Late April.
The first teaser video for Spirited Away was jointly released by Shirogane Animation and Illumination Production Company.
Three months remained until the theatrical release. The promotional work had to begin now. The last Rei animated film had been Your Na the previous year, and a large number of Japan's film audience had been waiting for the next one since its theatrical run concluded.
When the art style of Spirited Away appeared in the teaser, which carried a completely different visual identity from Your Na, a significant portion of the fan community was imdiately disoriented.
"Shirogane-sensei, how can your art style change this dramatically between works?"
The disorientation did not last long. The style was unexpectedly pleasing to the eye once the initial surprise passed. The musical approach was equally strong, and equally different from anything Your Na had established as expectation.
The introductory information for the female lead indicated she was an elentary school student.
This should not have anything to do with romance, right?
Then, at the end of the trailer, the male protagonist Haku appeared.
A large portion of the Spirited Away discussion imdiately pivoted to sothing nobody had anticipated.
"That boy who appeared at the end of the trailer. Is that not Akira from the Hikaru no Go manga?"
"The face shape. The eyes. The resemblance is extrely strong."
"This is a fantasy animated film. Could there be a cao from a Hikaru no Go character?"
"No. Akira from Hikaru no Go is Japanese. The Spirited Away world-building in the trailer is about a girl nad Chihiro entering a magical spirit world. The settings do not match. A cao is impossible."
"What is impossible for Shirogane-sensei's works? The world-building has a girl crossing into a magical world. A Japanese character crossing from another world into that sa magical world would be completely consistent with the premise."
"Stop forcing a connection. It is probably just a similar character design. If you look carefully there are differences."
"We know you want a Hikaru no Go sequel but this is not it."
"We cannot help it. Shirogane-sensei digs holes and does not fill them. Hikaru no Go clearly had sufficient plot remaining to continue and he ended it anyway."
"Hikaru no Go at least had a relatively complete ending. What about One-Punch Man fans and Hunter x Hunter fans? Still waiting. It has been two or three years. Shirogane-sensei has already begun preparing the next work after Bleach and the return dates for those two are still unknown."
"Painful."
"It is not easy for Your Na fans either. We want to see another Shirogane-sensei romance film. How is a twelve-year-old female protagonist going to deliver that?"
"The fact that it passed certification indicates there is no clear romance plot involving the female lead. Works with romance involving minors under fourteen cannot be theatrically released or broadcast."
"What about Five Centiters Per Second? The male protagonist in that work was fourteen when he visited Akari. And even that was technically not a confird romantic relationship."
"If there is no romance and only fantasy, I suddenly want to watch it less."
"You say that now. When Spirited Away gets rave reviews after release, you will be there for the second and third viewing. We all know this."
Rei had not entirely failed to anticipate this wave of discussion connecting Spirited Away to Hikaru no Go.
In his previous life, he had watched the Hikaru no Go ani before Spirited Away. When Spirited Away had broadcast on television at the ti, he had imdiately noticed that Haku bore a striking resemblance to Akira Toya. Japan's ani fans had made the sa observation in his previous life. They were making it again now.
A unique resonance between two worlds.
He posted a few comnts on his social dia accounts encouraging fans to support the Spirited Away film when the ti ca, without addressing the Haku-Akira comparison directly. Let them have the speculation. It was generating discussion that money could not buy.
The first large-scale promotional push for Spirited Away had kicked off across Japan and in the global film market simultaneously. Like the Demon Slayer film, Spirited Away was scheduled for simultaneous global release.
The success of the Demon Slayer theatrical releases abroad had made the overseas theatre chain negotiations considerably smoother this ti. Local support and screen allocation would not be treated as an afterthought.
Rei looked at the ti on his computer screen.
Late April. His twenty-fourth birthday was approaching.
From arriving in this world at sixteen to now: eight full years.
Almost catching up to my age before I crossed over, he said to himself without deciding to.
He shook his head and set the thought aside. He picked up his drawing pen.
He had not attended to this particular task yet because the timing had not required it. With two or three months remaining until Spirited Away's release, the manga adaptation needed to be drawn now, to be handed to the Hoshimori Group for tankōbon rchandise sales after the film's theatrical run concluded.
In late April, the Spirited Away promotional teaser, which had occupied the trending search lists for several days, was finally displaced on Thursday evening by Attack on Titan's broadcast-day activity.
The current Attack on Titan fan community had no awareness of what this particular episode was about to deliver.
They were in a good mood.
The Armored Titan, Reiner, had already been defeated by Eren twice. The Colossal Titan, Bertholdt, was now standing in an abandoned city without obvious mobility. The Beast Titan was, from what they could observe, essentially a large and strategically capable ape.
With Eren, Mikasa, Levi, and hundreds of Survey Corps mbers in the field, the mathematical advantage seed clear. At most, a few ordinary soldiers would be sacrificed before the battle concluded.
The community's primary anticipation was actually directed past the battle itself, toward what ca after: once Eren captured the Beast Titan or extracted a prisoner from Bertholdt or Reiner, the truth of the world would finally be completely revealed. The basent. The world outside the walls. Everything the series had been building toward across three full seasons.
Kenji had left work early. He was in a fan group chat, discussing the upcoming episode with the light mood of soone who believed the outco was relatively predictable, when eight o'clock arrived.
He put down his phone.
It's here.
He opened a can of cola and took a sip. The Attack on Titan opening the began, the version that had run from Season One through Season Three, the music that had beco so associated with the series' specific emotional register that hearing it now produced a conditioned response regardless of context.
How would Japan's ani industry have developed without Shirogane-sensei.
In all of Japan, the only animation investor who dared to commit over 200 million yen to a single episode was Shirogane-sensei. The image quality on screen slled entirely of money.
The opening the ended. The plot continued from the previous week.
Following the stirring music of the Flying God Song from the previous episode, Bertholdt's Colossal Titan moved slowly through Eren's hotown, the small town where the wall had been breached five years ago.
A wave of his hand sent frantic wind tearing through the air. Any Survey Corps mber attempting to approach lost control of their ODM Gear trajectory involuntarily.
Even the one or two exceptional soldiers who could get within range of his body found the Colossal Titan's surface spraying massive waves of superheated steam at several hundred degrees. Nobody could actually make contact with it.
Two minutes into the episode, Kenji understood that sothing had been wrong with his pre-episode assessnt.
Sitting duck.
He had called the Colossal Titan a sitting duck.
What he was watching was a creature with maximum attack power, maximum health, and maximum defensive capability. The only limitation was mobility. And for the people inside the walls, whose ranged weaponry was conventional gunpowder firearms that probably could not pierce the Colossal Titan's skin, immobility was not a aningful weakness.
Have Eren transform and fight it directly?
Kenji looked at the size relationship on screen. A fifteen-tre Titan versus a fifty-tre Titan. After transformation, Eren could probably reach the Colossal Titan's knee if he jumped. Eren's entire transford body was smaller than one of the Colossal's calves.
The balance in this series is completely unreasonable, Kenji thought, not for the first ti.
All Titan Shifters technically had the sa category of power. But the Colossal Titan was nurical dominance in every direction. Ymir's small Titan with the large head was almost entirely mobility. Eren's Titan and Annie's Titan were middling.
The Armored Titan had the most theoretical potential, except that Reiner's actual win-loss record suggested he did not know how to use it. If Annie were piloting Reiner's Armored Titan, she would probably have ended every encounter in the first exchange.
The scene shifted.
Inside the wall: Eren and the Survey Corps besieging the Colossal Titan. Outside the wall: Levi and Commander Erwin leading the corps mbers in defence against whatever the Beast Titan was preparing.
The Beast Titan began moving.
It displayed its unique ability.
It picked up the large mountain rocks in the terrain surrounding it and compressed them in its grip until they fragnted into high-density gravel. Then, in the posture of a baseball pitcher, it wound up, rotated, released.
The sky filled with stones.
From several kilotres away. Descending like targeted projectiles. A single throw achieving aerial bombardnt across a wide area with accuracy that thousands of conventional troops could not replicate.
One round of attacks. The Survey Corps on the open plain took catastrophic losses.
Kenji's mouth was open.
How do you fight that.
The Colossal Titan could only fight at lee range. The Beast Titan could bombard from several kilotres away and never needed to engage directly. The dozen-plus giant Titans it had under its coordination control ford a defensive periter that ant anyone who did ride close to it was simply delivering themselves.
This is not going to be a feel-good episode.
The oppressive weight that had defined the first and second seasons ca back completely. The specific quality of being dominated that Attack on Titan produced better than any other series Kenji watched.
Shirogane-sensei. You are not going to start killing people again.
After the first half of Season Three, with the Royal Governnt arc having concluded without a single major protagonist group death, the community had allowed itself to believe that perhaps Shirogane-sensei was no longer committed to sending out emotional damage at regular intervals.
The sense of despair being established in this episode suggested otherwise.
Horses. Personnel. Supplies. Under the Beast Titan's sustained bombardnt, the Survey Corps could only use terrain and buildings to take cover. They had no ability to fight back. In an open plain against tens of thousands of ultra-high-speed projectile fragnts, there was nothing a group of humans on horseback could do.
The Beast Titan would not engage in lee if it could bombard from a distance. It was not careless. It was strategic.
The animation's detailed rendering of the casualties on the open plain produced a physiological discomfort in Kenji that he recognised as intentional. The severed limbs. The broken bodies.
The specific way the series refused to sanitise what artillery bombardnt by a creature of this scale actually did to human beings on an open field. The cruelty of it. The despair of soldiers who could not advance, could not retreat to their horses without those horses being eliminated in the next volley, could only take cover and wait.
On the other side of the wall, Eren rushed at the Colossal Titan and grabbed its foot. The Colossal Titan kicked him away with casual force. Eren's form went spinning into the wall with limbs flailing. The gap in scale made the attempt look almost absurd.
Commander Erwin was pinned in a building. Not daring to show his head above the sill.
If they tried to use the horses to withdraw, the Beast Titan needed one round of throws to eliminate most of them. After that, the Survey Corps mbers on foot in an open plain would be what Attack on Titan called delivery food.
The soldiers were falling into despair visibly.
Erwin's face showed the expression of soone who had exhausted their options.
"As long as you and Eren can return alive, we still have hope."
Levi had already begun calculating the mathematics of sacrificing everyone present to cover Eren and the commander's withdrawal.
"We have been utterly defeated."
"Yes. That is assuming we have no ans of counterattacking."
Erwin's tone was completely level.
Both Kenji and Levi caught the specific quality of that phrasing simultaneously.
"You have one?" Levi asked.
"Yes."
"Why didn't you say so from the beginning?"
"If this operation goes smoothly, you might be able to take down the Beast Titan. But I, and all the recruits here, will have to use our lives to trade for that opportunity."
'Was Erwin afraid of dying?'
Kenji's eyes went wide. He did not want to watch Shirogane-sensei take Erwin in this direction.
The logic was straightforward when he turned it over. Sacrificing everyone present versus a total wipeout seed like little difference in isolation.
But the distinction was whether the Beast Titan was taken down in the process. The forr was a pyrrhic victory with the strategic objective achieved. The latter was total collapse with nothing gained. Erwin understood this logic better than anyone in the field.
"The soldiers' morale has already collapsed. To get them to charge toward their deaths, I have to perform like a first-class con artist, using every word I have. If I don't lead from the front, they will never move. Which ans I will be the first to die."
Erwin's tone was calm. Underneath the calm was sothing more complex that Kenji could not imdiately na.
"But if that happens... I won't know what's in the basent of Eren's house."
Kenji's eyes went wide.
So that was it.
Erwin was not afraid of dying. His past had been depicted across two seasons with enough clarity that this was not in question. What he was afraid of was dying without knowing the truth he had spent his entire career pursuing.
He had joined the Survey Corps for a specific reason: to understand the true history of the walls, to answer the question of why creatures like Titans existed and what lay beneath the surface of everything humanity had been told. His father had died for this question. Erwin had built his entire life around carrying it forward.
The truth he had sought for all of it was in a basent on the other side of Wall Maria. Reachable. Within actual physical reach, for the first ti in his life.
He could disregard the lives of everyone present. Slip into the city. Find Eren's house. Open the door.
The answer would be there.
But the strategic objective required him to die in a charge first.
This choice, Kenji thought. I do not know how I would make this choice.
It was too cruel to have a clean answer to.
"I want to go to the basent of Eren's house right now," Erwin said to Levi, his voice low, sitting on the stone. "I firmly believe my conjecture will be verified."
"Insisting on leading the corps to investigate the world beyond the walls, ti and again, the enormous sacrifices of the soldiers made think repeatedly that I might as well just die. Even so, my father's dream still lingers in my mind. And now the answer is within reach. It is already so close."
He lowered his head.
"But, Levi. Do you see them? The soldiers who sacrificed themselves in the past are behind . Watching ."
His dream. His sense of responsibility as the commander who had spent those soldiers. Both of them present simultaneously. Both of them real.
Then the most moving scene of the episode arrived.
Levi knelt on one knee.
He looked at Erwin and made his request. For humanity. For the strategic victory. In the direct, unornanted language that Levi used for everything that mattered.
"I will take care of the Beast Titan."
"Erwin. Give up on your dream and die."
"Lead the recruits to hell."
Levi's voice was as cold as it always was.
Kenji realised his mouth was dry. He picked up the cola can and drank without taking his eyes off the screen.
A relieved smile appeared at the corner of Erwin's lips.
That was the decisive weight on the scale. Levi's words, spoken without comfort or ceremony, had given Erwin the only thing he needed: soone telling him clearly what the mont required and asking him to do it.
Then Erwin rode to the front of the recruit formation.
They were assembled on the open ground. Young faces. Most of them had joined the Survey Corps in the months following the earlier seasons, drawn by what the corps represented. None of them had expected their first major operation to end here, on an open plain, being asked to charge across it toward sothing that had just erased half their number with thrown rocks.
The fear was visible on every face. There was no point concealing it.
"There's no point standing around. You'll only be showered by more boulders. Ready your horses on the double."
The recruits moved to comply, but the dread of what was being asked of them had not gone anywhere. One of them, a young soldier nad Floch, finally said what every face in the formation was already saying silently.
"Be honest. Are all of us riding to our death?"
Erwin looked at him.
"Yes. We are."
Floch processed this.
"And since we're dying anyway, you're saying that it's better? Before we even start fighting?"
"I am."
The logic of hopelessness completed itself in Floch's expression.
"But wait. If we'll die anyway, then who cares what we do? We could just disobey your orders. And it wouldn't an a thing, would it?"
"Yes. You're precisely right."
The silence that followed was the silence of a formation on the edge of dissolution. Everything Erwin had just confird was true and everyone present knew it was true and for a mont the charge existed only as an abstract thing, sothing that had not yet beco real.
Then Erwin began to speak again. Not in the voice of a commander issuing orders. In the voice of soone who had sothing to say that needed to be heard before the horses moved.
"Everything that you thought had aning. Every hope, dream, or mont of happiness. None of it matters as you lie bleeding out on the battlefield. None of it changes what a speeding rock does to a body. We all die."
Kenji's hands had closed into fists without him deciding that.
"But does that an our lives are aningless? Does that an that there was no point in our being born? Would you say that of our slain comrades? What about their lives? Were they aningless?"
He paused.
"They were not. Their mory serves as an example to us all. The courageous fallen. The anguished fallen. Their lives have aning because we, the living, refuse to forget them."
One recruit straightened in the saddle. Then another. The fear did not leave their faces. Sothing appeared alongside it that had no clean na.
"And as we ride to certain death, we trust our successors to do the sa for us. Because my soldiers do not buckle or yield when faced with the cruelty of this world."
The formation tightened. The horses began to move.
"MY SOLDIERS PUSH FORWARD!"
"MY SOLDIERS SCREAM OUT!"
"MY SOLDIERS RAAAAGE!"
The smoke bombs went up simultaneously across the formation. Every surviving recruit fired their last resources into the sky to obscure the Beast Titan's sightlines. The formation broke into a full charge across the open ground. Erwin at the front, riding directly toward certain death, with every terrified young soldier behind him moving at full speed.
The fear was still on their faces.
They charged anyway.
This was Erwin's final choice.
Kenji had not moved since Floch asked the first question.
He was aware at so point that he had stopped breathing. His cola can sat untouched beside him. His hands were still closed into fists in his lap.
The tears were running and he was not addressing them.
One scene. That sense of tragedy and of fate landing simultaneously hit Kenji directly in the chest.
Shirogane-sensei. What are you doing. You are tricking the tears out of again.
...
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