On the first day of February, Rei posted a message through his creator account.
Along with it, he uploaded another image in the same style as the colored manga illustration he had released a few days earlier.
The image depicted a red-haired, heroic young woman, a blue-haired, mischievous girl, and a steady-faced middle-aged man looking at the two of them with gentle, doting eyes.
Behind this warm and harmonious scene, however, stood a sinister-looking man, his gaze filled with hatred.
They were the core characters of Arcane's first season: Jinx, Vi, Vander, and Silco.
The art style was clearly different from traditional manga, yet it was also distinct from the American comic style Rei remembered from his previous life. In truth, Rei had never liked western comic styles; he had always preferred the Japanese manga aesthetic. And yet, when he watched Arcane in his previous life, he had been genuinely impressed by its visual style.
"I hope everyone likes my new animation, Arcane, which is currently in preparation."
This single sentence ignited the animation industry on the very first day of February.
No money was spent on promotion. There was no explanation of the genre, no synopsis, no staff list, just a colored illustration and a short line of text.
Yet the title Arcane immediately shot to the top of trending searches across major animation websites and forums in Japan.
"Is this really a new work?"
"He's insane. Isn't Shirogane afraid of working himself to death? Teacher Shirogane, if capital is holding you hostage, just tell us fans! My boss offers me a monthly salary of 100,000 and I still wouldn't dare work this hard!"
"What a shame his annual income is in the hundreds of millions."
"If earning that much money means being responsible for three works at the same time, I'd rather just lie flat. You make the money, but you don't even have time to spend it."
"Why do my eyes keep tearing up? Because I've finally seen a true workaholic in the animation industry."
"In martial arts, speed is king. In any industry, speed is the ultimate secret. And Teacher Shirogane isn't just fast, his quality is ridiculous."
"I've been watching anime for thirty years and I've never seen a monster like this. An eighteen-year-old earning hundreds of millions a year and still working like this. My twenty-year-old son only contacts me on the first of every month to ask for living expenses. The gap is terrifying."
"Arcane? What kind of work is this? Judging by the costumes, it looks like medieval Western steampunk."
"Isn't that obvious? It's an alternate-world fantasy."
"That's my favorite genre."
"But can Teacher Shirogane really handle this kind of setting?"
"Classic. These comments show up every single time Shirogane releases something new. He's already jumped from romance to sports, then to shonen action, and One-Punch Man practically created the invincible protagonist genre. Has anything he made ever been bad? Just trust him, Shirogane always delivers."
"I usually love trolling people online, but I genuinely can't troll Shirogane. His works aren't perfect, Gon can be hard to understand in Hunter, and the Garou Arc in One-Punch Man gives Garou more screen time than Saitama, but his attitude toward creation is flawless. He never drags the plot just because a work is popular. And most importantly, he never stops innovating."
"No more words needed. Just for Teacher Shirogane's attitude alone, I'll support anything he makes."
In less than a day, news of Shirogane, his new work, and Arcane spread throughout the entire nation anime fan community.
That very evening, major media outlets began frantically reporting on Rei's new project.
Even though no one knew the actual content of the work yet, public opinion across the market was overwhelmingly positive toward Arcane, a project that, at this point, had nothing but a name and two illustrations.
If they couldn't praise the story, they praised the character designs. If they couldn't analyze the plot, they praised the art style.
After all, Rei was now a top-tier figure in the animation industry, and the media knew exactly how to attract anime fans.
Of course, the people who were truly shocked were not Rei's fans, but the executives of the Hoshimori Group and other competing manga companies.
Had Rei tasted success with One-Punch Man and become emboldened?
In the past, he had always been cautious with new projects, preferring to serialize them as manga first.
But now, with a brand-new work, he hadn't even bothered submitting it to Hoshimori Group's serialization meeting.
He had gone straight into producing it as an animation on his own.
And judging by his current status and influence, he truly had the qualifications to do so.
Although creating a work as a manga and then publishing it in collected volumes could yield astronomical royalties, and the manga company would fully handle copyright operations, the manga artist themselves wouldn't have to worry about much. They would only need to periodically cooperate with the publisher on promotional activities.
However, this approach meant sharing copyright with the manga company, and the artist's actual income would inevitably be much lower.
Moreover, for most manga, the ultimate destination is still animation or game and film adaptations.
But now, Rei was producing his new work directly as an animation, essentially skipping several steps in the traditional process.
From an outsider's perspective, Rei's approach looked extremely smart. With his current popularity in Japan, even without relying on manga magazines for promotion, fans would naturally flock to any new work he released. As long as the quality was good enough, the project would eventually grow into a massive hit.
One-Punch Man was the perfect example.
However, this was very bad news for the Hoshimori Group.
Rei was a manga artist cultivated by Hoshimori Group. One-Punch Man was an exception, a work they themselves had rejected, so they had no grounds to blame him. After all, if you refuse to serialize someone's work, you can't forbid them from producing it independently as an animation.
That kind of logic simply doesn't exist.
So even though Hoshimori Group's executives were practically drooling over the enormous success of One-Punch Man, there was nothing they could do about it.
But now, Rei had another new work, and once again, he showed no intention of submitting it to Hoshimori Group.
This time, many of the group's executives were genuinely dissatisfied.
On the morning of the second day of the month, several executives convened an editorial department meeting, summoning Misaki and Editor-in-Chief Han for questioning.
On the surface, they accused the two of incompetence, claiming they failed to understand Shirogane's daily life and work well enough, which supposedly caused the group to remain completely unaware of his new creative plans. Using this excuse, they openly criticized both of them.
Then, the meeting finally moved to its real purpose.
"Misaki, for the next few days, temporarily set aside your work on Saki's work," one executive said. "The group will assign someone else to handle manuscript supervision for that series."
"You should focus on talking to Shirogane during this period."
"Do your best to persuade Shirogane to serialize his new work, Arcane, on Hoshimori Comic in manga form."
"Me?" Misaki sneered as soon as she left the conference room. "They want me to talk to Rei?"
"What are those executives even thinking? I'm just Rei's collaborating editor. How am I supposed to interfere with his future career plans?"
"The executives are still stuck in the thinking of the previous era," Han said with a sigh, shaking his head. "There's nothing we can do. You'll just have to make the trip over the next few days."