Episode 17 of 'Fate/Zero' was simulcast on China's BIUBIUBIU danmaku video website. It was already past midnight in the Chinese time zone, and the first wave of viewers had long since finished watching, yet the number of concurrent viewers could still be seen holding at around 300,000 and slowly declining.
The anime's plot leading up to Episode 17 had been extremely fast-paced. After Caster summoned the abyssal monster, the various Heroic Spirits had each displayed their abilities, bringing the story to the most exciting portion of Volume Three of the novel: the spectacular aerial duel between Berserker Lancelot and the King of Heroes, Gilgamesh. Then, in the final section of Volume Three, Saber prepared to unleash what Emiya Kiritsugu had described as an Anti-Fortress Noble Phantasm.
Quite a few people had guessed that what was concealed within Invisible Air was Caliburn, the Sword of Selection.
...
["The tactical nuclear strike is ready! Prepared to fire at any moment!"]
["Wherever our King's blade points, there our hearts shall follow!"]
["Wherever our King's blade points, there our hearts shall follow!"]
["Wherever our King's blade points, there our hearts shall follow!"]
["I love you, my King! You're too awesome!"]
["Unyielding through ten years, undefeated through twelve battles. Such achievements were unparalleled beneath heaven, such glory beyond comparison. Her valor inspired the aspirations of every knight, transcending time to become immortal!"]
["Laser Slash!"]
["Bud! Get! Burning! Sword!"]
["EX! Curry Stick!"]
["Holy crap! That's the author's favorite-daughter treatment! She's almost on par with his favorite son Zhao Yun."]
["Nonsense. His favorite son is obviously Goldie."]
["That's cheating~!"]
["My King is beautiful as a painting!"]
["I shall protect my King!"]
["No one will ever be hurt again. Such is the fate of a magical girl... Ah, sorry, wrong show."]
["Holy hell! She's charging her ultimate!"]
["Ex—calibur!"]
["Ex—calibur!"]
["The spirit of chivalry will never disappear."]
["I'm tearing up. It's been ages since I felt this excited watching something."]
["My King, you truly are a noble ruler worthy of respect."]
["O King, your people are calling for you."]
...
Some praised her.
Some repeated the prayer.
And there were plenty of hopeless cases who had already begun imagining themselves as knights serving the King of Knights.
The dense flood of danmaku covered the entire screen. Only through tiny gaps between the comments could one glimpse the radiant light of Excalibur.
As a devoted Saber fan, Tang Yue was already watching 'Fate/Zero' for the fifth time, yet her emotions still surged. The resonance created by the scene allowed her to viscerally understand the feelings behind every comment scrolling across the screen.
Her hands rested on the keyboard, wanting to type something. Should she repeat the same comments flooding the screen? Or should she write down how she herself felt?
The scene moved her while simultaneously making her blood boil, as though she were watching the hero she admired finally defeat an enemy after enduring countless hardships.
After hesitating for a while, she ultimately left no comment. Stretching, she sighed with satisfaction. "Sure enough, these are the kinds of scenes that really get your blood pumping."
She could be considered half a loyal fan of Kamiyā Yuu. As a woman, she wasn't particularly interested in soap operas. The first of his works she encountered was 'RWBY'. Afterward, she also watched 'Magical Girl Nanoha' and 'Puella Magi Madoka Magica', both of which had felt fresh and original to her, but 'RWBY' had remained her favorite.
No—now she could add 'Fate/Zero' to her list of favorite works as well.
She especially liked tough female characters like Yang and Saber, women who had their own principles and weren't written to revolve around a male protagonist. The moment she first read the 'Fate/Zero' spin-off novel 'Twilight of the Knight', she had immediately fallen in love with Saber's characterization.
Making King Arthur a woman was an extremely bold innovation, and 'Twilight of the Knight' had handled the premise perfectly, incorporating elements of historical legend to create an exceptionally compelling story.
In the novel, Saber had grown from a little girl into a proud and noble king. In another sense, the anime served as a conclusion to that novel, containing Kamiyā Yuu's own thoughts about the character and his judgment of her.
Just as Ionioi Hetairoi served to emphasize the character of Iskandar, the King of Conquerors, Excalibur was Kamiyā Yuu's answer, as the author, to the question of who Saber truly was.
Now, whenever King Arthur was mentioned, Tang Yue was certain Saber would be the first image to appear in her mind.
"A gallant and righteous female knight—is there any character concept better than that? I can't take it~!"
Tang Yue jumped up from her chair and threw herself onto her bed. Hugging her pillow, she rolled around while imagining it was Saber, an infatuated smile unconsciously spreading across her face. Although she was normally attracted to men, if a woman like Saber truly existed and pursued her, she certainly wouldn't mind coming out.
Anyone who knew her would have been shocked to see that expression.
Since when had that aloof and proud young lady turned into a lovestruck girl?
Tang Yue grabbed the phone beside her bed and impatiently called her best friend.
Beep... beep... beep...
The phone rang for quite a while before the call was finally answered.
"Do you have any idea what time it is? If you don't give me a good reason for this, I'm coming to your house tomorrow and dragging you out of bed." A helpless female voice came from the other end.
Tang Yue rolled onto her back while hugging her pillow and complained, "It's only a little after midnight."
"..."
The woman on the other end continued suspiciously, "At this time, during this season... I get it. Don't tell me you specifically called just to talk about that anime."
"Bingo! Correct." Tang Yue giggled while lying on the bed. She only showed this side of herself in front of her closest friend.
"You're already a university student. Why are you still watching anime?"
"You obviously like 'Fate/Zero' too, so don't say things like that. Episode 17 is amazing! Also, the Noble Phantasm Saber was about to use isn't the Sword of Selection. Guess what it is?"
"Don't you dare spoil it for me. Anime is just entertainment. I don't have your patience, so compared with entertainment, sleep is more important. I'll watch it tomorrow morning."
"Since you're awake now, you might as well watch the episode first."
"You really are..."
Still holding the phone, Tang Yue suddenly slapped her forehead as she remembered something. "Oh, crap! I almost forgot. Call me after you've watched it and tell me what you think. I need to go over to the Knights now..."
"The Knights...? What... Hey... Hello?"
After hanging up, Tang Yue eagerly returned to her computer and opened the social section of her BIUBIUBIU account. She quickly found the 'Fate/Zero' community.
It was a user community established by Bilibili specifically to conduct research related to the 'Fate/Zero' anime, and more than a hundred thousand users were currently following it.
Within this community was one particularly important survey—the 'Fate/Zero' character popularity poll.
Most of the conflicts within the community could be traced back to this popularity poll. Fans of different characters had formed their own groups, including the Knights, a smaller community founded by viewers who liked Saber.
The Knights weren't particularly conspicuous within the broader fandom. Saber wasn't the most popular character in the 'Fate/Zero' anime.
Among Chinese viewers, the most popular character in 'Fate/Zero' was unquestionably Lancer Zhao Yun, followed by Iskandar, the King of Conquerors. Only then came Saber, whose popularity was roughly on the same level as Iskandar's.
Bilibili's popularity survey from the previous week read:
['Fate/Zero' Anime Character Popularity Poll Rankings — Results as of January 10, 2019]
[1st: Lancer Zhao Yun — 99,762 votes.]
[2nd: Rider, Iskandar the King of Conquerors — 86,821 votes.]
[3rd: Saber, Artoria Pendragon the King of Knights — 85,834 votes.]
[4th: Archer, Gilgamesh the King of Heroes — 60,291 votes.]
[5th: Berserker Lancelot — 53,019 votes.]
[6th: Caster, Marshal of France Gilles de Rais — 29,827 votes.]
[7th: Assassin — 25,029 votes.]
Every registered Bilibili user had five votes. Two could be given to a particularly beloved character, while the remaining three votes couldn't be cast for the same character.
This voting mechanism was precisely the source of all the conflict.
Under this accursed voting system, even minor characters like Assassin and outright villains like Caster had managed to salvage a respectable amount of popularity.
The poll looked simple, but every character faction was actually proceeding with extreme caution.
Thanks to his previous performance in the story and his status as a Chinese Heroic Spirit, Lancer Zhao Yun possessed an unparalleled popularity advantage and had remained firmly in first place.
But the tallest tree in the forest was the first to be battered by the wind. Because of this, the various factions had developed an unspoken understanding to support and restrain one another. For example, a Zhao Yun fan might exchange their three remaining votes for promises from other factions to cast one of their spare votes for Zhao Yun.
Alliances, maneuvering, and mutual checks and balances—a simple character popularity poll had somehow become as complicated as international politics.
The factional struggle had actually made Lancer Zhao Yun the greatest loser. Otherwise, his lead over second-place Iskandar would have been at least thirty thousand votes.
Some people loved this style of voting.
Others scoffed at it.
The reason the different fandoms cared so much about this character poll was that Bilibili had already announced its collaboration plans for 'Fate/Zero'. Whichever character won the popularity poll would receive priority when it came to officially licensed Chinese translations of the novels, related interactive events, imported merchandise, publications, and other products.
For the moment, the main concern was the release of officially translated novels.
Because the Chinese translation of 'Twilight of the Knight' was already nearing completion, the Knights had remained relatively low-key. It was enough for them to barely maintain Saber's position as the number-one "heroine."
Whichever character took first place in the popularity poll would almost certainly be chosen as the focus of the next officially translated spin-off novel.
But Saber's latest popularity results completely shattered that low-profile approach.
['Fate/Zero' Anime Character Popularity Poll Rankings — Results as of January 10, 2019]
[1st: Saber, Artoria Pendragon the King of Knights — 105,834 votes.]
[2nd: Lancer Zhao Yun — 101,721 votes.]
[3rd: Rider, Iskandar the King of Conquerors — 87,825 votes.]
Within a single hour after Episode 17 aired, Saber's vote count had surged by more than twenty thousand.
When Tang Yue saw the new results, her expression immediately changed.
"Delighted" wasn't exactly the right word for it.
The sudden surge in Saber's popularity had destroyed the existing balance, pushing the Knights—who had never wanted to stand at the center of attention—straight into everyone's crosshairs.
The backlash caused by upsetting the balance would inevitably follow, and even the alliances previously formed to preserve each faction's vote totals would naturally collapse.
Tang Yue held her forehead and sighed. Logging into the Knights' community, she posted a question.
["I expected her popularity to rise, but what happened with this increase?"]
["Ah, Commander."]
["We didn't do anything. Some other viewers who like our King took advantage of the momentum and started promoting the popularity poll. Then... it turned into this."]
["We surpassed Zhao Yun. No matter what, that's still worth celebrating."]
["But the anime has only reached Episode 17, and there's still quite a while before voting closes. It's too early to celebrate."]
["The more people who like her, the more haters she'll attract. Besides, quite a few viewers already dislike Artoria because of the spin-off novels."]
Tang Yue thought for quite a while before typing her response.
["Either way, the balance has been broken. It might not be a good thing, but it isn't necessarily bad either. Even if we lose our lead later, Saber's popularity probably won't fall below third place again."]
["True. So do we start promoting her now?"]
["Obviously. If we're going to push, now is the time."]
["Campaign for votes~! Campaign for votes!"]
...
The 'Fate/Zero' character poll opened a new chapter in China's unofficial "Moe Wars."
Though perhaps it couldn't really be called a Moe War, since most of the characters participating in this popularity poll were male.
In reality, this character popularity poll would have a profound influence on the development of the entire Moe competition system within China's ACG community.
BIUBIUBIU was one of the representative communities of China's ACG scene in this world. This character poll also had official involvement and tangible rewards tied to its results, so it wasn't difficult to imagine what kind of storm the 'Fate/Zero' popularity poll might create.
For any event to survive and continue, public attention was indispensable. As long as it was managed properly, its future influence might not necessarily be inferior to Japan's Saimoe Tournament.
Of course, with BIUBIUBIU's current capabilities, all it could do for now was organize relatively basic character popularity polls.
This popularity poll had also been organized at Kamiyā Yuu's instruction.
His main objective wasn't to establish a "Chinese Saimoe" or "Bilibili Moe." Rather, he wanted to investigate how much Saber's overall popularity would decline when the knight-princess version of the character appeared in 'Fate/Zero' without the support of any preceding work.
In a sense, it was an indirect survey of how successfully Saber had been characterized.