After the ninth episode of One-Punch Man aired, the surge in viewership finally made everyone in the Japanese animation industry realize that something was wrong.
Under normal circumstances, even the so-called top anime of a season usually hovered just above a 5 percent viewership rating, rarely exceeding 6 percent. With so many anime airing simultaneously each season, and multiple TV stations broadcasting similar programs in the same time slots, viewership was naturally dispersed.
Because of this, any work capable of breaking the 6 percent threshold was essentially considered a candidate for Anime of the Year.
In fact, no anime in Japan had managed to surpass 6 percent viewership this year. Whether it was Hikaru No Go or the major titles from the previous three seasons, the highest single-episode rating had only reached 5.7 percent.
This week, One-Punch Man broke that record for the first time.
And more importantly, the autumn anime season still had several weeks left.
Under these circumstances, roughly two months after One-Punch Man began airing, the various merchandise manufacturers and partner companies working with Rei finally launched the official One-Punch Man merchandise that he had previously approved.
These products became available across major Japanese online shopping platforms, the Illumination Animation official website, and select physical retail outlets.
Of course, although Rei established a company during this period to cooperate with multiple merchandise manufacturers under his own name, this model inevitably required sharing profits with partners. This was very different from Hoshimori Group.
Although Hoshimori Group is primarily a comic publisher, it operates a complete one-stop industrial chain that includes printing, sales, merchandise production, and distribution channels. For merchandise sold at the same price, Hoshimori Group's profit margins would naturally be higher than Rei's.
However, Rei was not greedy.
His involvement in the animation industry stemmed more from personal interest and passion. He wanted to bring outstanding works from his previous life into this world, rather than becoming deeply entangled in commercial operations.
Earning slightly less did not matter to him.
Moreover, given One-Punch Man's current popularity, even without pouring excessive energy into IP operations, Rei was already earning far more from this work than he would have if it had been serialized under Hoshimori Group's comic journal.
As One-Punch Man continued to grow in popularity, professionals from both the animation and comic industries across Japan, along with countless fans, all began asking the same question.
How was One-Punch Man rejected by Hoshimori Group back then?
This work did not require a slow buildup at all. The plot of the very first episode was already incredibly engaging.
"I heard Teacher Shirogane originally prepared the first three chapters of two manga manuscripts and intended to submit them together to Hoshimori Group's serialization meeting. Unfortunately, the editors rejected the submission outright based on regulations, without even reviewing the content. In the end, Teacher Shirogane chose to submit Hunter and personally funded the production of the One-Punch Man anime."
"Given One-Punch Man's current popularity, even if Hunter gets an anime adaptation, it probably won't surpass One-Punch Man."
"That's hard to say. Hunter's reputation feels slightly stronger than One-Punch Man's. But in terms of commercial value, One-Punch Man clearly has greater potential."
"In Japan, both works are top-tier within the anime industry. But overseas, especially in Western markets, One-Punch Man's popularity is clearly higher."
"Overseas? Neither of them has officially opened international broadcast channels yet, right?"
"The foreign-language manga volumes of Hunter have already been released abroad, and their sales are quite strong. But they still can't compare to One-Punch Man."
"Foreign audiences seem extremely receptive to heroes and monsters. Even without high-definition broadcasts on overseas TV stations, many viewers are still watching low-quality phone recordings that spread from Japan, and they love it. It has already become the most anticipated Japanese anime among foreign fans, and the number of pre-orders for official One-Punch Man Blu-rays on overseas platforms is astonishing."
"Huh? I thought Hunter would have the advantage between the two. Is One-Punch Man actually more famous?"
"Reputation and commercial value are two completely different things. At this stage, Teacher Shirogane's most critically acclaimed work is still Hikaru No Go."
"But even if Hikaru No Go could reach one-tenth of Hunter's commercial value, that would already be impressive. And when it comes to merchandise development, Hunter is clearly inferior to One-Punch Man."
"Just look at it. The Vaccine Man figurine from One-Punch Man alone ranks extremely high on user wish lists across major shopping platforms. Meanwhile, for Hunter, aside from the four main protagonists and Hisoka, most readers don't feel a strong desire to buy merchandise for the other characters."
"From the current situation, Hoshimori Group probably regrets it bitterly."
"But the peripheral production and distribution companies that Teacher Shirogane found really aren't that capable. Their support for One-Punch Man's IP operations is clearly far inferior to what Hoshimori Group could provide."
"So what if One-Punch Man's IP grows bigger? Most of the money would still be earned by Hoshimori Group, while Teacher Shirogane would only receive a pitiful royalty share. As things stand now, One-Punch Man may not be able to rapidly expand its IP value through Hoshimori Group's channels, but at least Teacher Shirogane is earning several times more."
"To put it bluntly, submitting a work to a manga group means using their journal channels to gain fame quickly. But if a self-produced work can become as popular as One-Punch Man, who would be foolish enough to hand over the copyright and split the profits with a manga company?"
On the internet, Shirogane's fans happily indulged in gossip.
Meanwhile, professionals within the anime industry quietly observed the situation.
As for Rei and Hoshimori Group, everyone tacitly avoided mentioning the issue in direct communication.
After all, their collaborative work was Hunter. As for One-Punch Man, the die had already been cast. No matter how unpleasant it was, Hoshimori Group's executives could only swallow the result.
What they did see, however, was that One-Punch Man merchandise sold out within three days of going online. Fans flocked to offline stores every day to inquire about restocks, driving shop owners nearly frantic. Yet suppliers had no inventory available. Large numbers of fans swarmed Rei's creator account like nagging spouses, accusing him of artificial scarcity.
They demanded that he stop playing hunger marketing tactics. If he just wanted to raise prices, he should say so openly. They would pay whatever it cost.
This left Rei both amused and helpless.
How could he possibly be engaging in hunger marketing?
The truth was that the cooperating merchandise companies had initially underestimated One-Punch Man's potential. As a result, the production capacity allocated in the early stages was far too limited.
Now that they fully understood the market demand, they were rushing to expand production. However, manufacturing, shipping, and channel distribution all required time. Japan is vast with dense offline retail networks. It was simply impossible to complete nationwide distribution in just a few days.
Still, One-Punch Man's explosive popularity put Rei somewhat at ease.
In fact, in Rei's previous life, the IP value of One-Punch Man had been higher than Hunter's.
This might be debatable within East Asia, but in Western markets, One-Punch Man's popularity clearly surpassed Hunter's, and the same was true for merchandise sales.
The situation after both works were recreated in Japan followed a similar pattern.
"If I ever make another self-produced animation in the future, I'll need to cooperate directly with a few top-tier Japanese companies," Rei muttered after some thought.
It wasn't that he had never considered doing everything himself.
But after careful consideration, he simply didn't have the energy. Even setting aside other issues, if he were to establish a merchandise company from scratch, handling production, sales, and nationwide distribution across dozens of provinces, it would take far more than a few months or even a year or two, no matter how much money he threw at it.
Moreover, if a single creator monopolized both upstream and downstream profits from a massively popular IP, the inevitable result would be collective resistance from peers across the entire industry chain. There was no need to invite that kind of trouble.
By mid-December, the second volume of the Hunter manga was officially released.
Although the relationship between Rei and Hoshimori Group had become somewhat delicate due to One-Punch Man and Hunter existing simultaneously, fans did not care about such subtleties.
They had no reservations about mocking capital groups like Hoshimori Group.
But when it came time to spend money, they did not hesitate in the slightest.
Many Hunter fans were drawn into One-Punch Man because of Hunter.
Likewise, many One-Punch Man fans began exploring Rei's earlier works such as Five Centimeters Per Second, Tonight, Hikaru No Go, and Hunter because of the anime.
Driven by the cumulative popularity of Rei's works, the single-volume sales of Five Centimeters Per Second surpassed six million copies.
And then, the first-week sales numbers for the second volume of Hunter shocked the entire manga industry.
5.86 million copies.
After all, this ranked as the fourth-highest first-week sales figure among all manga volumes released in Japan that year.