The broadcast of the first episode of one-punch man ended.
For the vast majority of Rei’s fans who were watching on Capital TV Station, they only snapped back to reality when the ending the began to play.
This ani...
"This is so interesting!"
"He got stronger, and he went bald. It’s genuinely hilarious."
"The combat in this ani is incredibly smooth! The production quality is insane. Illumination? I’ve never even heard of them. Why are they so low-key?"
"This company has actually contributed famous scenes to many ani. Their production strength is very solid."
"But here’s the funny part. That January disaster, Glow Under the Blood Moon, the one with the weird title and chaotic plot, that was also their work!"
"Huh? That flop was made by Illumination? How can they produce both that and one-punch man?"
"Exactly. More than 70% of the production staff are the sa for both projects. The real difference is the scriptwriter. The scriptwriter for one-punch man is Teacher Shirogane."
"Honestly, I started watching just to support Teacher Shirogane, but after finishing the episode, I’m completely hooked. Saitama is way too funny."
"Especially Vaccine Man. His design was so cool! I really thought he was the final boss, and then Saitama just erased him with one punch. The contrast is insane."
"And the giant brothers! The older brother gets casually crushed by the younger one’s giant form, like swatting a mosquito. My stomach hurts from laughing."
"The dream Subterranean King too! That absurdly powerful boss ca out of nowhere. I was thinking, ’Wait, isn’t the protagonist supposed to be invincible?’ I thought the character setting was about to collapse in episode one, but it turns out he’s so strong that he can only imagine an equal opponent in his dreams. Hahaha!"
"The best part is that after waking up, he rushes out excitedly to fight the real Subterranean King, and still finishes it with one punch!"
"How did Teacher Shirogane even co up with sothing like this? I’ve watched countless battle ani, but I’ve never seen one done this way. A bald man who’s invincible from the start, has no real opponents, and can only experience passion through dreams, this protagonist is weirdly lovable."
"Saitama isn’t old, though. He looks like he’s around thirty."
"But he’s bald."
"He went bald because he trained to beco strong! And he’s only in his twenties!"
"But he’s bald."
"He’s the strongest man in the ani’s world!"
"But he’s bald."
"No matter how strong he is, at least I have sothing he’ll never have, thick hair!"
"Do you people have sothing against bald folks?"
"I’m following this for sure. I wasn’t optimistic about one-punch man at first, but the first episode was completely my thing. If only Teacher Shirogane had given it a more exciting title. This is the first real surprise of October for . I hope tomorrow night’s fourth season of burning sin can match this level!"
"True. The title one-punch man isn’t very appealing. If it were called sothing like One Punch Blows Everyone’s Heads Off, I would’ve clicked instantly!"
After ten o’clock that night, nearly all major animation forums and websites in the country were flooded with discussions about one-punch man.
It was Friday, and at least ten new ani premiered across different TV stations throughout the evening.
But no matter which platform it was, discussions about one-punch man overwhelmingly dominated the front pages.
So ani require slow buildup.
One-punch man didn’t.
Its appeal was imdiate.
If you liked the first episode, you were clearly its target audience. If you didn’t, chances were you wouldn’t enjoy what followed either.
Because this ani lacked the promotional backing that hikaru no go once received from Hoshimori Group, it didn’t secure an especially favorable ti slot, even though it aired on Capital TV Station.
However...
The following day, when the TV Station released the premiere ratings for one-punch man, the dia outlets that had previously criticized Rei collectively fell silent.
The opening rating was 3.62%. The highest instantaneous rating reached 4.56%.
The average rating for the full episode was 4.23%.
Even on major stations like Capital TV Station and Ion Television Station, most pri-ti programs struggle to exceed 4%.
For the 9:30 PM slot, the average rating of premieres on Capital TV Station over the past year was only 3.85%.
Judging from the opening curve, peak value, and average rating, one-punch man’s growth trend was clearly far above the norm.
The 3.62% opening proved the strength of Shirogane’s core fanbase.
The 4.56% peak demonstrated its ability to attract casual viewers.
More importantly, in just one night after the premiere, over 100,000 users on OpinionHub, the country’s most professional rating platform for ani, gas, comics, films, TV dramas, music, and esports, gave one-punch man an opening score of 9.2.
This stunned the entire animation industry.
On OpinionHub, a score above 8 is considered excellent. A score above 9 represents extrely high praise.
People may lie online for profit.
But big data does not lie.
By Saturday afternoon, public opinion in the animation industry had completely flipped.
[The first independently scripted ani by genius manga artist Shirogane receives widespread acclaim]
[With hundreds of thousands of ratings, what is the appeal of one-punch man, currently ranked first this season on OpinionHub?]
[The first episode of one-punch man achieves explosive success. Why is an ani starring a bald man so popular?]
[A true genius remains a genius. Even without heavy promotion, one-punch man achieved outstanding ratings, proving that Shirogane’s rise was never dependent on Hoshimori Group, contrary to online accusations]
[One-punch man: an outstanding work that perfectly balances cody and action]
Rei looked at the comnts from the dia and fans online regarding one-punch man.
His expression was as calm as ever, but more importantly, the sense of anxiety he had been holding inside finally subsided.
Thankfully, just as he had imagined, ani audiences in this Japan also liked this type of work.
Picking up his phone, Rei saw a stream of long, excited ssages sent by Himari. It was obvious that Himari was currently extrely thrilled.
Rei simply replied with a few short sentences.
Scrolling further, he saw congratulatory ssages from the sisters Miyu and Misaki.
After that ca ssages from the director and producer of the Hikaru no go ani, collaborators he had worked with before.
After all, both of them had been paying close attention to one-punch man and had even helped introduce the ani to Capital TV Station to secure a broadcast opportunity.
Of course, the Hikaru no go ani was not finished yet. With its fourth season set to premiere in a few months, they naturally hoped that Shirogane, the original author, would achieve even greater success. That way, the fourth season of Hikaru no go could also benefit from the traffic generated by fans of Rei’s other works.
After replying to everyone one by one, Rei finally let out a long breath.
When he recalled hunter x hunter and one-punch man a few months ago, besides excitent, what he felt most strongly was nervousness.
There were simply too many examples of excellent works failing due to unprofessional managent.
Rei had also been afraid that he might ss up these two masterpieces.
But now, he finally had a solid start.
Over the past few weeks, hunter x hunter’s vote count had been only twenty to thirty thousand votes behind source war chronicle, which currently ranked first in the Hoshimori Group journal.
At this pace, it would likely overtake it within a month.
As for one-punch man, its premiere reception had been explosive. Although the ratings could not yet be called record-breaking, they were outstanding for that ti slot.
If the series continued to air and its popularity expanded further, the ratings would only keep rising.
Now that the first episode of one-punch man had premiered, Rei’s attention naturally shifted to burning sin Season 4, the work ani fans had already crowned as the presumptive seasonal overlord before its broadcast.
Rei searched for information about it on his phone’s browser.
"All right," he murmured. "Let’s see how many weeks it takes for one-punch man to catch up to you."
That evening, the first episode of burning sin Season 4 officially premiered.
It had been a year and a half since the third season aired, and fans had been waiting impatiently for a long ti.
Still, before the premiere, so fans couldn’t help feeling a trace of unease.
After all, with Shirogane’s fans and Shinji’s fans having argued so fiercely online in recent weeks, no one wanted to lose face.
No one believed that one-punch man’s first-episode ratings would surpass those of burning sin Season 4.
However, anyone with clear judgnt knew that, given the reputation of one-punch man’s first episode, its ratings were bound to surge in the following weeks.
The real question was, how high would that surge go?
Would it threaten burning sin?
With these concerns in mind, the more rational burning sin fans welcod the premiere at 8:00 PM on Imperial Capital Television Station.
The next day, Sunday, the viewership data for the first episode of burning sin was released.
The average rating reached 5.13%, and the OpinionHub score was 9.0.
This result perfectly matched everyone’s expectations before the premiere.
Both the ratings and the score were undeniably excellent.
Except for one detail.
Among the forty-six ani that premiered during the first weekend of October, burning sin Season 4 had one statistic where it was suppressed.
That was the score.
The 9.2 premiere score of one-punch man, that 0.2 gap, was an insurmountable difference on the strictly graded OpinionHub.
The premiere ratings of one-punch man were, of course, no match for burning sin, which had received full promotional backing from the Monogatari Comic group.
But while the premiere ratings differed, what about the long run?
A new week began.
Rei also had to take ti off from school to handle the flood of partners who ca knocking after one-punch man’s highly acclaid premiere.
rchandise suppliers, peripheral manufacturers, and ga collaboration proposals arrived one after another.
Rei hadn’t established a managent company yet, but Misaki was well connected in this field. Several of her friends were professionals who specialized in market evaluation and pricing.
Rei only needed to pay industry-standard compensation, and there were more than enough capable people willing to help him negotiate with partners.
Of course, because one-punch man did not enjoy the backing that Hoshimori Group had provided for hikaru no go, it was inevitable that its rchandise channels, manufacturing costs, profit margins, and promotional reach would fall short of hikaru no go.
But the journey was taken one step at a ti, and Rei wasn’t anxious.
However, there were others who were.
On Monday, several high-ranking staff mbers of the Hoshimori Group’s editorial departnt were summoned by even higher managent to answer questions regarding one-punch man.
One of their top manga artists had invested his own money to produce an ani and achieved such explosive popularity. This was certainly not sothing the Hoshimori Group wanted to see.
What if other manga artists followed his example?
More importantly, according to internal records, one-punch man was originally a manga that Shirogane had intended to submit to Dream Comic, but it had been rejected due to group regulations.
Didn’t that turn the Hoshimori Group editorial departnt into a complete laughingstock?
Indeed, colleagues from other manga groups had been rcilessly mocking the Hoshimori Group editorial departnt in recent weeks for their incompetence.
Suppressing a talent like Shirogane with rigid rules, rejecting a one-punch man manuscript without even reviewing it properly, what purpose did such rules serve if not to be broken?
They had under their roof a manga artist who was young, gifted, imnsely popular, and an outright workhorse, soone who produced content like an octopus with unlimited arms.
So many manga artists dragged their feet for months over a single page, yet when Shirogane wanted to serialize more works, he was turned away.
Wasn’t that absurd?
Now that things had reached this point, so of the senior figures within Hoshimori Group could only hope that one-punch man’s success would stop here.
It was currently ranked fourth in the October autumn ani season in terms of ratings, but... they desperately hoped the plot would collapse later, that the reputation would nosedive, and that the ani would not continue gaining popularity.
Tuesday arrived.
Thanks to Rei’s weekly, octopus-like update pace, Hoshimori Group officially released the first collected volu of hunter x hunter, despite the series having been serialized for only four months.
That sa week, major dia outlets across Japan’s manga industry reported on the explosive popularity of hunter x hunter Volu 1.
After all, the Hunter Exam arc had reached a fever pitch.
In the fourth stage of the Hunter Exam, Gon’s opponent was none other than Hisoka.
Gon had to survive alone on an isolated island and steal the badge from Hisoka’s chest before the exam ended.
With such an overwhelming disparity in strength, this setup dramatically heightened the tension for readers.
This segnt was unquestionably the most exciting part of the Hunter Exam arc and also laid crucial groundwork for the later Heavens Arena storyline.
For weeks, readers had been glued to the manga, eagerly anticipating how Gon would perform.
However, the sales data for hunter x hunter Volu 1 would not be compiled until the following week.
As a result, the dia could not yet publish articles or analyses based on the collected volu’s sales.
And then, a few weeks later, Friday arrived once again.
The broadcast date for the second episode of the one-punch man ani had arrived.
User Comments
0 comments from readers