"The world's richest man is too bored to build a mech!" Seeing that all the social media platforms in Fusang were filled with video clips of the giant mech in action, Taida Shigeaki of Bandai Namco felt extremely uncomfortable.
It wasn't that he believed Jiangnan Group, with its mech and new model, could shake Bandai Namco's market.
After all, Bandai Namco's toy market was enormous, and they held a large number of classic IPs such as Gundam, Ultraman, Kamen Rider, Super Sentai, Tekken, and Evangelion. These were IPs that Bandai Namco owned exclusively.
At the same time, Bandai had licenses for almost all Fusang IPs, making its toy industry incredibly vast. Taida Shigeaki would never worry about Bandai's future just because a competitor released a real-life mech.
But the problem was that the market wasn't so astute. With the appearance of Pangu Homeland, Bandai's stock price had fallen for a week.
While the decline wasn't overly dramatic, it dropped every day, causing a loss of over ten billion Japanese yen in market value. If this market value couldn't be recovered, Taida Shigeaki could already imagine how many times he'd have to perform a dogeza before the board of directors at the end of the year.
Simultaneously, Taida Shigeaki couldn't help but harbor a strong sense of resentment towards Boss Huang.
Normally, it was acceptable for a company to release models, and even understandable if they released a real-life mech to boost model sales. Taida Shigeaki considered it normal business competition!
The issue was that the opposing company's president, in his promotions, never stopped mentioning Bandai, always talking about surpassing Gundam and defeating it. The result was directly tying their brand strategy to Bandai. Wherever they thrived, Bandai's stock price would fall.
This was clearly using them as a stepping stone!
Taida Shigeaki was feeling dejected when, a few hours later, something even more disheartening happened. Taida Shigeaki discovered that in the past few hours, Bandai's stock price had experienced another small plunge. In three hours, 4.6 billion Japanese yen in market value had disappeared, equivalent to the previous week's decline. This made Taida Shigeaki's eyes almost pop out. He quickly summoned the head of the marketing department to inquire about the cause of the sudden stock price collapse.
After all, such a significant drop could not be due to normal stock fluctuations.
The marketing department hesitated before replying, "Mr. President, barring any unforeseen circumstances, it should be the impact of the 'Homeland' anime officially airing on television."
"Last night, the Japanese dubbed version of the 'Homeland' anime premiered on TV Tokyo's evening slot, airing simultaneously with China. Therefore, two episodes were broadcast in one day. Now that the word-of-mouth for these two episodes has been released, it has affected our stock price!"
"Is the 'Homeland' anime's word-of-mouth that good?" Taida Shigeaki asked incredulously. Although the first episode of 'Homeland' had been uploaded to Niconico, and while it was in Chinese, it could still be watched with Japanese subtitles. However, Taida Shigeaki had no interest in watching a competitor's anime, so he didn't know what the word-of-mouth for this anime was like.
Now, it seemed that the anime's word-of-mouth was exceptionally high, otherwise, their stock price wouldn't have dropped by 4.9 billion Japanese yen because of an anime.
Yes, it wasn't a typo. The number was changed from 4.6 billion to 4.9 billion. Just as Taida Shigeaki was summoning the marketing department, the stock price had dropped another 300 million yen, directly heading towards 5 billion yen.
"Yes, on almost all websites in Fusang, the positive review rate has not been below 95%. Various social networks are also full of praise for it, calling it the best mecha anime of the past decade, and also saying..."
"And what else?"
"They say that even a fart from 'Homeland' could crush three 'Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans'," the PR representative said, lowering his head. Taida Shigeaki's face turned red with anger. He wanted to refute, but thinking about what kind of work their 'Iron-Blooded Orphans' was, he forcefully swallowed his words.
After a long while, he said, "What's so impressive about comparing it to 'Iron-Blooded Orphans'? They should compare it to our OO, our SEED, our original Gundam!" As he said this, Taida Shigeaki seemed to have an idea and said indignantly, "That's right, this so-called 'Homeland' should be compared to our original Gundam, as both are series that pioneered the franchise. What's the point of comparing it to 'Iron-Blooded Orphans'!"
Everyone might be wondering why, when 'Iron-Blooded Orphans' was mentioned, Taida Shigeaki, as Bandai's president, lacked confidence.
It was simply because that Gundam work had almost ruined the entire Gundam series.
As everyone knows, since the release of the first "Original Gundam" in 1979, Gundam has become an extremely profitable series.
There are over 50 related anime and movies, and hundreds of related comics and novels. Some statistics indicate that to finish all the related anime, movies, comics, and novels of the Gundam franchise, it would take at least three years.
Even devoted Gundam fans find it difficult to finish all these related works. The vast majority of Gundam fans only watch the main TV anime series, which is the foundation of the Gundam series' survival. All Gundam-related derivative works are born from these few main anime series.
Among the most important and influential TV anime series are Gundam 0079 in 1979, followed by Gundam Z, Gundam Wing, Gundam SEED, Gundam 00, and then "Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans," which aired last year.
Gundam 0079, Gundam SEED, and Gundam 00 are all highly acclaimed works within the Gundam series. In particular, Gundam SEED revitalized Gundam, which was declining and almost relegated to a second-tier IP, pushing it back to the peak of all model IPs. Twenty years later, it turned a new generation of Fusang people into Gundam fans.
According to incomplete statistics, the Gundam SEED series has brought at least 3.2 trillion Japanese yen in direct and indirect revenue to Bandai. The first batch of Gundam fans in China at the time were also drawn into the franchise by Gundam SEED.
Although the effect of Gundam 00 was slightly less, it was also well-received. It wasn't until "Iron-Blooded Orphans," which was supposed to succeed Gundam 00 and was tasked with attracting a new generation of fans to the Gundam series, that it completely crashed and burned.
This anime created countless memes, the most famous being "Don't Stop" and "Gundam Nail."
The former is difficult to explain as it's very complex and could fill a chapter.
As for the latter, to put it simply, during the final battle, the protagonist team worked hard and overcame numerous obstacles, even defeating the final boss's mobile suit. However, the opponent then deployed their ultimate superweapon, the Gundam Nail, which wiped out the protagonist team. Most of the protagonist team members, including the protagonist, were sacrificed.
It's not that a plot where the entire protagonist team is sacrificed is inherently bad, but the Gundam Nail itself is unacceptable. Can you imagine a seemingly invincible Gundam not being defeated by a planet-destroying cannon, a moon-blasting cannon, or even by high-energy rifles, but by a steel nail fired from a long distance?
Yes, at a distance of tens of thousands of kilometers, a steel nail longer than a Gundam was fired, piercing the protagonist's Gundam and achieving victory.
Well, even Director Bi wouldn't dare to design a plot like this!
Such an absurd ending naturally led to the collapse of the entire Gundam series' reputation. It not only failed to attract new Gunpla builders but also drove away many old fans.
Bandai itself was very angry and dissatisfied with it. The best proof is that ten years after "Iron-Blooded Orphans" aired, Bandai released...
However, with the emergence of "Homeland" and the plunge in stock prices, everyone at Bandai felt immense pressure. After scolding Taida Shigeaki, they would ask him if he had any countermeasures against the opponent!
"We can sue Jiangnan Group!" Taida Shigeaki, perhaps pushed to his limit, finally offered this solution.