Chapter 53 Ratings and Originality

The commercials between the two episodes of "Magical Girl Illya" didn't last too long, and the second episode started airing soon.

Illya, who has become a magical girl, wakes up from a nightmare. Although she has become a magical girl, Illya herself does not feel very real.

Although Tohsaka Rin formally introduced herself to Illya before leaving at night and told Illya about her mission to recycle the cards, Illya was still in a state of half-belief and half-doubt.

After a not-so-long day of ordinary elementary school life, Illya saw the letter that Rin left in her locker when she was leaving school.

The letter from Rin asked her to be at school at 12 o'clock at night.

Illya arrived at school on time as requested. Tohsaka Rin told Illya that the card was in the mirror world, and asked Ruby to take the two of them to the mirror world.

The two then encountered the materialized Heroic Spirit of Rider's Class Card—Marie Antoinette.

Nanaya struggled for a long time in choosing the heroes. In order to let the audience feel the difference between each class most intuitively, Nanaya chose the heroes who best represent the characteristics of each class in "Magical" - of course, the Archer class is an exception.

In fact, the Rider-class Cardinal that Nanaya originally wanted to choose was Achilles, the heel. After all, Achilles, who has a special weakness, can very well demonstrate the ability of Cu Chulainn's Noble Phantasm [Barbed Spear that Pierces with Death](Gáe Bolg).

But in the end, Nanaya still replaced Rider's Heroic Spirit at the last minute. After all, Siegfried, who appeared as Saber, had an invincible body that was a perfect reflection of his power as a mid-season boss.

What's more, as a step-by-step monster-killing and level-up game, it is not a good thing if the first monster is an opponent that is too powerful.

However, even if Achilles was replaced by Queen Marie, she would still be a formidable enemy for Illya, who had just become a magical girl.

Illya, a novice who had no idea how to use magic, was put in a very awkward position when fighting Queen Marie.

However, Nanaya did not let Illya take the beating passively all the time. After all, a one-sided battle is not what the audience wants to see.

However, when Illya on the screen finally found an opportunity to get behind Marie and prepare to launch a crucial attack, she was directly knocked away by the beautiful glass horse released by Marie's treasure [Glory to the Crown of Lilies](Guillotine Breaker!).

"Ah... It looks so miserable. It should be alright, right?" Even though she already knew the result, Illya still looked very nervous. Her little cheeks kept moving as she gnawed the watermelon in her hand like a hamster.

The glass horse galloped across the school playground, light particles from its body lightly scattering across the battlefield, healing the wounds its master had sustained in his previous battle with Illya.

Then Queen Marie commanded the BMW to rush directly towards Illya, and Illya, who was already out of breath, had almost no room to fight back.

At this critical moment, another magical girl in blue clothes suddenly appeared. This new magical girl amazed everyone as soon as she appeared. She directly unfolded the Lancer card in her hand and a red spear was aimed at Queen Marie.

Following the cry of "Gáe Bolg (Barbed Spear that Pierces with Death)" from the black-haired little loli, the scarlet spear directly pierced through the white-haired queen who had caused Illya so much trouble.

In order to highlight the power of the Heroic Spirits' Noble Phantasms, Nanaya learned the way in other animations where the names of the moves would appear on the screen when releasing special moves. When Miyu stabbed out with that spear, big red words [Gáe Bolg (Barbed Spear that Pierces with Death)] appeared on the TV screen.

"Is this me?"

Looking at the dazzling Miyu on the screen, Yumi couldn't help but be a little dazed. She knew very well that she was the worst actor in the crew, but at this moment she was the focus of all the audience's attention.

"Well... although it's a little bit childish, it looks very powerful." Ori had to admit that Nanaya's level of scene creation was indeed good and he was able to mobilize the audience's emotions.

"Right, right. I feel so handsome!" Illya's eyes sparkled, "It's a pity that it will take several episodes for me to be so handsome."

"After all, Illya, you are set as a novice magical girl. You have to become stronger little by little."

Nanaya's consolation didn't work, and he was soon attacked by the little loli's pink fist.

"Yumi-chan is also a novice magical girl! How can she be so powerful? Big brother is really partial!"

"Wow! Um, Illya, I..."

Yumi looked at the two people fighting with some worry. She was afraid that her relationship would worsen the relationship between Illya and Nanaya.

However, Yumi was obviously overthinking it. After tormenting Nanaya for a while, Illya simply let go of her and hugged Yumi instead.

"Big brother is so mean, Yumi-chan, let's not pay attention to him."

"Well... this..."

Yumi, who was not used to being so close to people of the same age, blushed and she stammered, not knowing what to say.

"You can't say that. After all, a strong rival who is a top student and a little stronger than the protagonist in every aspect is a standard feature of the story."

"Why do you say that?"

Nanaya's words aroused Illya's curiosity, and even Yumi came over to listen to Nanaya's explanation of the reason.

Nanaya began to explain the role setting to the girls: "After all, the audience needs to feel fresh. Since there is a hot-blooded and stupid protagonist, the role of the rival needs to be different to highlight the expressiveness of this character. And a character that is stronger in all aspects is a simpler role template that allows the audience to feel the difference. And a character with such a setting will be more popular than the protagonist. After all, everyone likes cooler characters more."

"I see. Hey, wait a minute! Who's the hot-blooded idiot?"

Illya grabbed Nanaya's neck and retorted loudly.

"It's just the character setting! Illya herself is super awesome~" Nanaya immediately got scared. He immediately apologized and loudly coaxed the little Loli.

"I see. Does that mean my popularity could be higher than Illya's?"

Yumi thought of her mother's joy when she became famous, and her face was filled with longing.

"That's impossible, Illya must be more popular!"

"But Miyu she won't be left behind!"

The two lolis refused to give in to each other and the two girls stared at each other.

[Women's competitive spirit is really scary. Even though she is a lolita, she is still a woman. ]

Nanaya wisely did not get involved, because it would be a mistake no matter which side he stood on.

"But why did you use actors from J-House to perform? Have you forgotten what happened before?"

Ori was wiping his mouth with a handkerchief. At that moment, the TV was broadcasting the ED credits. When he saw the actor playing Shirou Emiya on it, he asked curiously.

"Well, that guy was recommended by J family themselves, and I also checked his resume, and he didn't have any bad habits, so I hired him."

I don't know if it was to make up for the relationship between himself or his teacher Ryuichi Hanai, but after Nanaya sent out the interview request for the actors, J company took the initiative to send several actors from its new team over.

These guys are not very famous idols, and J-Asia has a tradition of having new idols shoot special effects dramas to gain popularity, so Nanaya did not refuse. After all, even though the quality of the kids produced by J-Asia has declined in recent years, they are still the best-looking among all the agencies in Japan.

Probably because they had learned from the previous lesson of Hyakumekusa, the actors this time were very well-behaved and obedient, and they all had good images. Nanaya had someone check their pasts, and after confirming that they had no bad habits, he kept them.

Nanaya was also very clear that the actors from J company had good images and were very popular. If he wanted to make a commercial movie, he would definitely have to consider their actors. Since the other party had shown goodwill, Nanaya would of course take the opportunity to propose a settlement with the other party. After all, this was a win-win situation for both parties.

Among the people sent by J House, there was one guy who happened to be named Sugiyama, so he was chosen by Nanaya to play Shirou Emiya. Since all the people sent were similar, Nanaya picked the one that he liked the most.

"Really?"

"Don't worry, I know what you're worried about." Nanaya comforted his junior brother, "J company has already made it clear to those actors. If they dare to do anything, the company will not let them go."

··

The ratings for the first two episodes of "Magical Girl Illya" were only 7.1%, which is obviously not enough compared to "Kamen Rider Kuuga", which is currently in the middle of the plot and has an average rating of around 10% per episode.

But as a brand-new IP, this result is already pretty good, or even outstanding.

You should know that the first episode of "Kuuga" had a viewership rating of only 8.9%, and even though it has been broadcast for more than half a year, the viewership rating of each episode still fluctuates between 8% and 11%.

The third and fourth episodes of the next two weeks are completely original content written by Nanaya. As mentioned before, the plot of the first season of the "Magical" manga is very short and is not enough to fill 13 episodes.

Therefore, it is necessary to fill the story with original plots.

As for the content of the original plot, Nanaya does not intend to make it too complicated, nor does he want to add too many new elements to interfere with the main plot.

So Nanaya just added a new element - the spiritual vein of Fuyuki City was affected by the cards and thus produced pseudo servants without cards. These servants had the same abilities and treasures as the Heroic Spirits, and needed to be eliminated by magical girls.

The content of the third and fourth episodes is that Illya fights against two pseudo-servants and wins. Anyway, there are thousands of Type-Moon Heroic Spirits, so it is very easy to find a few of them.

The ratings for these two original episodes were 7.5% and 7.4% respectively, which was on par with episodes one and two overall.

Just when everyone thought that the next 26 episodes would be unit dramas similar to Ultraman's fight against monsters, the content starting from the fifth episode came with a big reversal.