An anime whose popularity had reached the level of a social phenomenon was itself a massive cake. There was no need to promote it proactively; investors came one after another seeking cooperation. However, aside from a small portion of collaboration projects, almost all of them were rejected by Yosuganosora Animation Studio.
'Puella Magi Madoka Magica' was Kamiyā Yuu's original anime. It had not sought investment, nor did it have an animation planner. All of the anime's copyrights were firmly held in his hands. Now that the cake had grown large, Kamiyā Yuu naturally had the right to choose his customers.
Yosuganosora Animation Studio had never stopped expanding. Aside from the key departments responsible for anime production, it was also constantly building a complete industry chain.
To put it plainly, if Kamiyā Yuu created an anime, then he needed to have the ability to maximize that anime's value. This included publicity before broadcast, related events during production, and all kinds of copyright partnerships after broadcast.
At present, ordinary animation studios can only receive income from Blu-ray sales. Yet the industry's Blu-ray sales model had long since fallen behind. The original price of each Blu-ray was shockingly expensive, resulting in only the truly devoted fans of a given anime buying them.
Here, it was worth mentioning that the production process for anime Blu-rays was not complicated. The cost was not much different from those pirated discs that sold for a few hundred yen.
As for why they were sold at such high prices instead of following a low-margin, high-volume route, that was because of the strict requirements of the Animation Production Association.
Just like the Voice Actor Association's meaningless voice actor ranking system, Blu-ray sales were tied to the lifeline of an entire anime production. The slightest mistake could cause the foundation of the entire Japanese anime industry to collapse along with it. Therefore, no one dared to easily change this rule.
The main revenue of animation studios came from Blu-ray sales. As for anime copyrights, those were all held by planning companies. In plain terms, it was the relationship between factories and merchants.
In the current industry, planning companies pull in sponsors to provide funding for animation studios while also handling the planning of the entire anime. This included requirements such as appointing the animation director.
Planning companies usually played the role of a relationship hub within the industry. But this hub controlled the lifeblood of the entire industry. The phenomenon of animation studios being so poor that they could not pay wages, while planning companies were filthy rich, was everywhere.
With Kamiyā Yuu's original 'Puella Magi Madoka Magica', he had saved himself from needing this industry relationship hub known as a planning company.
After 'Puella Magi Madoka Magica' was produced, aside from the cooperation fees that needed to be paid, he would still receive the largest share of the profits.
What Yosuganosora Animation Studio currently lacked most was a complete industry product line. It could not yet fully maximize the potential value of 'Puella Magi Madoka Magica'.
Squeezing a work's commercial value was not a bad thing. Commercialization meant popularization, and that would increase the popularity of the entire anime. From there, it could even be built into a well-known industry IP.
For example, under the operations of the "fake-book" company, 'RWBY' had already become a well-known anime IP in Europe and America.
When Yosuganosora Animation Studio was still immature, Kamiyā Yuu's first Japanese anime, 'Magical Girl Nanoha', had greatly wasted its potential value aside from a manga adaptation, figure sales, and scattered commercial collaborations.
The iron rule of the industry was survival of the fittest, as well as continuous development. An excellent anime did not become popular through animation quality alone.
Throughout history, countless good works had been buried, and a failed business strategy was one of the main reasons. In addition, operations also affected a work's later popularity.
For example, 'RWBY' had become somewhat popular in Japan for a while, but without the necessary operation, its popularity would continue to decline. This was commonly known as becoming outdated.
After 'Puella Magi Madoka Magica' was completed, Kamiyā Yuu found some free time and wrote a proposal for the game operating company where Mizuhara Nanako worked.
Essentially, it was a game collaboration between 'Puella Magi Madoka Magica' and 'Warship Girls Collection', adding new gameplay features. The Mental Model character illustrations of 'Puella Magi Madoka Magica' would also increase players' motivation to play the game.
Kamiyā Yuu even added, with particular mischievousness, Madokami's Mental Model illustration. This illustration also had independent voice lines and dynamic special effects.
It was time to let game players distinguish the difference between Europeans and Africans.
As for obtaining Madokami's Mental Model illustration, one either had to grind day and night in 'Warship Girls Collection' for a month, draw it through paid gacha at an extremely low probability, or rely on the pity guarantee after spending one million yen.
In addition, the game operating company Mizuhara Nanako belonged to, Kyōka Suigetsu, had also been incorporated into Yosuganosora Animation Studio while funds were abundant.
Kamiyā Yuu acquired fifty-one percent of the company's shares.
The game copyright for 'Warship Girls Collection' had always remained in Kamiyā Yuu's hands. When he originally agreed to cooperate with Mizuhara Nanako, he took the opportunity to sign a legally binding exploitative contract. As a result, the overwhelming majority of 'Warship Girls Collection's revenue flowed into Kamiyā Yuu's pocket.
Under such conditions, it was only a matter of time before Yosuganosora Animation Studio absorbed this game operating company.
The funds used to acquire Mizuhara Nanako's game operating company came from part of the copyright revenue earned by 'Warship Girls Collection'.
Of course, Kamiyā Yuu still left Mizuhara Nanako a lifeline.
Just as he had treated Lin Ye, who founded the bullet-comment video website 'BIUBIUBIU', Kamiyā Yuu left her with twenty percent ownership of the shares.
This was equivalent to Kamiyā Yuu smashing Mizuhara Nanako's empty large plate, then giving her a small plate filled with cake instead. Mizuhara Nanako's personal income had actually increased by more than a hundredfold.
After acquiring Kyōka Suigetsu, Kamiyā Yuu intended to have it create a game based on 'Puella Magi Madoka Magica'. However, Kyōka Suigetsu currently did not possess the ability to independently develop games, so he gave up on the idea.
Kamiyā Yuu did not want to use a trash-tier game just to make up the numbers. That would only lower the IP value of 'Puella Magi Madoka Magica'.
The game-anime collaboration was one of the compensatory measures after the idea of producing a 'Puella Magi Madoka Magica' game fell through.
"The game industry, huh... With my current funds, it's still not enough to get involved. The simplest and fastest method would be to buy a large game development company, but without several hundred million or even over a billion US dollars, that's impossible. And after buying one, there would be quite a few matters to handle too."
"AAA-level major productions are basically out of the question. For now, I'll continue developing through smaller games or games like 'Warship Girls Collection'."
"Come to think of it, 'Warship Girls Collection's current revenue has already left those AAA productions far behind. If I want to develop in this direction, I can first invest a sum of money into Miss Mizuhara's side. In any case, the first step is to establish a game development department."
Thinking about the gaming side of things, Kamiyā Yuu shook his head with a smile.
With his experience from the previous world, he was already used to such things. It was not uncommon for large game studios to spend years producing AAA masterpieces, only for their profits to fail to match a mobile game made by a small workshop.
Kamiyā Yuu's interests were not limited to anime. Given the conditions, he also wanted to make games. There was no shortage of examples of anime being adapted into games.
Although the genres differed, 'RWBY', 'Magical Girl Nanoha', and 'Puella Magi Madoka Magica' all had all kinds of games.