Starting as a Manga Editor-Chapter 137: A Bolt from the Blue

“Hehehe… so cute.”
Late at night.
Liu Shiwei was watching a video shared by someone else on social media, staring at the lively 2D anime girl in it, giggling like a fool.
He found it absolutely delightful!
In the video, Rin Tohsaka was lively and natural—frowning when drawing cards, showing disdain when seeing things she didn’t like, even pulling exaggerated “meme faces” after messing up an operation… every moment made him want to take a screenshot and save it.
Most importantly, the voice was really nice!
And the personality was great too.
For Liu Shiwei.
The format was so fresh! Completely different from watching real-life streamers!
Even though she was playing a game he wasn’t familiar with, he still watched with great interest.
Watching a 2D anime girl play games and react in various ways was unexpectedly fun!
And the game she played—he didn’t know what it was—but the card artwork full of anime girls was also really pretty!
Liu Shiwei wasn’t exactly a hardcore 二次元 fan. At most, he’d just read some manga and follow a couple of popular anime series.
So he hadn’t tried FGO before, nor did he know anything about Fate/Zero.
But that didn’t stop him from loving this presentation style.
Very quickly.
The video ended.
“ANF? Rin Tohsaka?”
Still unsatisfied, Liu Shiwei glanced at the video info, then clicked over to the ANF website where the video had been uploaded.
Then, looking at the homepage—which looked completely different from any mainstream video site—he got curious.
After a moment of hesitation, he signed up for an account and started watching other videos on the platform.
Things like otaku dances, MADs from popular anime, meme edits...
“Hahaha!”
After finishing one of the meme videos,
Liu Shiwei casually gave it a like, chuckling: “What the h*ll was that!? But it was pretty entertaining!”
As he thought that, he kept watching more videos.
Then he realized, this site was a total gold mine! Totally different from those mainstream video platforms! No ads, and full of wacky, offbeat videos that were actually fun!
And while watching, the bullet comments were super entertaining too—it felt like watching with a big crowd.
Wait a sec.
Something clicked in Liu Shiwei’s mind, and he searched for “Rin Tohsaka,” quickly finding the same video he’d just watched.
Sure enough, unlike the versions reposted externally, the one on ANF had all the bullet comments.
Watching with the comments now gave a whole new vibe.
Reading all the memes and snarky commentary.
Liu Shiwei was totally amused. He followed Rin Tohsaka’s account, then browsed the comments section and saw that a lot of people were just like him—newcomers drawn in by the video, all wondering if this character would play other games too.
They each had different favorite games.
But all felt that it would be awesome to watch this virtual streamer play the games they loved.
And below those comments, many veteran users kindly explained who Rin Tohsaka was.
Then...
Game character? FGO? New version?
Liu Shiwei saw the explanations, grew curious, noticed the promotional info for the game below the video, and clicked into the official site.
Then he clicked the download button.
After all, he had free time… might as well try it out.
And this exact moment was repeating itself all over the country.
Most of the people being drawn in were young—more open to new experiences and eager to try things.
In fact… probably only the young folks would even be interested in virtual streamers.
If you gave this to a middle-aged guy, he might not even get through it—most of them still prefer real women streamers…
But Tang Yao had always intended to target the younger crowd.
And just as she expected.
ANF’s unique community vibe, bullet comment culture, and UGC content—
All became powerful hooks for young users.
Most of them were light 二次元 fans, and with the whole site covered in game promos, these users brought even more new players to the game.
After all, the first video they saw was that Rin Tohsaka gameplay video.
Drawn in by the video’s unique format, they came to ANF, liked the site’s vibe, signed up, and downloaded the game.
This user path flowed effortlessly.
And it was easy to predict.
Very soon.
As the new game version went live, fan content would start appearing…
Even without waiting for fan content.
New users were already making moves.
You could now see discussions popping up even on platforms that weren’t really connected to 二次元.
“ANF’s videos are so fun to watch!”
“They’re really innovative… having anime characters play games, and it’s actually entertaining. Why aren’t other video sites doing this!? Stop with those awful ads and take a hint!”
“The game that virtual streamer played also looks fun! The character art is gorgeous!”
“Are mobile games this big now?”
“Watching anime girls play games is hilarious! This could totally become mainstream one day.”
“……”
At the same time.
The old-school 二次元 users on ANF were loving the Rin Tohsaka gameplay video. They started spreading it everywhere, bringing in constant exposure for both the site and the game, attracting tons of light 二次元 fans.
The next day, thanks to their efforts—
The hashtag ANF×Rin Tohsaka climbed onto social media’s trending topics list.
Though not very high—only around 20th place.
You wouldn’t even see it unless you scrolled down. Nowhere near the dominance it had on ANF, where it was #1 and destroying everything else.
Because the two platforms couldn’t compare in size.
ANF was all young users, and even mainstream media coverage focused on youth. Trying to compete with the broader population for attention was still a bit too much.
But still, this was impressive.
Because if no one was talking about it, it wouldn’t even rank in the top 20—it wouldn’t make any splash at all.
And for a rising company, this was already a big deal!
This was a video platform.
Plenty of investment firms were taking notice, scrambling to dig up details.
When they found out that ANF’s rise was linked to the mobile game breakout hit FGO—
When they looked into the company behind the game—Avalon Studio—
They were floored.
When FGO’s first-day revenue blew up.
It wasn’t like they hadn’t reached out to Avalon—they wanted to throw money at them. But Tang Yao rejected them all.
And because she refused, they didn’t push. After all, Avalon was just a game company with a single title. Sure, it made money, but didn’t seem likely to spin a story and go public.
Most investors gave up.
The 二次元 mobile game market still looked like a blue ocean—no shortage of promising projects.
And Avalon’s product structure was way too narrow—no moat to speak of.
But now.
Avalon… had quietly created this platform focused on 二次元? And it looked like it could synergize with the game?
Hiss—
They were stunned, and immediately started trying to dig up info on the person behind Avalon.
And a lot of investors who’d previously heard about ANF were left completely dumbfounded…
A slow, confused question mark appeared over their heads.
They actually pulled this off? How did they do it!?
Then they took a closer look at ANF’s current status… and were left speechless.
This was working? From a game!?
On the industry side, Avalon and ANF were overnight sensations.
And on the partnership side, things weren’t calm either. The voice acting studio working with Avalon… was now a little lost too.
A well-known VA studio—Penguin Studio.
Manager’s office.
Li Li took off her headset, looked over at a subordinate, and said in confusion, “This FGO… wasn’t it our voice job?”
The staffer nodded. “Yeah.”
“Then who’s that?”
Li Li pointed to Rin Tohsaka on the screen.
The subordinate hadn’t seen it himself, but seemed to know what she meant and replied, “Uh… that wasn’t done by us. I asked the people who worked on it—they said the character was voiced by someone from the game company’s internal team.”
Li Li immediately asked, “Do they have a company?”
“Uh… not sure.”
“Find out from Avalon Studio right now. I feel like the person who voiced Rin Tohsaka could blow up! See if we can poach her!”
“……”
Tang Yao didn’t know yet.
That a whole wave of people already had their eyes on her—including a voice acting studio…
She was still busy prepping for tomorrow’s official game update.
Though, even if she did know, she probably wouldn’t care much.
It didn’t affect her personally.
But for the well-known producer Sheng Zhi, it was a whole different story.
Avalon’s recent moves—
Had drawn the full attention of hardcore 二次元 fans and light 二次元 users alike to both ANF and FGO.
And Sheng Zhi’s game just so happened to be in testing during this time.
So all the players left for him… were just the average ones.
Not that ordinary players won’t play.
But the quality of his game… was just so bad. No polish, and even trying to milk players felt forced.
You could imagine how brutal the final stats were.
“What did you say…”
Sheng Zhi’s face was dark as he stared at the staffer in front of him.
That staffer stayed silent for a moment, then gritted his teeth and said, “I said… on day one of our closed beta, the player churn rate was over 80%, and our payment conversion rate was less than one-sixth of the industry average…”