As Thursday came, Souta had just gotten home from school. He immediately went to his room, started up his computer, and opened the new OP Echo Shroud had uploaded for Mizushiro's new work.
It had already been up for four hours.
He could've watched it on his phone…
…but he'd waited to get home and watch it properly—on the big screen—to really get the feel.
He clicked play.
It opened on a blonde character standing alone.
Guitar played in the background, and the singer's voice hit.
And the lyrics flowed:
"I want to go back and finish the thing I've got to finish."
Two minutes in, Souta just sat there.
Frozen. Processing what he'd just heard.
He blinked. Pulled out of the video.
"…This is probably top 10 openings I've ever heard, and it's not even from the anime."
He rewatched it.
Five times.
Only after that did he feel somewhat satisfied.
Each time, he caught more: tiny scene cues, transitions, and the meaning behind the lyrics.
Then, without missing a beat, he grabbed his Echo Shroud magazine from two weeks ago and started reading Fullmetal Alchemist.
At first, he hadn't really planned to read it.He usually waited for the chapters to stack—20 or 30 at least—before deciding if he really wanted to invest in the story.
But now, after actually reading it?
"Ahhh, Mizushiro… you and your cliffhangers…"
He immediately jumped to Mizushiro-sensei's Fend account.
The comments section was already on fire:
"Hey everyone—I've watched this song 30 times, and I wrote a full breakdown of the meaning behind it. This isn't just a song—it's a message. Check my post if you want to understand what it's really saying."
"Man, I'm so hyped for this manga. Mizushiro, I won't tell you to delay Fullmetal Alchemist to continue Initial D again. Just give us more chapters. Three isn't enough. Everyone, we need to send more letters this time. We did it for Initial D, and he still hasn't given us a single bonus chapter. This time, we go harder."
"Bro… this is a serious contender for best opening of the year. I haven't heard anything else even close. What a f*cking OP. Still getting goosebumps."
Souta kept scrolling.But no matter how many comments he read, he wasn't satisfied.
It was like a drug.If he didn't listen to the song again within minutes, he'd start feeling restless.
He hit play. Again.
After listening to it for the nth time, he started sending the link to every single classmate he knew.
For the past few months, he'd also gotten weirdly into reaction videos.
At first, he thought: why watch the same content again just to see someone else watch it?
But something about seeing other people react the way he did… it just hit.
So he went straight to spamming the 2 or 3 reaction channels he followed:
"PLEASE react to 'Again' by Saisei. This is gonna be anime opening of the year."
Then he checked the comments, and sure enough, people were already flooding them:
"Please react to the song Again!!"
That night, after finishing his homework, Souta opened his streaming app and saw his favorite reaction channel doing a livestream.
He immediately jumped into the chat and started spamming:
"Please react to 'Again' by Saisei!"
The streamer laughed.
"Okay, what is going on? I've been getting the same message all day:'React to the song Again, react to Again!'I swear, it's everywhere.Alright, alright—let's see what the hype's about. I'll play it."
The guy wasn't even a Japanese speaker.
But after listening, he just sat there—stunned.
"Man… what an amazing song. That was so cool."
By the next day, multiple reaction channels were already uploading their takes.
And over at the publishing office, there was only one thing people were talking about:
"Hey… have you seen the new OP for Fullmetal Alchemist?"
At the Red Lantern editorial meeting,Editor-in-chief Minatoji sat at the head of the table, staring at all the editors, thinking.
He'd been in this role for over a year now. And in that time, the company had never seen this kind of gap between Echo Shroud and Red Lantern.
But over the past two months, that gap had started to widen without giving Red Lantern a real chance to catch up.
And as he sat there thinking about what they could do to reduce the gap…
Just yesterday, he had found out Echo Shroud had launched an OP for their new manga.
Normally, new fans—especially those who don't already read manga—come in through anime. What usually happens is that by the time an anime gets made, the manga has been serialized for at least a year and a half. The anime gives it a massive second boost. That's when most series hit their real peak.
But after watching the OP for Fullmetal Alchemist, Minatoji had been speechless.
That song was beautiful.
And the reaction?
In his 30-plus years in the industry, he could count on one hand how many brand-new manga just two weeks in had ever sparked this level of hype.
At first, he had actually felt relieved. Mizushiro was ending Initial D and Natsume, and Red Lantern was finally in a position to overtake Echo Shroud. Their two biggest titles were on the way out.
But after seeing the momentum of this new work, he wasn't so sure anymore.
Some people were saying it was just early hype, that it would die down.
But he had seen the video.
If the actual story matched the tone and the lyrics of that OP, then yeah. He could already tell it was going to outperform Mizushiro's previous work.
Which meant the gap between them?
It was only going to get worse.
That was why he called this meeting.
"So, all of you have seen the OP from Mizushiro's new work, right? What do you think of this kind of promotion strategy, and what can we do to counter it?"
The editors began murmuring among themselves.
Finally, editor Itsukiro, who managed Kuroya—Red Lantern's third-most popular manga—spoke up.
"Editor-in-chief, I think it's a brilliant idea. Making an OP for a manga is a great way to bring in more fans, especially casual readers. But we've got to be careful which series we do it for. An OP eats up a huge part of the promotion budget. So if we go that route, we should limit it to our top five titles. Otherwise, it's just not worth the cost."
As he said that, he already knew the score. Kuroya was ranked number three.
It didn't have an anime yet, and the reason was clear. The story was too unorthodox. Too dark. Too gory.
It had a strong fanbase, no doubt. But turning it into an anime would probably only break even at best.
And if it underperformed?
That would damage the manga's image for any potential new fans.
Kuroya himself had already turned down multiple studio offers. Not enough budget. Not the quality he wanted. He wasn't going to gamble on that.
While Itsukiro was thinking,Editor Shigure spoke up.
His mangaka had only debuted a year ago and was already ranked #5. But the series had hit a plateau. It was gaining fans, but the growth was slow.
He hoped that if they landed the OP slot, it could break through that wall. If the opening brought in new fans, the series would gain more followers—boosting its ranking in Red Lantern, which meant a bigger budget for promotion. And once that cycle started, it could keep repeating.
He'd already started pushing his author toward it, because if they waited too long, other series would beat them to it. Once everyone started doing OPs, only the best ones would stand out.
But right now?
Early adopters had the best shot.
He wanted to strike while the iron was hot.
Minatoji could tell. Both of them were really just fighting for their own mangaka's resource slot.
But the more he thought about it, the more one thing became clear.
Why stop at just one or two videos?
Why not go bigger?
Five OPs. Five different manga.
They could pull budget from older, less effective promos and redirect it into this. It was the perfect chance to spotlight multiple strong titles from Red Lantern and bring in a wave of new readers.
He didn't want to risk everything on one mangaka the way Echo Shroud had.
He'd heard the rumors. Echo Shroud had around 30% of its entire readership tied to just one name—Mizushiro.
That was both a strength and a risk.
If the series was long-running, it meant stable income.
But if it only lasted two or three years, sales would crash hard once it ended. Not ideal for long-term publishing.
For Minatoji, the decision was obvious.
Red Lantern wasn't going to rely on just one title.
They would produce multiple OPs. For multiple series.
And they would move fast.
Other publishers were also preparing to launch new manga, and once the top animation studios got booked up, there'd be no catching up.
After three hours of discussion, they finally chose the five titles that would move forward into OP production.
Shout out to newroad, Tony Cook for joining my p-atreon! your support means everything to me.
(TL:- if you want even more content, check out p-atreon.com/Alioth23 for 60+ advanced chapters)