Parallel world Manga Artist

Chapter 340 340: The Opening That Was Purchased

The fans were incensed.

Some cursed Rei's plot decisions as incoherent. Others pleaded directly with him not to let Erwin die. But across every platform and every discussion thread that night, not a single person was saying the episode was bad.

Even the most prominent anti-fans on the internet, the ones who had built followings of millions by wildly criticising Shirogane-sensei's works as a method of generating negative traffic, did not cause trouble tonight. They were anti-fans for the income. They were also veteran anime viewers who understood quality when it was in front of them.

Criticising the production quality of this episode would have been genuinely against their conscience. And with every Attack on Titan fan on the internet holding back a surge of grief and anger simultaneously, causing trouble tonight meant their accounts would be reported and banned before morning.

All night, tens of thousands and then hundreds of thousands of Attack on Titan discussion threads appeared across every platform. Fans who usually posted regularly and fans who had been lurking silently for three seasons were surfacing simultaneously.

Fans were the people who could empathise most deeply with a work. They were also the people who could most clearly recognise the specific brilliance of Attack on Titan at the moment the plot had just reached.

The viewership for the episode closed at 8.69 percent. The growth was not large in raw numbers. But from the changes in merchandise sales across Shirogane Animation, Illumination Production Company, Ion TV, and major online shopping platforms, the conversion rate from casual anime viewer to paying fan was visible and significant.

Anime viewers did not spend money on works that could not move them. The inverse of that statement was equally true.

While the episode's impact was still burning through Japan's online community, similar reactions were appearing simultaneously in overseas markets. And discussions began appearing in earnest about whether Attack on Titan had become the pinnacle work among everything Rei had produced in Japan.

In terms of critical word-of-mouth among the works he had created here, Hunter x Hunter had historically held the highest position. In terms of commercial value, Demon Slayer was far ahead without serious competition. Attack on Titan was beginning to occupy both positions simultaneously. This line of discussion was intensifying rather than settling.

"The strongest anime?" Rei scrolled through his phone.

The concept that there was no absolute number one in literature applied equally to the anime world. But these discussions had a tendency to evolve in a specific direction: whether a work with exceptional critical reputation was superior to one with higher commercial performance.

A question with no standard answer. A debate that could generate heat indefinitely without resolution.

The era of Dragon Ball. The period when the giants stood alongside each other. Then works like Attack on Titan, Demon Slayer, and the properties that would follow each taking their turn at the front. Nobody had ever concluded these arguments. Nobody ever would.

But this public opinion atmosphere was precisely what Rei wanted to see.

An industry without genuine controversy, where everything operated under a shared and uncontested value system, was boring.

The healthy argument between passionate fan bases about which work was superior was a sign of an industry with enough exceptional content that the argument was worth having.

In the seven or eight years since arriving in this world, no locally originated anime creator had emerged who could genuinely contend with the properties he had brought over.

Rei had not forced this situation and did not particularly regret it. The development of an industry took time. Cultural production at the highest level took longer. If no local genius had emerged yet, one might emerge in the future. He genuinely looked forward to it.

If someone in Japan's animation industry eventually produced a work that surpassed what he could offer, it would mean that by coming to this world he had contributed to conditions that made something even better possible. That would be a form of double enjoyment.

For now: let the healthy discussion run within the framework of the works I have brought out. If the grand fan wars between the three giants of my previous life could eventually be recreated here in Japan, that would be the ideal outcome.

He closed the forum and put down his phone.

Time moved into May.

While Attack on Titan's influence was spreading beyond the existing fan community with the momentum of something that could not be stopped, the competition for ranking positions in Dream Comic Journal had entered its most competitive phase.

Rei remained an unsolvable presence in the periodical and in the manga world broadly. The industry had largely stopped regarding him as an opponent or a target.

The general understanding was that the second-place position in Dream Comic's voting rankings was the real primary pillar of the publication. Rei happened to be serialising his work there. His copyrights were entirely his own. Whether that relationship even counted as being a pillar of Dream Comic was a question the industry had tacitly stopped asking.

Once Shirogane-sensei was removed from the competitive framework, the horizon broadened immediately. What had been a battle for the top three positions became a genuine battle for the top four. The competition became more interesting for everyone involved.

Last week, Reincarnation had entered third place in the periodical voting for the first time.

Miyu was working at an intensity that surprised even Rei, who had been watching her work ethic up close for years. She usually liked to play.

At this particular moment in her career and her life, she had set everything else aside completely. Five hours of sleep per night. Rei occasionally delivering meals to her room because she had forgotten to eat. While drinking water she would ask him whether specific details in her manuscripts needed supplementing, whether the pacing of a plot section felt weak, whether particular dialogue needed revision.

Rei had enough accumulated knowledge of anime and manga from his previous life that he could offer suggestions when she asked. He was careful to give directions rather than help plan the actual content. It was her manga. Her voice. Her story.

What she was charging toward was the second-place position in Dream Comic, and she wanted to get there on the strength of her own work.

Second place. The tail end of the Attack on Titan manga in the same periodical.

Having known Rei for so many years, Miyu had made peace with the impossibility of surpassing him. But if she could not even reach the edge of the popularity that his works commanded, she would find that genuinely difficult to accept.

The condition she had set was not arbitrary. It was the minimum standard she could live with.

As for Rei, he had already begun planning the wedding rings and the wedding itself.

A few days passed quickly.

Thursday arrived again.

The Attack on Titan fan community, which had been running at full intensity for a week, was even more active today. Three days of cursing Rei had burned through the initial grief and anger. What remained on the other side of that was the question the episode had left open.

Commander Erwin was down. His fate was almost certainly decided.

But what about Levi?

What about the Beast Titan?

The opening that Erwin and every recruit in that charge had purchased with their lives: could Levi actually use it?

A 1.6 metre human with two blades, operating alone on an open plain, approaching a 17-metre Titan that had just demonstrated it could conduct precision long-range bombardment and was surrounded by a cordon of coordinated giant Titans.

This was the plot the fan community had been rebuilding itself around since Tuesday. The grief over Erwin had not gone anywhere. But underneath the grief was something that needed an answer before next week arrived.

"If Commander Erwin's fate has already been decided by Shirogane-sensei, then at the absolute minimum, let Levi slaughter that Beast Titan for me tonight."

"Do not let there be some plot where Levi struggles and the Beast Titan kills him with a backhand. I will drop the series. I will not drop the series. But I will be very upset."

"The Commander is already gone. Levi feels unstable. Except for the main trio, anyone could die in this arc. I am watching with specific dread."

"In this chapter there are three major Titan Shifters: the Beast Titan, Reiner, and Bertholdt. I absolutely will not accept Shirogane-sensei letting all three escape cleanly again. The Titans that appeared in the very first episode of the first season are still fighting them as the third season approaches its end. I am genuinely miserable."

"Levi versus the Beast Titan tonight. Shirogane-sensei said Levi would have a brilliant performance. He said this before the arc began. I am holding that statement right now like it is a lifeline."

A large number of comments had appeared in Rei's account comment section through the evening. The audience's tolerance for sustained oppressive plotting had reached a breaking point.

They had followed this series through three seasons of accumulated weight. They had watched Erwin ride into certain death. They had watched the recruits charge with fear on their faces.

They needed Levi to deliver something tonight that made all of it mean what Erwin had told them it mea