Parallel world Manga Artist

Chapter 333 333: Captured Again

After New Year's Day, the spring holiday season anime market competition began in earnest, alongside the marketing and promotional campaigns for the spring holiday theatrical releases.

Rei did not have any works launching in the spring holiday film market this year. The investors behind the films releasing during this window felt a corresponding reduction in anxiety.

In Japan's entertainment industry, there was no actor or director whose involvement reliably guaranteed a specific box office outcome. There was one young man in the anime industry who had functioned as a practical certainty for years: any work with less than a tenfold return on investment was considered a poor result by his standards.

His absence from the spring holiday theatrical competition this year gave his half-peers in the film industry enough breathing room that they put extra effort into their own marketing and promotion.

On the major ACGN commercial streets across Japan, January saw generous merchandise supplies. Attack on Titan merchandise and figures launched at scale. Multiple popular mobile and PC games in Japan had established collaborations with Shirogane Animation, all preparing to release themed skin gift packs during the spring holiday season.

Demon Slayer collaboration skins. Attack on Titan collaboration skins. One-Punch Man collaboration skins. Hunter x Hunter collaboration skins. Even Hikaru no Go Sai collaboration skins. A percentage of total sales from each collaboration would flow back to Shirogane Animation, which meant to Rei.

After resting and spending time with Miyu for several days, Rei reviewed the current market details and concluded that she had been right. His arrival had genuinely pushed Japan's animation and film industries in a positive direction. The market was larger than it had been, the production standards were higher across the board, and the capital flowing into the sector had increased the number of productions receiving proper investment.

Under these circumstances, Attack on Titan Season Three began airing.

And then: the classic pattern repeated.

Eren, the protagonist of Attack on Titan, was captured again.

Rei genuinely loved the first three seasons of the Attack on Titan anime. He also genuinely wanted to make a specific complaint about the structural device the series relied on whenever the plot needed to advance.

Season One: captured by the Female Titan.

Season Two: captured by Reiner.

Season Three: captured directly by the Royal Government, the hidden controllers within the walls, specifically the Reiss Family to which Christa belonged.

And in Season Four, which had not yet aired in Japan, the opening also featured Eren infiltrating Marley alone, nearly getting captured, with Mikasa and Levi coming to extract him from the resulting situation.

Eren occupied a narrative role somewhat similar to the female lead in the old Spider-Man films from Rei's previous life. All three films had centred on Spider-Man rescuing his captured girlfriend. Attack on Titan had developed a comparable structural dependency on Eren being the person who needed rescuing.

Japan's fans had experienced Eren's various capture arcs across Seasons One and Two and were no longer particularly surprised by this development. Shirogane-sensei was the god of this work. If he determined Eren needed to be captured, Eren would be captured.

Moreover, in the first few episodes of Season Three, the audience's attention was more substantially drawn to a different confrontation entirely: the fight between Levi and Kenny Ackerman, his uncle. The family history, the specific quality of combat between two people who had learned to fight from the same source and had then diverged completely: this was the material the early episodes were actually built around.

It's fine if Shirogane doesn't want to focus on Eren.

Spending more time on Levi and Kenny was the correct creative decision, and Rei had made it accordingly.

The Royal Government arc, forming the first half of Attack on Titan Season Three, kicked off in January.

The first four episodes established the two parallel storylines. Eren had been captured, and Levi and Mikasa were moving through the city's underground networks trying to locate who had taken him and where.

Simultaneously, inside the walls, the military led by the Four Corps and Commander Pyxis was collaborating with Erwin to investigate the truth behind the Titans and the dark secrets of the Royal Family that had been governing from within. Two tracks running alongside each other: rescue Eren, and the Military Coup.

These were the surface plots. What the audience actually wanted from this arc was the world-building information embedded inside it. The hidden secrets of the Titan world that could only be accessed through understanding who the Reiss Family were and what they had been concealing.

However, as Rei had anticipated, the early response from the fan community followed a predictable pattern.

After the first four January episodes aired, a significant portion of the Attack on Titan fan base had reservations.

The first two seasons had been constructed around fighting Titans or catching spies. The pacing had been dense with physical conflict and world-building reveals delivered through action. Everyone had found that rhythm engaging even when the individual episodes drew complaints about specific choices.

Season Three had opened with humans fighting humans inside the walls.

"They are about to be destroyed by external forces including the Colossal Titan, and the people inside the walls are spending their time on internal political conflict? This is where the story goes after Season Two's finale?"

"What is wrong with the Reiss Family specifically? Why do they want to capture Eren? He is a Survey Corps soldier operating under their nominal command. Why would the Royal Government move against one of their own soldiers?"

"The Kenny Ackerman fight sequences are exceptional. Everything involving Levi and Kenny is exactly what this series does at its best. The political framework around those sequences is less compelling."

"I understand something significant is being built here. I am choosing to trust Shirogane-sensei's track record and wait for the payoff. But the intial episodes have asked for more patience than Season Two's equivalent opening period."

Amidst the fan community's continuous questioning and measured patience, January ended.

Time moved into February.