to go watch it!"

"I promise, this work isn't a tragedy. It's absolutely sweet, sweet enough that you'll remember it for ten years."

Rei paused for a moment, then smiled.

Time entered July.

Spring ended, and summer arrived.

Although Rei himself didn't promote Higurashi: When They Cry very much, putting all his effort into the release of the Your Name movie, Shirogane Animation, led by Misaki, wasn't idle.

Of course, everyone had already seen the anime scripts for the first few episodes of Higurashi: When They Cry, and had even watched the finished anime.

Honestly, everyone was confused after watching it.

But they generally understood that it was an anime containing suspense, reasoning, gore, and slasher elements.

After a number of people died inexplicably, the plot restarted, and these people began their daily lives again, went mad, and then killed each other...

They couldn't understand the plot logic, but even just watching it as a campus youth suspense thriller was quite good.

And Shirogane's fans were also very concerned about this new work.

Although the airing time was limited to a late-night slot due to its subject matter, the premiere ratings still exceeded 5.8%.

In short, this work wasn't a slow burn; it was just that the plot logic could only be understood after watching the whole thing, similar to Steins;Gate.

So after it started airing, fan reviews were mixed.

There was quite a bit of controversy online, but the critics were already wise enough not to show themselves immediately, fearing they would be attacked from all sides.

"This new work from Shirogane, it's not like a romance, it's more like a suspense work!"

"The first episode mainly builds that eerie atmosphere. And those inexplicable close-up shots of the characters' faces are terrifying. Teacher Shirogane can create this kind of style too?"

"Anyway, I think it's quite creepy. It airs at midnight, and I was watching it alone in the living room with the lights off, one shot still managed to startle me."

"I can only say that Teacher Shirogane is too versatile. Romance anime, hot-blooded battle anime, Go-themed sports anime, and now even a cannibal-style anime, he also knows how to make suspense anime.

I heard that Summer Time Rendering, which airs in October, is also a suspense-mystery genre. As for No Game No Life, which airs in the same month, it's a battle-of-wits-themed work. Is there any genre he doesn't know how to create?"

"That's what a genius is. Don't look at it with common sense! In the hundred-year history of Japan's anime industry, this is the only freak that has appeared."

"They say Teacher Shirogane is a once-in-a-century genius in the anime industry because the industry only has a hundred years of history. I think even if it develops for another hundred years, there still won't be a second Shirogane."

"Don't even talk about it. In the hundred-year history of Japan's manga industry, the work with the highest sales per volume only reached 29.7 million copies. Demon Slayer has been out for less than two years, and it's already broken that record, reaching 90.3 million copies per volume. The total global sales of Demon Slayer tankobon have even exceeded one billion copies..."

"This is a world-class manga! Many people question why Demon Slayer is worth so much. They don't realize that the global movie box office has already exceeded hundred billion. Manga sales have also surpassed ten billion, not to mention the revenue from merchandise..."

"There are two more movies to be released in the next four years, extending the life cycle of Demon Slayer by another four years."

"I can only say that turning Demon Slayer into movies was for commercial value. It's best experienced as a TV anime and serialized manga. This can be seen from the plot after the first Infinity Castle movie was released, the manga added many more details. But the Your Name movie released on July 16th... should be the first true original movie work created by Teacher Shirogane."

"Shouldn't it be Five Centimeters per Second?"

"Five Centimeters per Second was originally a manga. And the plot length wasn't enough to make it into a movie. It was the production company that bought the rights and later hired screenwriters to create some original content, expanding it into a live-action film, okay..."

"From your perspective, that's indeed the case. Among Teacher Shirogane's many works, Your Name is the only one created with the intention of being a movie from the very beginning."

"Hearing that, I'm starting to look forward to it."

"But let me say this first, no one should have any unrealistic fantasies about the plot of Your Name. Looking at Teacher Shirogane's entire creative career, Your Name is absolutely, 1000%, a tragic ending."

"Exactly. This kind of thing doesn't even need to be said. Don't be fooled just because Teacher Shirogane likes to say in interviews nowadays that Your Name definitely has a happy ending, that he has said goodbye to his past self who liked creating tragic works, and that he will only focus on creating works of love and peace in the future. Don't believe even a single punctuation mark of what he says."

"But Teacher Shirogane told the media in an interview yesterday that Your Name is an anime movie absolutely suitable for couples to watch together, full of sweetness, without even a hint of angst."

"He really said that?"

"Of course. He said he was very confident, claiming that people in the ambiguous stage of a relationship would fall in love on the spot after watching this movie. Couples in the heat of passion would definitely want to get married immediately after watching it. He also said that the box office goal for Your Name is to become number one in the history of Japan's romance films..."

"Hahaha... I can only laugh. Is Shirogane tricking everyone into the theater just to destroy them? I get it now, his words should be interpreted in reverse.

This movie is only suitable for single people to watch! Just wait, I'll deliberately book couple seats and even sit next to couples getting intimate in the corners, so I can watch up close as they get emotionally wrecked by Teacher Shirogane's work."

"Aren't you embarrassed?"

"Hehe, as long as I'm not embarrassed, those couples will be the ones who feel it the most."

The first ten days of July passed in a flash.

At this time, the atmosphere across Japan's anime and film industries began to grow lively.

Students were on vacation.

The plot of Attack on Titan had just entered a setup phase, with several consecutive episodes focused on building up the Survey Corps members and Eren's suffering, so the level of discussion wasn't particularly high.

The film industry was no different.

After the Spring Festival season, there hadn't been many standout films in Japan's movie market.

Now, the creator of the Spring Festival box office champion, Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle Arc, Teacher Shirogane, had a new movie, Your Name, set to release in just six days.

For both anime fans and moviegoers, this was major news.

These two groups were highly active across various online forums, discussing bits of information revealed in the movie trailers, while also teasing and poking fun at Shirogane's past "dark history."

Coupled with the massive promotional budget from Shirogane Animation being poured into the market. By this point, the release of Your Name had, without anyone quite realizing it, already become a major topic of discussion among many young people across Japan.