Entering 2013.
First, in January, the multimedia project "Love Live!" began airing its anime.
It's an idol anime where the group in the show is called μ's, and the genre is School Idol, with the main mission being to gain popularity to save their school from closing.
In terms of plot, it's not complicated, but this was never an anime that sold itself on its plot, but rather on the idols themselves.
Before the anime was adapted, the group μ's had already gained significant popularity, so naturally, the anime enjoyed a high level of popularity after it started airing.
However, although the plot isn't complex, as the first installment of the "Love Live!" series, it still has many commendable aspects.
First is the character design; each member of the main group has a distinct and full personality, making a deep impression.
Secondly, the main group in this anime doesn't have a smooth journey on the path to becoming school idols. Especially in the beginning when there were only three of them, they practiced very hard for their first concert, but on the day of the concert, the venue was empty with almost no audience, which dealt a huge blow to the main character and her friends.
However, despite being devastated, the optimistic and cheerful protagonist, Honoka Kosaka, soon led her two teammates, Kotori Minami and Umi Sonoda, to get back on their feet and begin their performance. Then, at the end of the concert, the student council president—who served as the initial "antagonist"—appeared and asked the protagonist what they intended to do. The protagonist replied that they would continue even if there were no audience members, adding:
"Someday, we will... fill this place!"
It is very moving and passionate, and quite different from typical idol anime. Even if you aren't a fan of the virtual idol group μ's themselves, you can still enjoy this show.
Of course, the anime has more than just these two merits; the songs are great, the animation of the concert dance sequences is extremely fluid, the girls are cute, and the outfits designed for μ's are beautiful—all of these are highlights.
This, however, was not yet the peak of μ's popularity; it would take until the second season of the anime for the group's popularity to reach its zenith, even giving rise to the "Love Live! cult" phenomenon, driving the anime's average sales to over 100,000 copies per volume, and leading to the subsequent animated film achieving considerable box office success.
That said, even though μ's had not yet reached its peak popularity, the popularity of this anime was enough to crush other anime in January, firmly occupying the top spot on the January popularity charts.
The project was created by Lin Zhiyan, but as always, he didn't intervene much in the animation side of things.
His main focus remained on "Your Name."
In February, the specific release date for the anime was announced: May 1st, the first day of Golden Week.
Along with this announcement came some new information, including the first PV with actual content.
The first PV was released in November 2012, but it mainly featured the character designs for the male and female leads, voice cast selections, and information about the animation production team; it didn't contain any information related to the plot.
This February PV was the second PV. Compared to the first one, it included the anime's theme song and information related to the content.
The theme song, "Zenzenzense," was undoubtedly fantastic, but even more significant was the content information, especially a line from the PV: "Could it be... that the two of us have swapped lives in our dreams?"
It's been 13 years; it's long past the era when romance anime were scarce. Not to mention the ones that are too old or unpopular, just looking at the romance anime from 2008 onwards that were fairly popular or even massive hits, there are titles like "Toradora!", "Kimi ni Todoke", "My Little Monster", "Waiting in the Summer", and so on.
Most romance anime can't be said to be completely unable to attract an audience, but generally, they only really interest those who already like the romance genre.
"Your Name." is different. The male and female leads swap lives, and through this, they cross paths and slowly develop romantic feelings. This premise is very interesting and appealing.
Consequently, having already been anticipated by many due to information about its production, even more people were looking forward to it when the second PV was released.
Online, more and more viewers began discussing this animated film, which wouldn't be released for another two months or so:
"I thought a romance-themed animated film produced by Lin Zhiyan might not make me feel very excited, but looking at the information released in PV2, this anime seems really interesting. I'm starting to look forward to it."
"This isn't your typical romance anime."
"Are the main characters swapping lives? It reminds me of the anime 'Kokoro Connect' that aired last July. Although, the situation in 'Kokoro Connect' is a bit different; it's not strangers swapping lives in their dreams, but rather a group of friends who already know each other randomly swapping souls."
"The concept is very interesting, and the art style is crucial—it's incredibly beautiful. Plus, with Lin Zhiyan in charge of direction and the script, it's impossible not to have high expectations."
"May 1st, please come quickly. I can't wait to see this 'Your Name'."
"Initially, it was said that Makoto Shinkai was involved in the production, and since Lin Zhiyan had worked with Makoto Shinkai on '5 Centimeters Per Second' in '06, I thought this romance anime Lin Zhiyan was making would be similar to '5 Centimeters Per Second'. I didn't expect it to be this different; looking at the PV, it seems much more interesting than '5 Centimeters'. I'm definitely looking forward to the release of this animated film."
"It's perfectly timed for the Golden Week release, so I can take a break. I'll definitely go see it when it premieres!"
"I thought that an animated romance film produced by Lin Zhiyan might not make me feel very expectant, but looking at the information released in PV2, this anime seems really interesting. I'm starting to look forward to it."
In fact, the soul-swapping theme does have similar anime, like the 'Kokoro Connect' that netizens mentioned, but 'Your Name' is quite different from 'Kokoro Connect'.
In fact, the theme of soul swapping does have similar anime, specifically Kokoro Connect which netizens have mentioned, but Your Name is still very different from Kokoro Connect.
Furthermore, Lin Zhiyan's Your Name was scheduled for release on May 1st, 2013, with project-related information released as early as 2011, while the Kokoro Connect anime began airing in July 2012. Therefore, there's no reason to think that Lin Zhiyan only came up with the idea for Your Name after watching Kokoro Connect.
However, when it comes down to it, body or soul swapping was not an original concept created by Kokoro Connect to begin with. There was an even earlier film with a similar premise called I Are You, You Am Me, which was one of the true sources of inspiration for Makoto Shinkai's Your Name in another timeline, although the situation with I Are You, You Am Me is also not quite the same as Your Name.
In short, while there are similar works, there is no question of plagiarism, and the fact that there have been similar works before doesn't make people lose interest; on the contrary, it makes them even more interested.
Then, at the end of March, the Your Name prequel novel was released.
Those who were originally a bit worried were completely reassured after reading the content of the novel, and their anticipation for this animated film went straight to the maximum.
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