Continuing to browse Fantasy Book Alliance, Kamiyā Yuu discovered that 'Battle Through the Heavens' had also entered the public-author new-book rankings for the Eastern Fantasy category, placing tenth.
Eastern Fantasy had always been the single most popular genre in web novels.
The new-book rankings for newcomers were the only popularity charts where new novels could appear before the general public. In order to secure a place there, quite a few web novel authors would resort to any means necessary. The simplest, fastest, and most effective method was naturally to buy votes. Spending only a few dozen yuan could keep a new book on the rankings for several weeks, and the advertising value gained from that was far beyond anything a few dozen yuan could normally buy.
A similar ranking system had existed on the novel website Kamiyā Yuu used in his previous world. However, he had always been too lazy to buy votes, believing that only his novel's genuine results truly counted. As a result, he had never had much to do with popularity rankings like these.
Seeing 'Battle Through the Heavens' reach tenth place on its very first day still made him quite happy.
Kamiyā Yuu had no intention of signing 'Battle Through the Heavens' with Fantasy Book Alliance. Without signing a contract, there naturally wouldn't be any website recommendation slots, so this might very well be the novel's only opportunity to appear on one of the site's rankings.
After checking the results 'Battle Through the Heavens' had achieved on its first day, he quickly browsed the other web novels on the list. Some followed familiar formulas, while others contained quite a few innovative ideas. For a moment, it gave him the feeling of following web novels back in his previous world again.
'Path to Immortality'. The title was good, but the content was overly formulaic, and the plot lacked originality.
'Pieces of Heaven and Earth'. Still formulaic, but the overall story felt pretty decent.
'Struggle in Another World'. A rare transmigration story centered on conquest and hegemony. That genre had almost completely disappeared from the web novel scene in Kamiyā Yuu's previous world. He spent the longest time reading this one. The content was quite exciting, but its popularity didn't give it much of an advantage over other novels in the same category.
...
Kamiyā Yuu clicked the mouse and closed the page for 'Struggle in Another World', then praised it with some surprise.
"I didn't expect there to still be quite a few good web novels. If 'Battle Through the Heavens' succeeds, it might push the commercialization of this world's web novel industry forward. Hard to say whether that'll be a good thing or a bad thing. The industry will have to go through a fairly long period of commercial development before the situation can be broken again. Even at its worst, that would still be better than the half-dead state it's in now."
For 'Battle Through the Heavens' to succeed without cooperating with the website would be extremely difficult. However, once it accumulated enough popularity, he could also try negotiating terms with Fantasy Book Alliance.
The 'BIUBIUBIU' bullet-comment video website was already extremely well-developed as a pure video platform, but when it came to operating a commercial novel business, they were still completely in the dark.
...
The following day, after arriving at Yosuganosora Animation Studio, Kamiyā Yuu began working on the story script for 'Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion'.
He had already sent all the illustrations for the first volume of the light novel 'Mechanical Era' to Akiyama Gojō, so there was nothing Kamiyā Yuu needed to do with it for the time being.
According to Chiyo Bookstore's schedule, 'Mechanical Era' could enter the light novel industry's field of vision as early as December.
Kamiyā Yuu believed the light novel had considerable potential. Based on his experience with Japan's light novel and anime industries, there was a strong chance that 'Mechanical Era' itself would become popular.
However, if it received an anime adaptation, the probability of the anime becoming popular would be extremely low.
One could refer to 'Mushishi' from his previous world, which similarly possessed both a strong story and considerable depth.
Naturally, that would be different if Kamiyā Yuu personally handled the adaptation and spared no expense.
If he personally took charge, 'Mechanical Era' would inevitably become a classic.
The most important aspects of adapting this novel into anime were understanding the plot and capturing the atmosphere permeating the entire work. At the very least, there currently wasn't a single animation studio in the industry capable of adapting 'Mechanical Era' while maintaining the same level of quality and atmosphere as Kamiyā Yuu's illustrations.
As long as something was a good work, Kamiyā Yuu wouldn't let it slip away.
So what if its popularity was low?
A good work would always have people who appreciated it.
For that reason, both 'Mechanical Era' and the light novel 'Gate of Mystery' created by Kirigami Ruri had been placed on his list of potential anime adaptations.
Everything that needed to be handled on the animation production side was more or less finished, and all the storyboards for 'Fate/Zero' had also been completed.
The revised version would conclude in twenty-six episodes, one episode longer than the original anime.
Every episode of the revised 'Fate/Zero' ran close to thirty minutes, so the actual amount of story content was considerably greater than the original. Converted into the runtime of an ordinary anime series, it would probably require around thirty-six episodes to fully tell the entire story.
Setting production matters aside for the moment, the Holy Grail War had now entered its final stages.
After Saber released the True Name of her Noble Phantasm, 'Excalibur', the next to meet his end would be Lancer Zhao Yun.
Looking at the anime as a whole, Zhao Yun had truly received treatment worthy of Kamiyā Yuu's own favored son.
The sections surrounding him had been revised more extensively than those of any other character: Zhao Yun single-handedly facing an army, the ending befitting the Lancer class's infamous Luck E, and so on.
Lancer Zhao Yun, Saber Artoria Pendragon, and Rider Iskandar the King of Conquerors were the three Heroic Spirits most heavily portrayed in 'Fate/Zero'.
The original work's favored son, Archer Gilgamesh, along with Berserker Lancelot, could only be considered second-tier in terms of screen time and characterization.
The third tier belonged to Caster Gilles de Rais.
The storyline in which he summoned the deep-sea monster was one of the most important turning points in the entire Holy Grail War.
And the award for best cannon fodder went to Assassin Hassan, whose only purposes were to demonstrate Archer Gilgamesh's overwhelming strength near the beginning and then exit the stage to showcase the power of 'Ionioi Hetairoi'.
In Episode Eighteen, Zhao Yun withdrew from the Holy Grail War.
From the beginning of the Holy Grail War until that moment, he had never once received acknowledgment from his own Master, Director Kayneth.
Even so, in the end he still fulfilled his responsibility as a Heroic Spirit toward his Master.
When ordered to commit suicide, he hurled his spear and pierced straight through the heart of Maiya Hisau, who had been preparing to kill Kayneth with a sniper rifle.
The ending for Kayneth and his fiancée remained unchanged.
They weren't killed by the sniper rifle, but were instead blasted apart by explosives that had already been planted. Gravely wounded and on the verge of death, they were buried beneath the rubble of a collapsed building.
In order to strengthen the depiction of the Holy Grail War, Kamiyā Yuu transferred dialogue that had originally belonged to Lancer Diarmuid Ua Duibhne to Kayneth instead.
Severely wounded, Kayneth clutched his fiancée Sola, whose body had been reduced to little more than a head, amid the ruins. With his dying breath, he uttered his "curse" upon the Holy Grail before dying filled with hatred and resentment.
To achieve the best possible effect, Kamiyā Yuu was especially strict about the voice acting for this scene.
Even the experienced male voice actor playing Director Kayneth had to keep attempting the lines for nearly an hour before Kamiyā Yuu finally considered the performance acceptable.
Such a dark ending earned Kamiyā Yuu the title of "Sadist King" from Gogyo Ruri during one of Yosuganosora's animation story discussion meetings.
Compared with the original anime, this sequence contained far more information and was considerably more complex.