This wave made Gainax, and it also let Sega, which had entered the game early, make money hand over fist.
Where there were winners, there were losers.
Other animated works in the same slot or neighboring slots were facing a dimensionality-reduction strike.
Nakayama Takuya closed his notebook and put it back in the safe.
Sunrise animation.
This veteran mecha animation production company was now in deep water and scorching fire.
As a subsidiary controlled by Sega, Sunrise's flagship project this year was Mobile New Century Gundam X.
It had premiered in April, originally hoping to rely on the golden signboard of "Gundam" to rekindle viewers' enthusiasm on television screens.
In the end, it had slammed head-on into the society-level storm of discussion set off by EVA.
The audience's attention was completely sucked away.
Ratings retreated step by step, and its commercial performance was a sight too miserable to bear.
Nakayama Takuya picked up the internal contact directory on the desk and flipped to Sunrise's contact page, but he did not make the call.
According to industry convention, when a year-long anime had aired past the halfway point, if its ratings and merchandise sales failed to meet targets, the sponsors on the production committee would jump out and apply pressure.
Proposals to cut the episode count and end it early were probably already turning Sunrise's conference room upside down right now.
As Sunrise's major shareholder, Sega could not pretend to be deaf and mute on this matter.
Moreover, the plan to acquire Sotsu required cooperation from Sunrise's side.
If morale inside Sunrise sank because of Gundam X's failure, and management grew turbulent because of it, it would be extremely unfavorable to the subsequent rights integration.
Nakayama Takuya grabbed his car keys and walked out of the office.
"No need to prepare