When the official Ascent of New Gods website released the latest data, the entire forum fell into a state of total chaos. Readers could accept the top six rankings. Whether it was the quality of the prose or the pre-existing fame and massive fanbases of those authors, the results made sense.
However, the first chapter of To the Moon was undeniably underwhelming in terms of immediate excitement.
"I can understand the top six, but what on earth is this seventh place? Why is To the Moon ranked so high?"
"Out of fifty-one entries, at least forty of them had a more thrilling first chapter than To the Moon. How did it get this many votes?"
"Is it vote manipulation?"
"Stop talking nonsense. I am a fan of Sensei Shiori Takahashi. Even I think the first chapter was a bit flat, but I am voting for her anyway. What are you going to do about it?"
"Exactly. Sensei has a massive following, and we all have faith in her. So what if her work is a slow burn? We are willing to wait. Why are you all so bothered?"
"Look, we need to be objective when reading. If a story is good, vote for it. If it is mediocre, don't follow blindly! Pushing To the Moon to seventh place like this is a bit too blatant. Aren't you afraid of the backlash?"
"We are all legitimate readers who bought the physical magazine. We aren't hackers using bots to farm votes. What is there to be afraid of?"
"Forget it. Go ahead and look down on To the Moon all you want. Those of us from Minamijo who followed Anohana during its serialization know exactly how this works. Sensei's stories start with a lot of foreshadowing and world-building."
"It is normal for it to feel a bit slow at first, but as long as the payoff is great, that is all that matters."
"I am an Anohana fan from Tokyo, and I am standing with our Minamijo bros and sisses. We support Sensei Shiori Takahashi!"
"I am from Hokkaido, and I am a fan too. What is wrong with supporting her new work? I believe this story is going to have an incredible development later on."
"I am in Kyushu, and I am voting for To the Moon under my real name. Just based on the emotional impact Anohana had on me, I am putting my trust in Sensei this time."
"I am a reader from the northern prefectures. The only reason I bought the Ascent of New Gods magazine was because it featured Sensei Shiori Takahashi's new work. Who else would I vote for?"
Initially, it was just a vocal minority questioning whether the quality of the first chapter deserved the seventh-place ranking in the magazine's debut. This quickly sparked the ire of Haruto's fanbase.
For days, they had been seeing people on the forums trashing the Anohana anime, claiming the original novel's million-copy success was just the result of a million "idiot readers." Now that people were questioning their votes, the fans stopped being polite and came out in droves to defend their choice.
The online debate was fierce, with neither side willing to back down. However, this controversy caused many passersby, readers who knew nothing about Anohana, to start wondering.
Is this Anohana by that Minamijo author really that good? It finished months ago, yet it still has enough loyal fans to blindly support his new work, To the Moon, just for his sake. While this curiosity wasn't quite enough to make them spend their hard-earned money on the Anohana volumes yet, many people were now planning to tune into Tokyo TV7 to see if the anime adaptation was actually worth the hype. After all, watching the anime was free.
In Minamijo, Nanzawa...
Haruto was naturally keeping a close eye on the reception of To the Moon.
"Seventh place!" Yukino had been wearing a look of pure excitement for an entire day. "I really didn't expect it to be seventh. The loyalty of your Anohana fans is absolutely incredible."
"I didn't expect it either," Haruto admitted, feeling somewhat surprised. He had mentally prepared himself for a disastrous ranking in the first issue. He never imagined that his old fans would carry him so high on their shoulders.
"Back when Anohana was being serialized, it was a slow burn too, but then it had that legendary development toward the end. Your readers now have a psychological expectation for your style. They know you take your time. You could say things just happened to fall into place," Yukino chuckled happily.
Technically, the success of this competition had nothing to do with her as an editor at Crimson Maple Literature, but she couldn't help but feel proud. As she spoke, Yukino glanced over at Reina, who was diligently working on the illustrations and posters for Haruto.
"It is winter break now. You have plenty of time for work, so why don't you take a break?"
"There is no time to rest. My new novel only ranked twenty-ninth. Once I finish these drawings for Haruto, I need to spend my time refining the plot and the outline for the later chapters," Reina replied, a flicker of frustration crossing her cool, elegant features.
"But you have to look at the rating! Your work ranked eighth in the rating category, which means the readers who actually read it had a very positive impression of your first chapter. You are different from Haruto. He has the backing of a million fans from Minamijo and beyond. Once the serialization goes on a bit longer and your plot unfolds, your popularity rank will climb," Yukino reassured her.
Reina looked up at Haruto and Yukino, shook her head slightly, and returned her focus to the drawing paper.
Under a clear, starry night, a young boy and girl sat on a fallen log, gazing up at the sky.
A massive, brilliant moon provided a sense of deep tranquility. Haruto's specific request for this illustration was that the stars and the moon had to be arranged in a way that, with a bit of imagination, one could draw connecting lines to form the shape of a rabbit. It was a task that required a refined artistic sense, but she was more than up to the challenge.
"It is beautiful, Reina."
As she was carefully applying color with her brush, Haruto's voice sounded right beside her. Her fingers trembled ever so slightly.
"Are you talking about this starry sky?"
"Of course," Haruto said, pointing to the paper. "Look. There are the two ears. And there are the two feet. Even someone with as little imagination as me can easily find the rabbit if I am looking for it. This starry sky you have painted... it is even better than what I imagined."
Haruto smiled as he pointed out the details.
Reina tilted her head slightly to look at him.
"Is there some deep meaning behind this request? The rabbit in the stars... does it have a connection to the paper rabbits in the first chapter of To the Moon?"
"You will find out once the serialization progresses," Haruto said. He never liked giving spoilers. "It is like if I asked you about the secret of the heroine's past in your new novel. Would you tell me?"
"Of course not," Reina replied, finally understanding.
"I suppose I will just have to wait and see what role my illustration plays in your story."
It was another Wednesday.
The second episode of the Anohana anime aired on television. Although many newcomers who had not read the book complained that it was still a slow burn, the characterization of Menma was undeniably charming.
Many viewers found themselves continuing the show simply because they liked her character.
The viewership ratings saw a slight increase compared to the first episode, with an average rating of 1.13%, ranking twenty-fourth among the new spring releases. The Ascent of New Gods magazine was published every ten days.
While this was a relatively slow pace for serialization, it gave the stories plenty of time to build momentum and word-of-mouth. In the early stages, the rankings were heavily influenced by the author's existing fanbase. However, as the weeks went by, readers would prove they weren't fools.
A "friendship vote" might carry an author through the first two or three issues, but eventually, people would only vote for the stories that were actually compelling. Otherwise, the competition would be meaningless; they could just hand out prizes based on whoever had the most Twitter followers.
On Wednesday, January 24th, the second issue of the Ascent of New Gods magazine was released nationwide. The story of To the Moon picked up immediately after the end of the first chapter.
Neil and Eva said goodbye to the mental projection of the elderly Johnny from his most recent memories and used the machine to dive deeper into his subconscious. A significant portion of the text was still dedicated to their exploration of his past, trying to find the root motivation for his desire to go to the moon.
In this layer of memory, they encountered Johnny from one year prior. He was holding a stuffed platypus, staring at the lighthouse and the grave of his late wife, River. He looked lost and profoundly lonely.
"Now I can be like you and watch over her every day."
"She won't be lonely anymore."
In the original game, these details were often overlooked due to the pace of the dialogue and the limitations of pixel art. But since Haruto was adapting it into a novel, he made sure to emphasize the atmosphere. Johnny was talking to his deceased wife. The "her" he referred to in his dialogue was the lighthouse. In this timeline, River had passed away, but the house beside the lighthouse had finally been completed.
A gamer might have found this confusing at first, but in a novel, the suspension and the introduction of these clues significantly improved the reading experience. At the very least, many readers began to feel a twinge of empathy for Johnny's sorrowful circumstances.
The memory regression continued further into Johnny's past. Through a conversation between Johnny and a close friend, and through the eyes of Neil and Eva, the readers learned a tragic truth.
His wife, River, had died of a chronic illness.
Before her death, Johnny had faced a heart wrenching choice. He only had enough money to either finish building their dream house or pay for River's medical treatment. He had chosen to pay for the treatment, hoping against all odds for a cure. But River had refused. She would rather die than have Johnny spend the money on her instead of the house.
To the readers, this part of the story felt hauntingly strange. A house wasn't a life-or-death necessity for either of them, so why would River prefer death over giving up on the construction? Was a house really more important than a life? Furthermore, the descriptions of the River began to feel increasingly eccentric. She seemed to have something desperately important to tell Johnny, yet she remained perpetually silent.
Instead, she spent her time obsessively folding paper rabbits, as if she were waiting for Johnny to realize something through them. Finally, the second chapter reached a turning point. The memory regressed again to a time when Johnny was in his middle age, talking to a friend about the situation.
"Paper rabbits?"
"Yes, hundreds of them."
"I ask her why she keeps making them, but she never answers. She just looks at me with this deep, intense gaze, as if she is waiting for me to say something."
"And the strange thing is... I can't shake the feeling that I owe her something."
The second chapter's progression was mostly driven by these dialogues. However, by the end, readers finally understood why River would rather die than see the money go toward her treatment. It went back to something Johnny had told her years earlier.
"The lighthouse on the cliff witnessed our wedding. But now, people don't need that old thing anymore. The ships at sea have new technology to guide them back to port. The lighthouse is going to be demolished. Its existence... it has no more meaning."
River had been devastated by his words. To make her happy, Johnny had promised her that he would build a house right in front of the lighthouse to watch over it.
"That way, the lighthouse will never be lonely again. I can look at her every single day," River had said at the time, a look of pure joy on her face.
End of Chapter Two.
Readers with a sensitive emotional side could tell that the central character of this chapter was River. She was a woman who kept her feelings locked away, revealing nothing. Yet, through the fragments of text, everyone could sense an underlying current of melancholy.
Whether it was her obsessive folding of paper rabbits, her willingness to choose death over the loss of the house, or her persistent silence, a mystery was forming.
What did the lighthouse represent to her? Why did she insist on being buried beside it? What was the significance of the paper rabbits? And why did she carry that stuffed platypus with her everywhere she went?
To the audience, the story still felt like looking through a dense fog, difficult to fully grasp. However, they could feel a faint, lingering atmosphere of sadness and beauty beginning to take root.
But the pacing remained slow. While it wasn't boring, it felt much like the early days of Anohana: a continuous process of setting up pieces and burying clues. By the second issue of the magazine, the popularity ranking for To the Moon dropped from seventh to eighth. Fan loyalty can only carry a work so far; unthinking support usually burns out quickly, rarely lasting for months. To maintain a high ranking long-term, the quality of the specific issue is what matters most.
The top six spots remained unchanged, with their vote totals continuing to climb. High-quality works naturally drain votes from the rest of the field, and as the competition progresses, the gap between the leaders and the bottom entries usually widens significantly. However, for Shiori Takahashi's die-hard fans, this drop meant nothing.
Those who had witnessed Anohana rise from last place to the very top weren't worried about eighth place. Instead, they swarmed the forums to discuss the various clues and theories hidden within the story.
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