Chapter 25: Too Naive Japanese Audience

"Did you see the ending of that movie?"

As the movie section of 2CH, the largest message board in Japan, has recently been dominated by a movie called "Kara no Kyoukai". This movie, directed by an unknown director and starring completely new actors and minor actors, has suddenly become a popular hot spot on the Internet from a state of almost no interest.

If we simply look at some official data, this movie, which only had a 6.7% viewership rate on TBS's late-night movie program, is nothing worth discussing. However, due to some unknown reason, the screen suddenly went black when the movie reached the final battle, so that no one could see the end of the movie.

If the film was just average, it would be fine, but the plot and character setting of this film are very good. Especially the heroine Ryougi Shiki. Almost all the audiences who have watched the film are deeply attracted by this girl with beautiful short black hair.

This led to all the fans who watched the movie wanting to know the final battle scene and ending of the movie very much, especially since the stuck shot happened to be just before the climax of the movie. This feeling of being neither up nor down was very uncomfortable.

These fans are crazy about what happens in the sequel to the movie, and some even speculate on what might happen and the final battle based on the previous plot. This discussion immediately attracted many people to participate actively, and everyone began to predict the ending of "Kara no Kyoukai" in their minds, and even some weird endings such as Kokutou Kiriya and Fujou Kirie living together, and Ryougi Shiki being with Sister Tonoko.

With the unremitting promotion of these enthusiastic users, more people noticed the movie, and out of curiosity, those who had never seen the movie borrowed the movie tape from their friends. So when these viewers were overwhelmed by the charm of Ryougi Shiki in the first hour and looked forward to the ending of the movie, what they got was an abrupt end.

Just how much of a blow these viewers suffered can be seen from the endlessly circulating discussion threads on 2CH in a short period of time.

So after being extremely uncomfortable with the story of the sudden cancellation of the film, many fans, with the mentality of "I can't be the only one urging for more", recommended this movie to people around them, and many of them probably didn't tell them that the film was only half finished.

Under the vicious cycle caused by this, more and more people have joined the army of urging for updates.

The mentality of these people is actually the same as that of netizens who, after seeing a blind picture, choose not to avoid it but to spread it as much as possible. It can only be said that the mentality of "I can't be the only one who is unlucky" is an unchanging bad nature of human beings.

As the discussion of "Kara no Kyoukai" became more and more heated, an unknown user posted a message online saying "I just want to watch Shiki tear ghosts apart with her bare hands and I don't want to do anything else.JPG".

This text with pictures expressed the voices of many people who urged for updates and began to be reposted crazily, becoming one of the popular Internet terms in Japan in the summer of 2000.

Of course, these fans didn't just complain, many of them even called TBS to ask why the movie "Kara no Kyoukai" hadn't finished showing. However, the answer from the operator was always "because the TV station was doing equipment maintenance late at night, and the signal was suddenly turned off in the middle of the movie."

Everyone's first reaction after hearing this is that you are kidding! The signal was cut off at the most critical moment of the movie. Why do you keep cutting off the signal at the beginning when the girl jumps off the building? Fuck you, you dog who cuts off chapters! (╯‵□′)╯︵┻━┻

But no matter how the fans complained, TBS officials always had an attitude of "It's up to you whether you believe it or not, I believe it anyway."

Many fans, driven by anger, could only vent their anger on the TBS operators, which caused the TBS operator to be scared and cry several times.

"Director Kiryu, let me tell you, the head of the customer service department has called me several times. He said that we are not honest in our work, and several of his operators want to resign."

Although Naito tried to act as miserable as possible, Nanaya could still tell from his voice how happy the person on the other end of the line was.

Nanaya curled his lips and said, "Okay, stop being so ungrateful. I guess you must be getting everyone's attention in the station now, right?"

"It's okay, it's okay. But this is worthy of Director Kiryu who made such a masterpiece as "Kara no Kyoukai". His publicity methods are really amazing." Naito on the phone praised Nanaya sincerely.

Originally, Naito's plan was to divide the film into two parts and broadcast them over two weeks, first using the first half to quietly arouse discussion and then releasing the second half the following week to generate buzz.

However, Naito's idea was directly rejected by Nanaya.

Are you kidding? My movie is only 100 minutes long and it is divided into two parts. What the hell is that?

However, Naito's proposal also gave Nanaya an idea, so he, who was 20 years ahead of the industry, immediately modified Naito's plan into what it is now, which probably came to an abrupt end before the final battle, leaving the audience feeling neither satisfied nor disappointed.

Nanaya knows very well that the worst thing about movies is that they have no topicality. Even a bad reputation is better than no reputation at all. Especially after 2005, more and more movies began to pay attention to and create their own topicality. Even many movies' publicity and promotion costs exceeded the cost of film production.

The crew of "Kara no Kyoukai" didn't have such a big budget, but Nanaya was full of ideas. After the TV series premiered, he asked all the crew members to become Internet trolls and create discussion threads about "Kara no Kyoukai" in various ways on 2CH.

The paragraph "I just want to watch Shiki-sister tearing ghosts apart with her bare hands and I don't want to do anything else.JPG" was written by Nanaya himself and posted online.

Japanese netizens in 2000 were still so naive (and gullible) that they quickly became interested in this movie after seeing the various tricks of Nanaya, the big devil from 20 years later.

In addition, "Kara no Kyoukai" is indeed a good movie, and the audience's resentment about the lack of an ending has become increasingly deep. These fans have posted complaints online, some have dragged people around them into the trap, and some have protested against the TV station. These people have unknowingly become part of the promotion of "Kara no Kyoukai".

As the incident of the missing chapters of "Kara no Kyoukai" continued to ferment, the popularity of this movie snowballed. From the beginning, it was only spread among movie lovers online, and began to spread to a wider audience group.

At this time, it can be said that the popularity of "Kara no Kyoukai" has reached a critical point.

"Director Kiryu, the current plan has been almost completed. Do you think we should move on to the next step?" Naito said somewhat flatteringly. Nanaya taught him a lesson through practical actions on how to use the current Internet for publicity, which made him particularly admire this director who was several years younger than him.

Although it is impossible to use the same trick of Duanzhanggou a second time, the essence of the various operations involved, especially the method of fanning the flames with the right means at the right time, Naito, who observed the entire process, felt that he benefited a lot.

"Of course, you can announce the news tonight. Chairman Ryutani has already made arrangements with the newspaper and will cooperate with your TV station to promote it."

Nanaya also knew that at this point in time all the information had almost fermented, and if he kept it to himself any longer, the audience would no longer be looking forward to it but would really curse him.

So that evening during the prime time, TBS TV station announced a piece of news that everyone was looking forward to.

Following a trailer for "Kara no Kyoukai" edited by Nanaya, TBS TV announced the re-broadcast of "Kara no Kyoukai".

"The movie 'Kara no Kyoukai' will be rescreened this Saturday night, and there will be a big announcement from the crew after the movie!"

"Fuck, I want to see!"

As soon as Shiori Kaede saw the promotional advertisement, he couldn't wait any longer. He had been waiting for a whole week and was eager to see the ending of the movie.

Not only the TV stations, but also the newspapers the next day were heavily promoting the news of the re-screening of "Kara no Kyoukai". Many media outlets put up the headline "The movie with the most anticipated ending on the Internet" and attached screenshots of the discussion on 2CH.

So some people who were not very interested in the Internet were introduced to it by major media. Driven by curiosity, they ordered the movie videotape, and then -

More people are planning to stay up late to watch movies on Saturday night.

Because TBS is a private TV station, its broadcasting range is limited to the 1 city and 6 prefectures in Kanto. Although as the leader of Japanese news networks, TBS often broadcasts some very popular programs to the whole country through the broadcasting network. But even so, there are still many places that cannot be covered by the signal.

After hearing about this, many fans from these places came to Tokyo in groups, rented rooms and watched the movie together in hotels. Their idea was to see for themselves whether this movie, which had sparked heated discussions on the Internet and in the media, was really as good as others said. If not, they would go to TBS TV station early the next morning to block the door.

It is said that many police officers found that many people were planning to come to Tokyo in groups on Saturday, and they hurriedly investigated the purpose of these people coming to Tokyo. After a chaotic investigation, they found that these people were just coming to watch a movie, and the police uncles immediately became amused and helpless. Then "Kara no Kyoukai" began to become popular in the Metropolitan Police Department.

After hearing the news, Nanaya couldn't help but sigh, "Japanese audiences of this era are really too young and too native. I wonder if they will still be so gullible 10 years later."

In short, with everyone's anticipation, "Kara no Kyoukai" began its second round of broadcasting on Saturday.