The promotional push for the second volume of Clannad was going better than expected.
Way better, actually.
The clearest sign of that was the comment count on Full-Drive Bunko's official blog, which kept climbing. Even at its previous peak, a single post would usually get maybe a few tens of thousands of comments at most.
And even that was thanks to two trending tags: "Copycat" and "Clannad."
Whenever a post had either of those tags attached, likes, comments, and views all shot up in a way you could see with the naked eye.
Post with a trending tag, and you were guaranteed tens of thousands of likes as a baseline. Post without one, and breaking ten thousand likes was already a struggle. It was basically fair to say that "Copycat-sensei" was single-handedly carrying the whole household on his back.
But ever since the promotion for the second volume of Clannad kicked off, comment counts were now breaking a hundred thousand with ease.
Some posts were even getting comments from readers all over the world, in English, German, Korean, you name it, they'd all shown up at some point.
Most of these overseas commenters wanted pretty much the same thing: they were gushing about how much they loved Clannad, and desperately asking when the second volume would come out.
One comment in particular read: "Dear staff at Full-Drive Bunko, hello. I'm Jack from America. A friend recently recommended me Your Lie in April and Clannad, and I love both of these light novels. There's just one thing that's been bothering me: my Japanese is pretty shaky, I only picked up a little back in high school, and I'm nowhere near fluent. Because of that, there's a lot in Clannad I still don't fully understand, and a lot of my friends can't read it at all. So, is there any chance you could put out an English version of Clannad?"
When Chris Yamada read that comment, his first reaction was to be genuinely touched. His second reaction was somewhere between laughing and sighing.
Laughing, because this was Full-Drive Bunko's very first light novel to win over international fans. Sighing, because Full-Drive Bunko currently had zero plans to break into any overseas market.
Take too big a step and you're liable to pull a muscle.
Right now, Full-Drive Bunko only had one real goal: become a first-tier publisher in Japan, and then work their way up to standing shoulder to shoulder with the "Big Three" publishing houses.
Overseas markets were, without question, a delicious slice of cake. But actually eating that cake would take an enormous amount of time and effort, way more than money alone could buy.
For the past two days, Chris had been racking his brain over what the next step in the promotion should be.
The character art and poster campaign had produced results way beyond what he'd expected. He honestly had no idea how so many overseas fans had suddenly come out of the woodwork to declare their love for Clannad.
It was, genuinely, a happy accident.
His original plan for step two of the promotion had been to send out advance reader copies of Clannad to a curated list of influencers.
This time around, Chris had reached out to influencers across every field imaginable, from anime commentary channels with tens of millions of followers, all the way down to small-time mukbang streamers. He'd basically covered the whole spectrum.
And after going through the whole process, he'd noticed something interesting: the truly massive influencers were actually the least stuck-up about it. Meanwhile, the ones sitting at a few hundred thousand or a million followers acted like they were hot shots, putting on airs like nobody's business.
Some of them had even had the nerve to demand twenty million yen upfront for a single promotional post.
Chris genuinely couldn't figure out what these people had going on in their heads. He was starting to suspect it was just crap.
Thankfully, most of the influencers he'd dealt with were reasonably normal people.
"Step one worked so well, going with influencers again for step two feels like a step down."
"What if... I tried celebrities instead?"
The idea popped into his head, a little crazy even to him, but once it took root, no matter how hard he tried to shake it off, it wouldn't budge. It clung to him like some kind of bone-deep affliction.
"Let's just... reach out and see, first."
"If I remember right, the editor-in-chief mentioned a while back that the leads for the Your Lie in April movie adaptation had already been locked in. Kento Yamazaki and Suzu Hirose, I believe."
A sharp glint flashed in Chris's eyes.
Never mind Suzu Hirose, but Kento Yamazaki was one of Tokyo's hottest rising stars right now, and thanks to his role in the live-action Death Note series, he'd practically got one foot in the door of A-list stardom.
His pull with the public was, without a doubt, heavyweight material.
After mulling it over, Chris hurried to put together a revised promotional proposal, and made it to the editor-in-chief's office right before the end of the workday.
"Chief, here's the revised promotional plan."
"Didn't I already say you had full authority over this?" Even as he said that, the editor-in-chief's hands told a different story, taking the proposal without hesitation. But it wasn't long before his brow furrowed.
"...Whoa. Isn't this going a little overboard? Getting celebrities to help promote Clannad, sure, I can get behind that idea. But the names you've got here are way too big!"
"Takuya Kimura, Shun Oguri, Gakki, Satomi Ishihara... why don't you just go ahead and invite the Emperor while you're at it?"
The more the editor-in-chief read, the more absurd it seemed to him.
Getting celebrities like these to promote Clannad, even assuming they could actually land them, how much would that even cost? The budget would blow way past any reasonable limit.
Sure, he'd told Chris not to worry about the promotional budget. But apparently, Chris had taken that a little too much to heart.
"...Is that a no?" Chris hesitated for a second before continuing. "Chief, how about Kento Yamazaki and Suzu Hirose, then? They're not quite as big yet, and I heard they're already signed on for the Your Lie in April movie, so they should be willing to do us a favor."
"Kento Yamazaki and Suzu Hirose?" The editor-in-chief paused for a moment, then said slowly, "Those two, sure, that's not nearly as much of a stretch. Let me reach out to some contacts and ask around."
"Then I'll get going."
They talked a bit longer, and Chris bowed and took his leave, walking out of the editor-in-chief's office.
The second the door closed behind him, a victorious grin spread across his face.
Chris was fond of a line: most people, by nature, prefer compromise and moderation.
Say the room's too dark and you need to open a window here, people will never agree. But if you propose tearing the roof off entirely, they'll suddenly rush to compromise and agree to the window instead.
Chris figured that if he'd walked in and asked outright for Kento Yamazaki and Suzu Hirose to promote Clannad, the chief might've shot him down flat.
But by holding up Shun Oguri and others as the decoy, the whole equation changed.
Plan: executed successfully!
...
..
The last Sunday of January—
Eight o'clock at night, Full-Drive Bunko dropped a bombshell announcement.
Your Lie in April has officially climbed to the No. 19 spot in viewership, stomping Detective Conan back under its feet for another week. Thanks to the Your Lie in April anime's incredible viewership numbers, Full-Drive Bunko has decided to team up with Dengeki Bunko to produce the second half of the Your Lie in April anime, airing right after the first half wraps up.
Also, the Your Lie in April movie is officially confirmed, with the male and female leads locked in as Kento Yamazaki and Suzu Hirose!
And now, another big piece of news. Copycat-sensei and Kento Yamazaki will be teaming up for an absolutely legendary crossover collab. Next Wednesday at 8 PM, the two of them will appear together via voice call on Full-Drive Bunko's livestream.
Not only will there be big giveaways, but Copycat-sensei and Yamazaki-san will also be chatting in detail about the ins and outs of the second volume of Clannad... Repost, comment, and like this post for a chance to win...
The moment that post went live, readers were, understandably, shocked at first. But overall, the reaction was manageable enough.
After all, most of the fanbase was male, and Kento Yamazaki just can't do anything for them.
As for Hirose Suzu, mentioned in the same post, most male commenters mainly rated her as "a decent actress."
High emotional intelligence version: "a skilled actress."
Low emotional intelligence version: "not that good-looking, doesn't hold a candle to my Kaori, no comparison."
But about half an hour later, the comment section under that post was suddenly flooded by a massive wave of frenzied female fans.
[Wait, is this blog the author whose book Kento's movie is based on?]
[OMG, finally another movie with Kento in it! He's so talented, he's just been waiting for a decent script all this time.]
[Is it called Your Lie in April or Clannad? I'm gonna go buy a copy right now and see for myself if this author's actually got the chops."
—(Reply)[Kento's movie is Your Lie in April, full title Your Lie in April. It's such a devastating light novel, I'm absolutely obsessed. Girls, go buy it, both Your Lie in April and Clannad, both of these light novels, Kento's reading them himself!]
[Wait, guys, look, there's a bundle deal for Your Lie in April and Clannad together, everyone get this one, it's 10% off! "Supporting Kento, let's all buy together!]
...
Oikawa was also lurking in the comments incognito.
Reading through all these fangirl comments, he was left completely stunned.
When it came to sheer spending power, women had men beat, no contest. That held true in basically every country, but especially in Japan, where the average woman's spending power was at least double that of the average man.
And on top of that, hardcore fan communities took it to another level entirely. Sometimes, just to boost their favorite singer's chart rankings, they'd buy tens of copies of the same album in one go without blinking, and just let them collect dust.
That alone said everything about just how much spending power these fangirls had.
Oikawa genuinely thought Chris was operating on another level entirely.
How did he even come up with this stuff?
Roping in actual celebrities for this? That was seriously impressive.
.
.
.
༺ If you're interested, you can read the chapters ahead on pat👉 patreon.com/_Coreal ༻