The pre-order numbers for the 'Neon Genesis Evangelion' game left people in the Great Zhou gaming industry absolutely stunned.
From their perspective, the games produced by Jing Yu's company weren't exactly low-quality, but compared to the kind of titles that the industry grinds out over five to eight years, there was just no comparison.
Most of his games were likely rushed out in eight or nine months. Gameplay-wise? Nothing groundbreaking. The main draw was the story — and more importantly, the character designs tied directly to his drama productions.
From a purely gaming standpoint, the titles had decent playability. After all, Jing Yu wasn't stingy with production budgets. Even if these were just part of the larger merchandise ecosystem, he never cut corners on quality.
So, the consensus in the gaming world was that his games were mid-tier, or upper-mid-tier at best.
And yet, a game like 'Fate/Stay Night' was already on track to sell over ten million copies. At the current pace, it would hit that number in under two months.
Now here comes 'Neon Genesis Evangelion', and its pre-orders were already this ridiculous?
Game developers across Great Zhou were left completely demoralized.
Is this how game development works now?
Step 1: Release a TV drama.
Step 2: Let it blow up.
Step 3: Push out a companion game.
Step 4: Watch fans throw money at you.
This was the first time many professionals in Great Zhou's gaming industry had witnessed such a phenomenon — and they were struggling to process it.
Still, compared to the game devs in Jing Yu's previous life, the people here hadn't seen anything yet.
Back in his past life, the world's highest-grossing game company was Tencent. And not just their entire corporation — but their gaming division alone raked in more than the entire gaming revenue of companies like Microsoft, Apple's gaming sector, or even old titans like Nintendo and Sony.
To foreign game developers in Jing Yu's past life, companies like Tencent, NetEase, and miHoYo must have been a complete mystery.
These Chinese companies didn't make revolutionary AAA titles. They didn't produce gaming hardware. Their actual contributions to the gaming industry were... minimal, at best.
Yet somehow, they earned more than the companies that were actually trying to innovate.
In comparison, Jing Yu at least took game development seriously. He invested real money and effort. His attitude was sincere. But the market is the market — fans weren't stupid. They knew these were tie-in games designed to milk them, and yet they were eager to be milked.
If Jing Yu didn't release the game fast enough, they'd be spamming his official site, begging him to take their money and "harvest the crops."
What was he supposed to do?
After Jing Yu's official website opened pre-orders for 'Neon Genesis Evangelion', and saw how passionate fans were, he immediately launched a promo campaign. He announced on the website: every fan who pre-orders the game and ends up being the 10,000th, 20,000th, 100,000th, etc., preorder (i.e., any round-numbered 10k milestone) would receive a limited-edition mini EVA Unit-01 figurine.
Naturally, this announcement sent fans into a frenzy. It was like New Year's had arrived early.
After all, a preorder didn't mean you were obligated to buy the game. If you were lucky enough to land a milestone number and get the collectible, then it was absolutely worth it — even if you had no interest in the game.
And for those who did plan to buy the game?
They could finally stop watching Shinji Ikari mess up in the show — now they could pilot Unit-01 themselves.
They could talk directly with Rei Ayanami and Asuka Langley.
Just thinking about it was enough to keep fans awake all night with excitement.
It was clear that while Jing Yu hadn't introduced anime as a genre into this world, whether it was anime, films, dramas, games, or novels, these were just mediums. What really mattered was the story. A good story is a good story. You couldn't argue that Evangelion would blow up as an anime but flop as a novel.
So, even though 'Neon Genesis Evangelion' wasn't animated, many of Jing Yu's drama fans were already showing classic Japanese otaku symptoms — overactive imaginations, daydreaming, even early signs of chuunibyou.
Meanwhile...
Filming for Jing Yu's various productions had all entered full swing.
Although 'Castle in the Sky' relied heavily on special effects for backgrounds, the story of Sheeta and Pazu featured numerous scenes involving airships.
Scenes like the two of them flying scout drones like kites off the airship, or escaping the floating city in a small escape craft — those couldn't be created with pure CGI.
So Jing Yu had to commission a custom manufacturer to build models specifically for the shoot. Specs, costs, design — all of it required Jing Yu's personal input and approval as the creator.
Being the boss wasn't easy.
Even with three or four assistants assigned to him, none could really share the load.
Because Jing Yu didn't deal with minor admin work. His job consisted of high-level decisions — things only he could do.
'Your Name' was much simpler to film — though watching Jing Yu and Yu Youqing "gender-swap" was quite the comedy.
Yu Youqing, normally graceful and soft-spoken, had to play a high school girl possessed by a boy's soul. She had to constantly switch between the personalities of Mitsuha Miyamizu and Taki Tachibana.
Jing Yu, too, had to play a lot of scenes as Taki with exaggerated feminine gestures and bashful body language.
In the first week of shooting, the entire 'Your Name' crew was all smiles every day. With over a hundred people on set, everyone was having fun watching their boss and his girlfriend cross-play. The goofy roles made filming genuinely enjoyable.
'Voices of a Distant Star', however, was a whole different vibe.
The setting was desolate. The tone was bleak. The script? Utterly barren — to the point where the director joked it might as well have "I am the villain" written on the screen.
The short film's director felt disheartened reading the script. He couldn't understand what kind of emotional trauma the boss had gone through to want to make something like this — and spend so much on it.
"Are we just setting ourselves up to be roasted?"
But once filming entered full swing, the director got fired up, too. The 50 million yuan budget wasn't massive, but for a 20-minute short film, it was practically lavish.
He wasn't going to cut corners either. Every night, he dreamed of new, epic mech battle storyboards — scenes even cooler and more intense than anything shown in the original 'Voices of a Distant Star'.
After all, men are just boys who got older. Though he felt sorry for Mikako and Noboru's tragic love story, the mecha battles made this 40-something director feel like a teenager again.
He'd wake up in the middle of the night imagining battle choreography and visual effects.
Before long, the director had entered mad genius mode.
At first, Jing Yu didn't think much of it.
But later, seeing how this guy's storyboarded fight scenes got better and better every day, he began to wonder:
"Does this guy actually have a hidden talent for mecha productions?"
Jing Yu began to seriously consider — if 'Voices of a Distant Star' aired and audiences praised the fight scenes, then this director would become his go-to guy for all future mecha shows.
After all, talent exists everywhere.
In Jing Yu's previous life, Japanese works may have dominated temporarily due to their sheer quality, crushing Great Zhou's drama scene — but now, the works Jing Yu was releasing were starting to inspire local creators. The whole industry was growing.
A week after those three productions started filming, 'The Girl Who Leapt Through Time' and 'The Garden of Words' also began production.
At the Capital filming base, production crews from Jing Yu's company were everywhere. On many evenings, after shooting wrapped, Jing Yu would lead one or two hundred staffers from multiple sets out for dinner — and this became a famous sight in the entertainment industry there.
An investment of 700 to 800 million, with six productions shooting simultaneously — this kind of scale was almost unheard of among media companies in Great Zhou.
And just like that, time quietly crept into late February.