As both are food animations, "Showa Shokudo" seems to be taking a completely different route from "Food Wars! Soma".
Unlike "Food Wars! Shokugeki no Soma" which had millions of pre-subscriptions long before it aired, the overall subscription and playback numbers of "Showa Shokudo" at the beginning of its broadcast cannot be said to be bad - after all, the audience base that Huaying has built over the years is real. But compared with Huaying's recent animation works, the subscriptions of "Showa Shokudo" are obviously not enough.
Muxuxing was not surprised by this.
Strictly speaking, "Showa Shokudo" is not a purely commercial animation. Whether it is the style of painting, character setting or plot, this animation follows a niche route that is more literary and implicit, and the rhythm is relatively slow. Its target market is different from that of "Food Wars! Shokugeki no Soma" itself.
Most of these animations have a very good reputation, but whether they can be popular depends on whether this reputation can be effectively converted into subscriptions.
Soon, with the release of Showa Shokudo, many viewers who pre-subscribed also caught up with Luo Gaofeng's progress. From being careless to gradually serious, and finally crying out loud, this is not only Luo Gaofeng's personal viewing experience, but also the inner thoughts of nearly 90% of the audience.
"Crying, I knew I shouldn't have had hope for the kindness of that bastard..."
"Actually, what Xingxing said is right. This animation is indeed gentle, but it is this gentleness that makes it very sad. The ending is not a tragedy. Strictly speaking, it is a happy ending. The traffic policeman and the father-in-law have resolved their grievances and are living a new life. But it is really hard to let go of good intentions."
"It's hard to accept 1. It's so sad to think that the father didn't get to eat the hamburger meat made by his daughter in the end. Although the ending is good, it's really too hard to accept..."
"In fact, I almost guessed the plot when I watched the beginning. I wanted to find faults, but I didn't expect the plot to be so touching. The background music and performance are very interesting. The viewing experience is excellent. I look forward to the sequel!"
…
"Showa Shokudo" has been online for a week, and the related review websites have received positive reviews, with a score as high as 9.5
Although according to convention, the rating of "Showa Shokudo" will inevitably drop appropriately after it is completed, but with hundreds of thousands of people rating the first episode, it still got a high score of 9.5, which is enough to prove the potential of this animation.
Mu Xuxing did not have any profit goals or requirements for this animation. The works produced by Huaying now would not lose money no matter what. Having said that, as for Mu Xuxing himself, he did not have much hope for the sales of this animation.
If it relies on word of mouth, the final subscription should be in the range of 500,000-800,000. After all, for an animation with a literary and artistic orientation, there is a certain degree of cultural barriers, and the audience is not as wide as that of an animation like "Food Wars! So", 800,000 is probably its ceiling.
No one expected that when the third episode of "Showa Shokudo" was aired, the subscriptions exceeded 800,000, which Mu Suxing originally thought was the ceiling.
When receiving the subscription data summarized from major websites, not only other companies, but even Mu Suxing himself was a little surprised.
As Huaying Animation grew, the company was no longer limited to the production of animation itself. At this time, "Showa Shokudo" performed beyond the standard. In less than three days, the relevant departments submitted a report to investigate and analyze the subscription group of "Showa Shokudo" and the reasons for its success.
In addition to the high quality of the animation itself, the success of "Showa Shokudo" is also related to the fact that there were no competitors during the period in which the animation was released.
It is now January and the winter vacation has not yet begun. There were not many animations that would have been released during this period, especially after Huaying announced the release time. In order to avoid the subscription rush under the background of Huaying, many animations chose to avoid it.
It's not just animations. In fact, even among TV series, web series and movies, not many choose to broadcast at this relatively quiet time. The few that remain are also ordinary works of poor quality that dare not compete with blockbusters during the New Year season.
If it were a traditional animation work, those viewers who usually follow live-action dramas would not necessarily come to follow the animation even if they were short of dramas. However, the plot of "Showa Shokudo" would not feel out of place even if it was adapted into a live-action TV series. In addition, Huaying has accumulated popularity since the Sherlock Holmes series. This has led to many people who don't like animation being willing to watch Huaying's works with the idea of giving it a try when there is a shortage of dramas.
Under such circumstances, the audience of "Showa Shokudo" naturally expanded further.
Muxuxing was very satisfied with the result.
On the one hand, the performance of the animation itself exceeded expectations. On the other hand, in addition to animation production, Huaying has gradually established and improved other departments. Although it is only a beginning, at least other employees of Huaying have begun to develop the habit of summarizing and thinking after success.
For Huaying, this thinking habit is more important than the success or failure of a particular animation.
It was early February.
Needless to say, "Showa Shokudo" was originally a spur of the moment animation for Makusukoshi, and it was also a work of self-adjustment. Now that the goal has been achieved, of course it is time to start considering the first animated film of Kaei Animation.
Yes, an animated film.
In fact, Mu Suxing had the idea of making an animated film as early as a year ago, but at that time the Yunsu Group intervened unexpectedly. In order to expand the company, he put part of his energy into drawing comics, and naturally he had no time to consider the animated film.
Compared to the animated series, the plot of "Harry Potter" itself is more suitable for adaptation into an animated film. Now that he has the time and happens to plan to develop into animated films, it is a good opportunity to start the "Harry Potter" series of animated films. If successful, it will also become an important source of profit for Huaying in the next seven years.
The idea is beautiful, but the reality is cruel.
With a goal in mind, the first thing to do is naturally to write an animation plan.
Logically speaking, Mu Xuxing has written quite a few animation projects. This time, in order to make good preparations for "Harry Potter", considering that it has been a long time since he first read it, he also took out half a month to re-read the original novel and the series of live-action movies in the parallel world.
The commercial value of this series is unquestionable. The original novel and the live-action movie can also give him certain inspiration in character design. What bothers Mu Suxing is that the concept drawings and some prop designs he drew based on "Harry Potter" are beautiful, and they also refer to the prop design of the movie, but the overall feeling seems to be missing something.
If you ask him what exactly felt wrong, Mu Suxing couldn't tell exactly why.
After thinking hard for a while without any result, Mu Xiuxing simply put the prop design aside for the time being and started drawing concept maps of Hogwarts Castle, Diagon Alley, Knockturn Alley and Hogsmeade.
His current creative speed is almost five times that of an ordinary person. However, even so, by the time he gets off work every day, he has only finished half of the concept drawing of Hogwarts Castle, and has not yet started working on the common rooms of the four colleges.
Mu Suxing took a sip of coffee and was wondering whether to finish the painting in one go before going back. Suddenly, the phone on the table rang with a WeChat notification tone.
"I probably won't be back tonight, so don't wait for me for dinner." The sender was Qin Sheng.
As a workaholic who had to work overtime, Mu Suxing also felt a rare sense of pressure and urgency at this moment. He casually replied: "Is the company busy?"
"Well, the new game will be open for testing next month. I'm still not satisfied with the CG visual effects. I plan to work with the animation department to polish it later."
Both of them are very busy people now, so they just chatted for a while and soon got back to their respective work.
Mu Xuxing rubbed his forehead.
Given his special status in the animation industry, animation planning is just a process. Even if he just writes it casually, others will most likely not object given their trust in him.
What bothered him was not the animation project itself, but the fact that from the time when "Harry Potter" was confirmed to now, although he did not need to worry about the general plot and core selling points, if the concept map was wrong, it often meant that the style of the animated film itself was wrong. As a result, the progress of "Harry Potter" was naturally slowed down.
He was feeling worried and his eyes were scanning the surrounding area aimlessly. When he passed by the phone with which he had just finished a chat, he paused inadvertently.
Mu Suxing's heart moved, and by the time he reacted, he had already unlocked his phone and his eyes fell on the chat window that he had not had time to close.
… game cg
etc!
Due to the inertia brought by past experience, Mu Suxing subconsciously decided to make the "Harry Potter" series of animated films as traditional animations, but the question is, is the "Harry Potter" series really suitable for 2D
As a typical and classic novel on the theme of magic school, the most fascinating thing about "Harry Potter" is undoubtedly the magical and interesting magic world depicted in the original work. It is said that details determine success or failure, and the various wonderful settings in the world view of "Harry Potter" are undoubtedly the reason why countless audiences are obsessed with it and firmly believe that Hogwarts really exists.
In other words, if it is to be made into an animated film, scene design and prop design will be a very important part.
This is also the reason why Mu Xiuxing is not very satisfied with the design of his own props.
Although there is no distinction between traditional animation and CG animation in the concept map, Mu Xuxing instinctively positioned it as a traditional animation in his mind. When drawing the concept map, he also brought in traditional animation elements. As a result, the prop design naturally looked wrong no matter how he looked at it.
And if the Harry Potter series were made into a CG animated film...
If he remembered correctly, there were no real CG animated movies on Blue Star at present. Although there were many ordinary 3D animations, the CG technology was top-notch, with extremely rich details and rendered images with visual effects close to the real world. CG animations currently only existed in the promotional animations of some games.
As for the first CG animated film of Blue Star that was released later—
Just as this thought flashed through Mu Suxing's mind, the next second, there was a knock on the door outside the office. He answered it casually, and Fang Lian on the other end asked excitedly, "Mu, have you seen the trailer for Qianye Entertainment's CG animated film?"
Mu Suxing was slightly stunned.
Fang Lian said excitedly: "I saw it, the graphics are really awesome, especially the hair effect of the heroine, it makes me feel bald for the technicians. No wonder they say that the top CG technology on Blue Star is in the hands of game companies, this effect is really amazing!"