Chapter 29: Rejection from Toho

             

Chapter 29: Rejection from Toho

“—Through the film, it’s clear that Director Shinji Matou has an exceptional grasp of Magecraft. The various development models of Gem Magecraft are portrayed vividly and in great detail.”

“Take for instance the scene where Rin Tohsaka freezes Berserker. Just from the formation of the magic circle, we can observe three distinct gem attribute combination formulas, along with—”

Shinji set the newspaper down with a soft sigh and reached up to pinch the bridge of his nose.

He never imagined that someone—a real magus—would actually analyze the Magecraft in his movie from a traditional scholarly perspective.

It was like a nuclear physicist writing a thesis titled “The Role of Palladium in Cold Fusion: Insights from Iron Man” after watching a Marvel film.

“…This feels surreal.”

He let out a helpless chuckle and shook his head.

Scientists using fantasy movies as research material? Was there anything more ridiculous than that?

Yes. Yes, there was.

From Shinji’s admittedly “shallow” understanding of Magecraft, the paper… actually had academic value.

Magus families like the Tohsakas—who specialized in Gem Magecraft—might really learn something from it.

And yet, the one who led the entire production—director, producer, and script supervisor—hadn’t the faintest clue that any of that was even in there.

Now that was truly absurd.

“…Who the heck wrote this paper, anyway—wait, huh? Of course it’s someone I know.”

Glancing at the byline, Shinji saw the name “Aozaki Aoko.”

Wait—no. Right next to it was another name, one he recognized immediately:

“Alice Kuonji.”

Instantly, the image of a short-haired girl flashed in his mind.

The Matou and Kuonji families didn’t have much to do with each other, but Shinji had been a hardcore TYPE-MOON fan in his past life. There was no way he wouldn’t recognize such a key character from the Tsukihime universe.

“Shinji, you know that little girl from the Kuonji family?”

Zouken asked, looking highly amused.

Shinji shrugged nonchalantly.

“Mm, Touko-san mentioned her once. Apparently, she and her sister are close.”

“Is that so?”

Hearing that his grandson had no particularly interesting history with the girl, Zouken promptly lost interest in the author herself and refocused on the paper.

“This issue of Magecraft Academic Monthly doesn’t have a huge circulation,” the old man said, tapping the paper, “but its influence within Japan’s magical community is quite significant.”

“Then this article’s actually… a good thing.”

Shinji’s eyes lit up slightly.

Even if the number of magi in Japan wasn’t that large, it was still a few tens of thousands.

Under normal circumstances, even if every one of them bought a ticket, the boost to the box office would only be a few dozen million yen at most.

But this was not a normal situation.

Fate/Stay Night was still in limited release—barely any screenings. In that context, a concentrated burst of attention from magi could easily serve as the trigger to convince Bandai to loosen up and go all in on distribution.

And if each magi pulled in a few more people from their social circles? The snowball effect could be enormous.

Despite being a secretive bunch, even magi weren’t entirely without friends.

Shinji, having seen how movies went viral in his past life, knew exactly how terrifying word-of-mouth could be for a good film.

“Guess those old fogies in the magecraft world aren’t totally useless after all.”

With that thought, the article in his hands suddenly looked a lot more charming—and so did its author, Miss Alice Kuonji.

She’d just given Fate/Stay Night a massive boost completely free of charge.

Of course he had to feel grateful.

But the movie’s reputation was spreading far faster than Shinji had expected.

Meanwhile, all the way in Tokyo, a bleary-eyed Shibamatsu trudged his way onto campus.

Last night, he’d watched the same movie twice in a row, and barely made it home before getting an earful from his old man.

He hadn’t slept a wink, and his brain was still spinning with visions of Magecraft, Servants, and the Holy Grail.

Shibamatsu even dreamed that he became a Master, only to get his heart punched out by that cursed priest in the first few seconds of the war, right into the arms of the Counter Force.

“Damn that movie!”

Rubbing his head in frustration, Shibamatsu walked across campus, grumbling to himself.

“It’s driving me nuts! My brain’s completely filled with this crap now!”

He was complaining, sure—but if given another chance, he’d still go watch Fate/Stay Night all over again.

Why? Because the film was just that good.

Of course, things would’ve been perfect if not for the annoying homework his old man dumped on him last night.

“Yo, Ikehira!”

Suddenly, a group of classmates caught up from behind, and one of them leapt forward to wrap an arm around his shoulders.

“You’re back from your folks’ place? Wanna join our soccer match? Sakata saved us a spot.”

“Think I’ll pass,” Ikehira Shibamatsu replied, pointing to the faint shadows under his eyes. “I need to crash at the dorm and catch up on sleep.”

“You didn’t sleep well? That’s rare—you usually knock out the moment your head hits the pillow.”

“I ended up watching a movie last night. Twice in a row. It was… intense.”

Because of the secrecy surrounding Magecraft, Shibamatsu only mentioned the movie part—not the why behind it.

His friend raised an eyebrow and teased, “What kinda movie gets you that hooked? Don’t tell me it was some idol doing a full nude scene?”

“Like hell—I’d get a stye just for watching something like that!”

Ikehira rolled his eyes and quickly launched into a passionate explanation of Fate/Stay Night.

Since the film was created by magi, he felt a strange sense of camaraderie with it. That emotional resonance made him pour out compliment after compliment.

This was, in his opinion, the greatest movie he had ever seen in his life.

“You guys seriously need to watch it too. I’m telling you—it’s that good.”

“For real?”

Hearing normally chill Ikehira talk like this piqued the others’ interest.

“Sounds fun. Should we check it out this weekend?”

“Why wait for the weekend? We’re done with classes for today—let’s go now.”

“What about soccer?”

“Soccer’s always there. Miss the movie, and we’ll be out of the loop!”

…

Scenes like this began to play out all over Japan.

Young magi who had seen the film were passionately recommending Fate/Stay Night to everyone they knew.

Their reasoning was simple: It was a movie made by one of their own. That alone made it worth supporting.

Even if the film had been garbage, they’d still give it a push out of solidarity.

Of course, not all magi were young. The “old fossils” of the magecraft world weren’t so quick to advertise it to others—but even they ended up contributing to the box office numbers.

Why? Because after getting confirmations from younger relatives, and reading the academic paper written by Alice Kuonji, they couldn’t resist the lure of advanced new Magecraft theory.

And so, one by one, they stepped into theaters with quiet dignity—pretending it was all part of their research.

Meanwhile, ordinary moviegoers who watched Fate/Stay Night also began spreading the word.

People love to flex.

“I’ve seen this amazing movie, but you haven’t? Tch. Lemme educate you.”

That mindset created a ripple effect of recommendations.

And that ripple effect soon began to show up at the box office.

Even without a significant boost in marketing from Bandai, the film’s audience was growing steadily.

Ticket sales were on a slow but consistent upward climb.

It wasn’t a viral boom—after all, it was still a weekday release—but the numbers were undeniably rising.

The latest film performance data was promptly relayed to Shinji Matou by Udagawa Nao.

After nearly a full week of limited weekday screenings, Fate/Stay Night had grossed 9.47 million yen across 25 theaters—just before the first weekend.

It hadn’t quite cracked 10 million yet, but considering the minimal showings and lack of mainstream marketing, it was an outstanding result.

“This is an excellent box office performance!”

On Friday morning, Shinji received a phone call from his agent in Tokyo—his uncle, Kariya Matou.

“Our film has tremendous potential. I’ll start putting pressure on Bandai. It’s time they committed more resources.”

Of course, Kariya knew that at least two-thirds of those box office numbers came from fellow magi.

But that didn’t stop him from using the stats to stir up momentum.

“If we can push Bandai into a nationwide release next week, that would be ideal,” Shinji said over the phone, speaking with firm authority. “Cannes is coming up in mid-May—I’ve already had Waver submit the film for entry. I need something to show European distributors we mean business.”

Kariya chuckled on the other end. “Relax, Shinji. If the weekend box office keeps rising, Bandai won’t have any excuse to keep the release limited.”

“Whoa, hey, Kariya-ojisan—don’t jinx it like that!” Shinji snapped back without missing a beat.

And so, Friday arrived—ushering in the busiest window of the Japanese box office week.

Shinji gave silent thanks that the year was 2003, and not the early ’90s.

Sure, the five-day work week had technically been introduced in Japan during the ’80s, but it wasn’t until after 1992 that it saw full adoption across industries.

Even better, a five-day school week only became nationwide policy in 2002.

For the film industry, weekends were the absolute golden hours for box office success.

After several days of slow-burning hype, Fate/Stay Night’s extraordinary word-of-mouth finally erupted.

Starting Friday night, the average audience per screening at all 25 test-run theaters doubled—tripled, even—compared to weekday attendance.

Groups of young moviegoers began flooding theaters, asking specifically to watch Fate/Stay Night.

This sudden surge was quickly reported back to Bandai.

Of course, a final decision required a proper executive meeting.

But Kazunori Ueno—one of Bandai’s more cautious executives—was already swayed.

“Eight million yen on just Friday alone... now this is a goldmine.”

He stared in amazement at the fresh numbers spread across the meeting room table.

If there was ever proof of Fate/Stay Night’s market potential, this was it.

With these figures in hand, even someone as conservative as Ueno couldn’t resist anymore.

He was ready to go all in.

After all, only an idiot leaves easy money on the table.

Before the weekend had even ended, Bandai’s leadership held an emergency meeting and came to a unanimous decision.

They were going all-out on Fate/Stay Night.

Not only would the movie receive a significant promotional budget increase—ads would now appear in top-tier newspapers and on prime-time movie channels—but the number of theaters would also skyrocket.

Bandai planned to expand Fate/Stay Night’s release from 25 theaters… to a massive 270 nationwide.

It was an aggressive, ambitious plan.

But just as Bandai began executing their big rollout—bad news arrived from the distribution front.

Toho Cinemas and Shochiku Theaters—two of Japan’s largest theater chains—refused to screen Fate/Stay Night.

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