Translator: Legge Editor: Legge
At night.
At Zhang Ye’s Studio.
Sun Xiaobei was crying.
Chen Xiang was crying.
And Hu Kebang was crying too.
They hugged each other excitedly, sometimes laughing, sometimes howling, and sometimes crying. They did not know how to express the excitement they were feeling!
“It’s a success!”
“We did it!”
“We won against the Japanese cartoon industry! It’s the first time that we’ve won!”
“How many years have we been waiting for this!”
“Director Zhang, you’re amazing! You’re so amazing!”
“We finally did it!”
“Ahhhhh! What are we going to do! I’m going crazy with excitement!”
“D-Did we really achieve this result?”
“We did! Of course we did!”
Seeing their joy, the eyes of the Zhang Ye’s Studio staff also lit up. They were not in the industry, so they didn’t really understand much about Chinese animation or comics. It was only when a light bulb had lit up in Director Zhang’s mind that they joined this industry with him. Frankly, they did not have that deep a feeling for the Chinese animation industry, but after interacting in recent days and gaining an understanding of it, Ha Qiqi, Zhang Zuo, and the rest all felt a sense of admiration for Sun Xiaobei and the other Chinese cartoon industry workers. They really admired their persistence and belief to wholeheartedly create a Chinese animation. Few young people were like them.
Sacrifice.
Hard work.
Training.
Waiting.
And now, this day had finally come.
They deserved to be happy. This glory belonged to them.
Sun Xiaobei went to give Zhang Ye a hug. “Director Zhang, thank you!”
Hu Kebang and the others also came over to give Zhang Ye a hug, talking loudly and laughing happily.
Sun Xiaobei wiped away her tears and said, “Be quiet, the neighbors are all sleeping. Don’t cause trouble for Teacher Zhang.”
Zhang Ye laughed and said, “It’s alright, today is a proud day for us people of the Chinese cartoon industry. It’s only right that we celebrate this achievement.”
Us people of the Chinese cartoon industry?
Can you stop elevating your status like that?
The staff of Zhang Ye’s Studio rolled their eyes at this.
People like Sun Xiaobei and company are the true people of the Chinese cartoon industry, alright? But you’re not. You castrated seven comics and dropped all your work in Japan before coming to meddle in the Chinese animation field, so how does that make you someone from the Chinese cartoon industry? All you’re doing is switching places to slap people in the face after you’re done elsewhere. Everything you do is based on your whims and impulses!
Zhang Ye said, “Everyone must be hungry, right? Let’s go, I’ll treat everyone to supper!”
“Thanks, Lord Zhang!”
“Wow, we’re gonna have a meal!”
Everyone went for a celebratory feast.
Indeed, there should be a celebratory feast.
When the “report card” for the day was published, The Legend of Qin’s first episode reached a final figure of 130 million views. This was a frightening figure that would scare anyone silly. Not only did it break the best result in the history of Chinese animation, it even matched the number of views that the most outstanding variety shows or television dramas had. Further, this was only the first episode. It was only the premiere!
Two of the most popular Chinese television dramas and a variety show had been affected by this as well. Their number of online views had dropped by more than 20% compared to their usual traffic, which alarmed the studios and production teams. At the same time, they didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. The number of views for the television dramas and variety show had actually been divvied up?
When did a Chinese animation have such power!
When was any Chinese animation able to compete with the Chinese television dramas and variety shows?
…
Japan.
Several companies were holding a meeting late at night.
“Martial King’s performance has been greatly affected!”
“It’s the same for our Murder of Angels, the number of clicks has dropped by a lot!”
“They’ve all been taken by The Legend of Qin!”
“What on earth is it with this animation?!”
“Who would’ve thought that the down in the dumps Chinese animation industry would suddenly come up with an animation like that!”
“Hai, this Zhang Ye has messed up our plans!”
“But this is only the first episode. Zhang Ye is extremely famous, and they’ve spent a lot of money on the publicity as well, so it’s quite normal that the first episode’s results are better. The later episodes will definitely not be able to continue this run. If all the episodes keep achieving over 100 million views, there won’t be anything left to play for. It’s impossible for it to continue like that!”
“Good point!”
“Right, we cannot panic.”
However, what the Japanese comics and animation world was waiting for did not come to pass!
…
The next day.
The Legend of Qin’s second episode was released.
“Wow!”
“It’s a consecutive broadcast?”
“One episode a day? That is so exhilarating!”
“It’s so fun to watch! The second episode is good too!”
“Hahahaha! It’s Yao Jiancai’s voice!”
“Old Yao’s voice is so funny!”
“I can recognize it too. I knew it was him the moment I heard it!”
“Splendid!”
On the same day, the statistics of the second episode were published!
140 million views!
It did even better than what the first episode had achieved on the day of broadcast!
…
On the third day.
Another new episode of The Legend of Qin was released!
“It’s another episode!”
“Awesome, awesome, awesome!”
“This lineup of voice actors is so impressive!”
“That’s right. In the entire industry, who can command such an impressive lineup of S- and A-listers!”
“This is so good. The more I watch it, the more addicted I become!”
“The plot is so coherent!”
“Right, and the art is so beautiful that I don’t think I’ll ever get sick of watching it!”
“I’ve already watched it three times!”
“This is the pride of our domestic animation productions!”
“Zhang Ye, well done! Miracle Animation Studios, well done!”
On this day, the statistics for the third episode were published!
It got 150 million views!
Meanwhile, the first episode of The Legend of Qin had reached 200 million views!
…
Martial King was left kneeling!
Murder of Angels was left kneeling!
All the Japanese cartoons that came to the Chinese market to grab money were left kneeling!
When the Japanese companies saw the results, they broke down!
“Motherfucker!”
“What’s there left to play for?”
“It has stabilized at over 100 million views per episode? Is this Zhang guy on steroids!”
“How can it possibly be so high!”
“This Zhang Ye is clearly getting involved in animation for the first time!”
“The Legend of Qin? This should be considered a national cartoon, right?”
“China has such a backward cartoon industry, but it can still come up with a national cartoon?”
Despair!
There truly was a sense of despair all around!
If their opponent only had tens of millions of views, they might be able to chase after it or take action to remedy the situation so they could challenge it. But it was over 100 million views! It was 200 million views! How the fuck could they still challenge it? Even if they gave it their all, they still wouldn’t be able to catch up to it!
They had lost!
They had been utterly defeated!
They had come to the Chinese cartoon industry in high spirits this time before being slapped back to where they came from!
At this time, some of them started thinking about One Piece, Naruto, and Detective Conan. If they still had those cartoons, would they have ended up in such a situation? They could have somewhat competed with the opponent, right? And maybe even win? But when they suddenly remembered that those cartoons were drawn by Zhang Ye, they sunk into even greater despair. In the duration of a short few months, eight national cartoons had appeared in Asia. Seven of them originated in Japan, while one of them was from China. And the best thing of all? All of these cartoons had actually been created by one fucking person?
Just how terrifying was this!
