Chapter 216 215 - Overseas
The thirteenth episode of Attack on Titan finished airing in mid-June. After that, at the end of the month, two recap specials were broadcast, serving as a brief pause before the second half of the season. Around the same time, the first volume of the Attack on Titan manga also reached bookstores.
In its first week, Blu-ray sales reached an astonishing 153,000 copies.
It was a number difficult to look at calmly.
During the same period, the first Blu-ray release of the anime Mirror of the Soul, which had aired on Seiun TV in the same season slot, sold only 50,000 units in its debut week. By the current standards of the Japanese anime industry, Attack on Titan was no longer merely popular. It had crushed its competition in a clear, direct, almost brutal way.
And, inevitably, that momentum began to cross the sea.
The audience numbers, sales figures, and the name behind the work began spreading through anime and manga communities overseas. To many foreign fans, Sora had always been a somewhat mysterious figure. His works had achieved enormous success in Japan, to the point that viewers and readers on the other side of the ocean knew his titles, discussed his stories, and even bought expensive Blu-rays and official merchandise just to show their support.
Even so, for most of those fans, their curiosity about Sora was only that: curiosity.
It was similar to what Sora himself had felt in his previous life. Since childhood, he had liked superheroes such as Spider-Man and Batman, but no matter how many bookstores and secondhand shops he searched through, it was extremely difficult to find original comic editions to buy and actually read.
After Yume Animation successfully concluded negotiations with major television stations in four countries and officially finalized the plan to import Attack on Titan, the anime's overseas promotion quietly began.
Scenes from the first thirteen episodes were rearranged into an intense PV, full of tension and visual impact. In addition, the commercials produced for the foreign broadcasters also emphasized information about Sora as the creator of the work.
Titles such as Steins;Gate, Re:Zero, and Clannad already had considerable fanbases outside Japan. When those fans began promoting Sora's name, Attack on Titan, coming from the Japanese industry, also started gaining traction among overseas viewers.
When July arrived, the summer felt especially stifling.
Before the second half of the first season of Attack on Titan premiered, Sora was invited to appear on an interview and variety program broadcast by Southern Alliance Television. The following day, he also attended a fan signing event in Tokushima to celebrate the Blu-ray release of the film Your Name.
During that period, he also set aside some time to record a short video, sending a message of congratulations for the overseas premiere of Attack on Titan.
Two weeks later, the second half of the first season finally began. The fourteenth episode officially aired.
The episode followed Eren, the protagonist of the story, as he faced a military tribunal because of his ability to transform into a Titan. As expected, the famous scene in which Captain Levi kicked Eren in the face quickly became one of the most talked-about topics among Japanese anime fans.
From that point on, the narrative began to focus more closely on Levi, the commander of the Survey Corps, and his subordinates, including Petra, a cheerful and charming young woman, as well as Vice Commander Hange and Commander Erwin.
After that, Eren passed the military evaluation without any major incident and officially joined the Survey Corps alongside Armin, Mikasa, and the others.
It was a transitional episode.
Fans of Attack on Titan could accept that the story would have quieter, less explosive moments. Even so, the episode reached an audience rating of 6.39%. Because of its more restrained pace, there was a slight drop compared with the thirteenth episode.
But that was no longer the main focus of Japanese fans or the specialized media.
Over the past few days, everyone's attention had been fixed on the debut of Attack on Titan on four major overseas television stations.
To allow international viewers to catch up in time for the simultaneous broadcast of the second season in October, Attack on Titan was scheduled on several foreign channels at a pace of two episodes per week. Moreover, since this was Sora's first collaboration with those broadcasters, it was obvious that they would not reserve a prime slot for the work.
After all, the best time slots were always kept for animated productions in which the stations themselves had invested, produced, or fully controlled the rights. That was true in every country.
By coincidence, all four broadcasters placed Attack on Titan in the late-night slot, between ten at night and midnight.
The final audience result was…
Across the four regions, despite airing late at night and despite the fact that foreign audiences were still not very familiar with Sora, Attack on Titan surpassed 4% in ratings and ranked among the two most watched television programs in its time slot.
That result not only excited the Japanese media, but also surprised professionals in the overseas television industry.
After all, the average audience rating for programs broadcast in that time period hovered around only 3%.
Why were Attack on Titan's numbers so good, even without a heavy advertising investment?
In truth, it was not that hard to understand.
Attack on Titan did not have a slow opening. The first episode began with the death of the protagonist's mother. The second showed a desperate escape on an almost epic scale. Between one sequence and another, there were also bizarre and bloody scenes of Titans devouring human beings.
At least in terms of gripping the audience's attention, the beginning of Attack on Titan was absolutely excellent.
And compared with Japanese viewers, overseas audiences, whose viewing habits tended to be more open to extreme works, seemed to have even greater tolerance and acceptance for this kind of narrative.
Meanwhile, the Japanese fans who had suffered through the cruel beginning of Attack on Titan had spent the past few days visiting foreign websites to read the complaints of new viewers. And they laughed without the slightest restraint.
The most painful thing in the world was falling into a pit alone.
The most pleasurable thing, on the other hand, was watching someone else fall into that same pit after you.
On Wednesday, the entire comment area of the NatsuYume forum, connected to Giant Interactive, was filled with an almost indecent joy.
Many Japanese fans of Attack on Titan began uploading videos to NatsuYume of foreign bloggers watching the anime live. Seeing the expressions of viewers on the other side of the world being crushed by the plot of the first two episodes had become a new source of collective amusement.
"Hahaha, I almost died laughing. One foreign female fan of Sora confidently told her followers that he was amazing and recommended that everyone watch the first two episodes of Attack on Titan on TV. Then her followers completely lost their minds over the story."
"Who could understand this? When I watched the first and second episodes of Attack on Titan, I felt even worse than those foreign friends. I felt sick, miserable, and so disturbed I could barely eat."
"But with audience ratings of 4.12%, 4.51%, 4.32%, and 4.08% in the four countries where it premiered, you can't really say that's low, right?"
"Low? Kantoku Sora isn't even that famous overseas. Besides, the four stations scheduled Attack on Titan at eleven at night or around midnight, exactly when TV viewers are already sleepy and thinking about going to bed. Even then, it still got over 4%. How can that be low?"
"Once Attack on Titan airs a few more episodes, the ratings will naturally go up. There's no need to rush. Re:Zero, also by Sora, started at 3% and later climbed to 6%. Calm down."
"I'm so jealous of people who get to watch two episodes of Attack on Titan per week. That means they only need to wait one week to see that insane scene where Eren dies and turns into a Titan. Unlike us, who had to wait three whole weeks… It's infuriating."
"I'm going to foreign forums and spoil the rest of the story for those people. Hehe…"
"Hey, you up there, don't be disgusting. We're just joking around. There's no malice in it. But deliberately spoiling people is genuinely awful behavior."
"Exactly. People who spoil things deserve to die."
"Don't bring shame to Japan."
"I was just joking. Relax!"
"But now I have one more thing to look forward to every day. Even though whether Attack on Titan becomes popular overseas has nothing to do with me, I keep checking to see how much it's growing out there. Am I going crazy?"
"That's normal! It's human nature to want to share joy. When a work like Attack on Titan, which moved us so much, starts being watched by more people overseas, that alone is something worth being happy about."
"Joy? You people are thinking too much. I feel like there's going to be a heavy twist later in Attack on Titan… How could Eren become invincible just because he can turn into a Titan? Maybe the story will become extremely tragic later."
"Get lost! What would be good about that kind of torture? The rest of the story is definitely going to be an intense, action-packed anime. I'm telling you."
"Exactly! The protagonist, Eren, can already transform into a Titan. You still think this anime is going to stay sad? Sad with whom? The protagonist's family is already dead. They're not going to kill Mikasa and Armin too, right? Then what character would be left to drive the story?"
"But that new character, Levi, with those dead fish eyes, is seriously annoying. He kicked Eren several times! Kantoku Sora, please make him die in a Titan's mouth!"
Sora removed his fingers from the keyboard.
Pretending to be an ordinary fan and even adopting a feminine tone in the Attack on Titan comment sections had also become one of his small daily amusements.
Of course, seeing so many optimistic comments from fans who believed that Attack on Titan would only become more exciting from this point onward, Sora could not help smiling.
How could these hopeful fans possibly know…?
From this point on, the story of Attack on Titan would begin sinking into an increasingly darker spiral.
Heavier.
More oppressive.
But at the same time, it would also become better and better.
On the path to becoming a masterpiece, it would keep climbing higher and higher.
Only, once someone finished watching it all, they might feel so awful that they would start questioning their own existence.
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