Kurosawa was in a good mood.
After a month of accumulation, Detective Conan enjoyed great popularity, as expected. He had to use his future as collateral when signing with Takumi, but yesterday's high-level meeting praised his decision.
The board of directors believed that Detective Conan was an original manga that could become the company's pillar and decided to invest a large amount of money in advertising. In addition, Takumi personally prepared the original poster, and Kurosawa had full confidence in the future.
However, the popularity of the manga also brought an unexpected situation that led Kurosawa to focus on the internet.
The cause of the incident was a mundane fan post on the official forum of the Japanese Mystery Association yesterday:
"I recommend everyone to read Detective Conan; it's much better than mystery novels." This fan should not have had malicious intentions, but she was unaware that the official forum of the Japanese Mystery Association is not an ordinary reader forum, and many mystery novel authors participate in it.
The market is booming, and although mystery novels are a niche, they cannot be ignored. As soon as this post appeared, it caused displeasure among the authors on the forum.
"First floor: Better than mystery novels? Don't be funny, the poster should go to bed!"
"Second floor: Who wrote the novel Detective Conan? I don't know it. The name is nonsense...".
"Third Floor: Upstairs, it's an original mystery manga. The protagonist is a narcissistic high school student. The author wrote it as a very popular love story among girls. It's said that many people like it."
The replies to the post were reasonable at first, but then became increasingly excessive.
"98th Floor: The author is a fool. Only someone would think Detective Conan's reasoning is good. I've identified him!"
"99th Floor: The protagonist is a fool and the heroine is a nymphomaniac. The funniest thing is that the manga's author presented him as a 'genius boy.' How stupid must the readers be to believe it!"
"100th Floor: I went to take a look and it was simply dazzling! The protagonist goes from a high school student to an elementary school child, and then lives with a high school girl. It's a brother-sister relationship and a shota love. What kind of mindset do readers who like this manga have?"
"101st Floor: Haha, welcome to watch 'Elementary School Student and High School Girl Living Together.avi'."
"102nd Floor: LZSB, please give me a seed!"
Some readers followed the author's post and caused a stir, disparaging Detective Conan.
The worst part was that the forum administrator not only didn't stop it but even pinned it, which allowed more people to attack and insult it. The author of the post got so angry that she cried. She posted the screenshot on Twitter, and Detective Conan followers immediately reposted it. It also spread widely in various communication groups. Immediately, someone threatened to organize a 3,000-person "holy war" to force the reasoning forum to publicly apologize.
The holy war was at 10:00 AM... At
9:55 AM, Kurosawa opened the official website of the Japanese Reasoning Association. He believed that this holy war would be very beneficial for the promotion of Detective Conan, but he was also a little worried about what might happen in the future.
"Fifty-seven, fifty-eight, fifty-nine..."
"Huh?"
Suddenly, Kurosawa discovered that the website was offline.
"What's wrong? Why is it offline?"
Kurosawa asked, stunned. It was obviously unreasonable. The official forum of the Japanese Detective Association could have hundreds of thousands of people connected at the same time, and there had never been an outage. 'Could it be that the editorial department's network wasn't stable?'
But this was even more unacceptable. The Weekly Shōnen Editorial Department had a 2M broadband connection and there had been no problems.
Kurosawa quickly pressed F5 to refresh. After two minutes, the website slowly reappeared.
"Holy War: The Detective Conan Support Group joins the battle!"
"Holy War: The Alliance of Older Sisters Who Love Shota joins the battle!"
"Holy War: Mirai-sensei's True Body Puzzle Team joins the battle!"
The entire forum was filled with bright red text, and the page was overflowing with posts bearing the Holy War logo. Kurosawa instinctively looked at the bottom left corner, which showed the number of people connected at the same time: 18,823...
18,000!
'Aren't there only 3,000 people in the Holy War?'
Kurosawa was surprised for a moment, and his finger pressed F5 again, and the website went offline! 'Offline again?'
'What happened?' He refreshed the chat several times, but got no results, so he quickly opened the chat and entered the Detective Conan room he had anonymously joined.
"I'm disconnected!"
"Too many people, I'm disconnected too!"
"Check Twitter, Twitter is going crazy, I'll screenshot it for you."
The chat was chaotic; it seemed that many people were disconnected. Several screenshots were posted, and Kurosawa's eyes widened. He discovered that the content of those Twitter screenshots were fans complaining about the disconnection, and one of them showed that the number of people connected on the Japanese Reasoning Forum before the disconnection was... 19,999!
"Nineteen thousand nine hundred ninety-seven!"
"No, it must be over 20,000."
'I see, there are over 20,000 people participating in the holy war, and then those behind the website are kicked out in groups, and the forum only supports 20,000!'
"Wow, 20,000 compatriots!"
"Great! Quickly paralyze their server!"
Seeing the cheers in the chat, Kurosawa was stunned. Over 20,000... in a single day! What happened yesterday was organized in less than a day, and the actual number of participants exceeded 20,000!
'What did this mean?'
Detective Conan has not yet been published online. Its readers come from manga magazines, and it's impossible for everyone to access the internet. Even with the most conservative ten-to-one ratio, Detective Conan's fan base exceeds 200,000!
With 200,000 fans, it is the undisputed number one in original Japanese manga!
However, at that moment, the situation changed again.
"Oh no, how despicable! The forum has activated membership mode."
A new message appeared in the chat. Membership mode is also called "invincible mode." When the forum cannot handle the number of online users, the administrator blocks visitors from Browse or talking.
This measure would prevent the holy war from continuing...
However, Kurosawa breathed a sigh of relief. He felt satisfied. Detective Conan would become more popular after this short holy war. With such a spectacular number of holy wars, overwhelming news would soon appear, and there was no danger.
"Don't worry, there's another explosive news!"
"What's new?"
"I'll take a screenshot."
Another screenshot was posted in the chat. Kurosawa was startled when he saw it.
"If you don't apologize, the holy war won't end! The Detective Conan hacker team joins the war!"
"Please wait a few minutes, we will immediately assume authority over the reasoning forum."
"Hackers!"
It's over, this is serious...
Kurosawa's face turned pale. Japanese laws are very strict. A holy war involving hackers can no longer be considered a joke, but a full-blown crime. If the reasoning association takes it to court, it will be a big problem!