On June 3rd, the PV for Code Geass season two was released. With the sky-high popularity of season one as a foundation, the PV sparked a wave of discussion online the moment it dropped.
"Finally, season two is here."
"I get to see Lelouch again, but I'm also going to get wrecked again. Ugh..."
"I don't want to watch it, but I also really want to watch it. That bastard Shido is the worst!"
"All I want to know is what the hell happened at the end of season one."
"The Euphemia part in season one destroyed me. Can season two please not kill anyone else?"
"With this kind of story and Shido's style, there's no way nobody else dies. But personally, as long as the main character Lelouch and his sister Nunnally make it through alive, I'm fine."
"Lelouch is the best! Zero is the best!"
Since it was just the second season and not the first, Yuta only glanced at the online reactions briefly and did not pay them much mind.
He went right back to his busy routine: writing scripts, drawing storyboards, working on character designs, holding production meetings, and occasionally visiting the voice recording studio or the music recording sessions.
It was exhausting, but also fulfilling in a way. Not a single day felt wasted.
...
Knock knock.
Someone rapped on the door.
Yuta looked up and saw Rika hurrying into his office.
"Boss, someone is riding our coattails," she said urgently.
"Hm?" Yuta furrowed his brow.
"AC Studio just dropped a PV for a new anime. It's a supernatural battle series, and their producer came out and said that the reason they made it was because they couldn't stand how Code Geass starts off hype and then turns into suffering," Rika explained.
Yuta calmly opened a browser on his computer and looked up the news about AC Studio's new anime.
It really had just been posted. Less than ten minutes ago.
The anime was called The Powerless in the Psychic Academy, and judging from the PV, the production budget looked pretty generous.
As for the content of the PV itself, it focused mainly on showcasing several female characters. It was basically just a highlight reel, and there was not much to say about it.
The show also had a "light novel adaptation" tag, but since Yuta did not really follow the light novel scene, he was not familiar with the source material and had no idea what the story was like.
After a quick look, Yuta said flatly, "This isn't even an original anime. What does Code Geass being hype-then-heartbreak have to do with them?"
"That's exactly why they're clout chasing," Rika replied.
Yuta shook his head slightly and searched for more information about the source novel for The Powerless in the Psychic Academy.
Since it was not published online, he could not read the original text directly. But from what he could find, the light novel's protagonist was exactly what the title suggested: a powerless student in a school full of psychics. That setup was a bit similar to Touma from A Certain Magical Index, but that was where the similarities ended.
Based on the synopsis, it was actually more like The Irregular at Magic High School, except the protagonist did not seem to be a sister-obsessed type.
Instead, the story went down the overpowered-flexing-plus-harem route.
After getting a general picture, Yuta closed the browser and turned to Rika. "Got it. You can head back to work."
"Boss, aren't we going to do something about it?" Rika could not help asking.
"What do you want to do?" Yuta asked back.
"I don't know, that's why I came to ask you."
"The fact that they're trying to ride our coattails just proves our anime is popular enough. As long as it doesn't hurt our own numbers, there's no need to lose sleep over it."
"We're really not doing anything?"
"Nope."
"Alright then."
Rika said nothing more and left the office.
Yuta truly did nothing about it and went right back to burying himself in work.
Clout chasing was perfectly normal.
After all, Code Geass was genuinely massive.
Ever since season one's popularity surpassed The Girl Called God, Code Geass had held a firm grip on the number one spot on the monthly anime popularity rankings.
The male lead Lelouch had consistently topped the male character popularity rankings, and that number one position had been locked down before season one was even halfway through.
As for the female character rankings, C.C. had been in a long tug-of-war with the heroine of The Girl Called God, but after that series ended, the top spot had mostly belonged to C.C.
Beyond Lelouch and C.C., various other male and female characters had also broken into the top ten of their respective rankings.
On top of that, according to search rankings from major portal sites, Code Geass sat at fifth place overall among all TV anime. And if you excluded those long-running shows that had been on the air for years, Code Geass was number one.
The voice cast was pulling in extremely high search numbers too.
Of course, the search volume for "Yuta Shido" and "Tearjerker Demon King" was even higher.
For someone who had never shown his face or lent his voice to anything, just a behind-the-scenes creator, having that kind of search traffic was frankly absurd.
By now, Code Geass season one had been over for several months, but its popularity had not faded. If anything, it had grown even stronger after the back-to-back wins at the Shiraishi Awards and the Kyoto Animation Awards.
Before season one premiered, White Dove had needed to push hard with promotions.
But now, with season two about to air, marketing was barely even necessary. With popularity this high, it was only natural that someone would try to ride Code Geass's coattails.
The thing was, doing it the way AC Studio did, by stepping on Code Geass to force the comparison, was just obnoxious. The truly smart people had already started following the trend.
And even if they were not following the trend, they would at least praise Code Geass while pointing out how their own new anime shared certain similarities with it.
Who did what AC Studio did?
Sure, by trashing Code Geass to grab attention, they might attract potential viewers who already had a grudge against the show. But that crowd was not easy to please.
Regardless, this whole thing had no real impact on Code Geass's popularity, and there was no reason for Starfall to get involved. At most, they could mentally take note of it, or have someone reach out to AC Studio privately and suggest they change their marketing approach.
Dealing with AC Studio was the sort of thing Aoi would handle, so Starfall did not need to lift a finger.
As for whether someone needed to specifically inform Aoi about it, that was obviously unnecessary. Her information network was far better than what Starfall had. If even Rika knew someone was trying to piggyback off Code Geass, there was no way Aoi did not know.
Most likely, Aoi had decided this was not worth interrupting his work over, which was why she had not called him right away.
In short, all he needed to do on his end was focus on making anime and making sure the upcoming season two was as good as it could be.
Everything else would be taken care of by others. There was no need to worry.
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