Depressive Screenwriter

For a week or two, reports about the Rurouni Kenshin movie flooded the media.

For Su Yan, while releasing a movie during the Spring Festival and seizing the box office crown was worth celebrating, he had already achieved this last year. His excitement wasn't as strong as before.

This was because he had become an absolute apex predator in the Xia country's film and television industry. His capital and decisions could turn newcomers into superstars or lead to popular celebrities being abandoned.

After all, a large number of people in the Xia country's film and television industry depended on Su Yan for their livelihood. Even if he wasn't petty, his subordinates would sometimes act shrewdly on their own.

Precisely because he was in this position, Su Yan didn't care as much about the company's quarterly or annual revenue, including whether the box office or ratings of his works could break records.

In previous years, he needed these things to prove his and Dimension Pictures' position in the industry, but now it was unnecessary.

He only promoted the Rurouni Kenshin movie for a week before its release, and then returned to Tokyo to continue filming "Code Geass" and "Howl's Moving Castle."

He also supervised the post-production of the "Weathering with You" movie.

Su Yan, who didn't have such a great desire to make money, now filmed these movies and TV series more out of hobby and pursuit. After all, he was an otaku in his previous life, and being able to film these works into live-action dramas in this world without worrying about the original author jumping out to criticize him for ruining the original work filled him with a sense of accomplishment.

During the release of Rurouni Kenshin, episodes seven and eight of FSN were also broadcast.

The plot of FSN could be said to be much slower-paced than FZ.

The first and second episodes introduced the night of the Heroic Spirit summoning, from the perspectives of Emiya Shirou and Tohsaka Rin.

Basically, the seven Masters' overt and covert storylines were all connected through the people they met and the events they experienced on this day, but the audience wouldn't notice it on their first viewing.

After that, the series began to tentatively introduce the various Heroic Spirits of this Holy Grail War, but the Masters behind these Heroic Spirits were mostly kept hidden, unlike FZ, which directly opened with an ensemble cast.

Many FZ viewers were unaccustomed to this, but many new viewers had their curiosity slowly piqued.

In particular, the interactions between FSN's male protagonist, Emiya Shirou, and Artoria in this drama almost blatantly told the audience that the screenwriter wanted the two to fall in love.

The male protagonist was a fool. Even though he was an ordinary person, he couldn't bear to see Artoria injured for the sake of the Holy Grail War, so he made her lie at home and rest all day while he went out to fight the various mages and Heroic Spirits of the Holy Grail War.

It was a bit stupid, but precisely this kind of overestimation of one's abilities and simple foolishness could earn Artoria's approval.

Because Artoria was the same kind of person!

Who else would die for their country, and even after death, still reflect on whether they were the problem that caused the country's turmoil and destruction, even wanting to use the Holy Grail to reverse time and rewrite history?

The great fool and the small fool met, and the resulting TV series transformed the oppressive and depressing viewing experience of FZ into the youthful campus romance style of FSN.

In particular, in the seventh episode of FSN, nearly ten minutes were spent depicting the dream that Emiya Shirou saw due to his Master's connection with Artoria.

Under the backdrop of the Knight King's Glory BGM.

That girl pulled the Sword in the Stone from the center of the lake, was embraced by everyone as king, and knew that pulling the sword would mean abandoning her identity as a person and only fighting as a king, yet she unhesitatingly pulled up the sword, led the people to defeat powerful enemies, and in the end, died alone in the forest, still fighting for her country even after death...

The night that Su Yan's derivative novel, which was serialized on the official website, was adapted into a TV series with more detailed content and broadcasted, a large group of Fate fans completely broke down and shed tears on the spot.

At the same time, the episode's plot where Emiya Shirou was captured by Illya, and Archer sacrificed himself to save Shirou, also touched the fans.

From this episode onwards, the plot of FSN began to tighten up.

The reputation and ratings also continued to climb from the stagnation of the previous two weeks.

Of course, after the seventh episode was the well-loved mana transfer plot from the original FSN game.

Because Emiya Shirou couldn't provide the magician's magic power to Artoria, it caused her to be unable to exert her true strength to fight Illya and her Master, so she needed to replenish her magic power through other methods, commonly known as mana transfer.

Of course, pure animation viewers in the previous life were confused about this mana transfer thing. The original work was a galgame game from the Sakura Island region, and the scale was different after all.

But Su Yan in the Xia country world certainly couldn't actually film the game's mana transfer plot, otherwise Su Yan's image in the fan base would change.

So in the TV series of the Xia country world, there weren't so many twists and turns. The plot was slightly changed, making the mana transfer plot look ambiguous, with a larger scale than the previous anime, but not as large as the game.

After all, the positioning was a campus youth combat ability theme TV series, so the audience wouldn't think too much about some ambiguous plots. Moreover, in addition to mana transfer, this episode also had the plot of Shirou and Artoria joining forces to defeat Berserker. It was after the ninth episode aired that the collective direction of Su Yan's comment section changed.

"Old Thief, write more plot for me."

"I feel like Artoria is really going to fall!"

"Emiya Shirou is a bit strange. Why does the sword he conjures with his magic have such great power? Does this drama not follow the law of conservation of energy? The male protagonist is a weakling, how can the sword he creates be so powerful?"

"Why are you talking about science in a combat ability drama?"

"I feel like there is potential for in-depth exploration of that mana transfer plot, but Old Thief is just really replenishing mana, and it's just a little closer contact, boring."

"Then what do you want to see? Like those Wuxia drama plots, the male and female protagonists share their inner strength after doing that? That's nonsense. If Artoria really did that to win the Holy Grail War, I feel like the character design would be problematic."

"What's the problem? The previous plot was already that Artoria recognized Emiya Shirou, and I even think Artoria likes Emiya Shirou a bit. In this case, it would be logical for the plot to develop in that direction, but unfortunately Old Thief didn't write the script that way."

"Keep it simple. It's okay for Artoria to fall in love in this drama, but I hope it's not too cliché. It's good like this. The most beautiful thing is a love with a bit of ambiguity!"

"That's right, I really want to tell you why it's so good to watch, it's because the plot has this ambiguity from beginning to end. Once the relationship is broken, it's not interesting."

"Am I the only one who thinks the plot development of FSN is too outrageous? Why can Artoria fall in love? It's too weird."

"Why? She's just an ordinary girl, isn't it normal to really fall in love with someone?"

"Stop arguing, FSN is indeed very different from FZ in plot style, but it's good in a different sense. Let's see how the ending is handled first. By the way, Kirei Kotomine hasn't made any moves since he appeared in the first few episodes, and Gilgamesh is probably about to appear!"

"The previous Holy Grail War was a fight to the death, but look at this one. Archer died, Tohsaka Rin continues to be an ally with Emiya Shirou, Berserker died, and Illya directly lives in Emiya Shirou's house, as if the hatred of the previous life-and-death battles is irrelevant."

"You guys complain when Su Yan writes about life-and-death depression, and you complain when this drama doesn't kill so many people. I'm Old Thief and I'm tired, it's hard to please you!"