Chapter 111: Absolute Confidence! Comedy Award From Neon In The Previous Life!
Time quickly arrived in early August, with the scorching sun of midsummer pouring down on the back of Tokyo, this giant beast built of steel and glass, every inch of air distorted by the heat, as if even spacetime was trembling slightly in this endless light and heat.
Tokyo Television Station, Production Bureau Headquarters Building.
Deputy Director Asumi’s office.
The atmosphere at this moment was like the eye of the deep sea, isolating all the noise and heat from the outside world, leaving only a nearly solidified heaviness, like the calm before the storm.
“Nohara-kun, you… really sure about this?”
Deputy Director Asumi at this moment was like a young person stepping onto the gambling table for the first time, a half-burned cigarette between his fingers, anxiety in his eyes.
In front of him, that Super Change Change Change proposal and master tape, personally created by Hiroshi Nohara and known as the Variety Show Bible, lay quietly on the rosewood desk.
Weighing heavily on his heart.
“Deputy Director Asumi, you’ve asked this for the third time today.” Hiroshi Nohara sat opposite him, smiling mildly.
He refilled Deputy Director Asumi’s already empty tea cup with scalding tea, the action unhurried, as if the public opinion storm outside the window, ignited by his own hand and now intensifying, was merely a wisp of insignificant rising smoke in the tea cup.
“Filming for the variety show went smoothly, the first three episodes of the first season have all completed post-production and can be submitted for audit and broadcast at any time. Director Kei Tanaka and his team have fully gotten into the groove.”
Hiroshi Nohara reported, his tone still carrying absolute confidence: “As for ratings, you needn’t worry. I guarantee it won’t disappoint you.”
“Sigh…” Deputy Director Asumi exhaled a long breath of turbid air mixed with tobacco and anxiety.
He naturally trusted Hiroshi Nohara.
This young person, from An Shizhi to World of the Strange, the miracles he created had long surpassed the realm of common understanding.
But this time was different.
“Hiroshi-kun, do you know what this Super Change Change Change means for our entire Kanto Faction?”
Deputy Director Asumi brutally extinguished the cigarette butt in the ashtray, a unprecedented solemnity appearing on his always refined and steady face.
“This is no longer just a simple ratings battle! This is war! A life-and-death battle to decide whether our Kanto Faction can plant our own flag on this saline-alkali land of variety shows, monopolized by the Tokyo Faction for decades, in the next ten years!”
“That old fox Toshihide Takada seems to be praising you to death, but he’s actually using the most vicious open scheme to force you, our entire Kanto Faction, onto a cliff with no retreat! He’s turned all the media, all the audience, into spectators of this public execution! If we fail, what we lose won’t just be a project, but our faction’s last hope to turn the tables in the variety show field!”
Deputy Director Asumi actually saw through it very clearly.
However, Hiroshi Nohara just smiled calmly, the smile carrying a bit of the insight and understanding of an experienced person.
“Deputy Director Asumi, have you heard of ‘infamous but popular’?”
“Infamous but popular?” Deputy Director Asumi was stunned; this vocabulary full of modern internet vibe clearly exceeded the understanding of someone from this era.
“Yes, infamous but popular is still popular.”
Hiroshi Nohara’s knuckles gently rubbed the warm tea cup, his clear eyes flashing with the wise light of someone who had seen through the future media rules: “Public opinion is a double-edged sword. Deputy Director Takada and the others think that by flooding with praise to death, pulling audience expectations to the max, they can make me fall harder when I fail. This scheme is indeed vicious.”
“But they overlooked one thing.”
He paused, a cold arc hooking at the corner of his mouth.
“This expectation pushed to the extreme is also… traffic pushed to the extreme. It’s like a huge vortex, forcibly and irresistibly drawing the gaze of everyone in the Neon Television Industry to our work. Whether out of expectation or doubt, to worship or to see a joke, at the moment the program airs, they’ll all be in front of the television.”
“As long as our work is good enough, good enough to subvert their perceptions, good enough to crush all their doubts. Then this ‘infamous’ will instantly turn into the most fanatic ‘fans’. The huge backlash from this praise to death will ultimately burn Deputy Director Takada and the others themselves to a crisp.”
This is why later generations pursue infamous but popular traffic.
Traffic means topics.
Traffic means ratings.
Traffic means endless stream of audience!
Infamous but popular is still popular!
Black fans are still fans!
People now will never know how crazy the fanning the flames-style traffic means later generations went to grab fans and traffic.
This kind of praise to death public opinion wasn’t something Hiroshi Nohara hadn’t experienced before.
In the end.
Didn’t it all turn from infamous but popular to pink?
These words were like a bolt of lightning tearing through chaos, instantly illuminating Deputy Director Asumi’s brain, long confined by traditional television professionals’ thinking!
He stared blankly at the young person before him; all anxiety had faded from that refined face, replaced by a bone-deep, bottomless shock after witnessing true dimensional reduction strike!
He finally understood.
This young person wasn’t responding to the challenge at all.
He was using the enemy’s offensive to stir up a towering wave for his own giant ship about to set sail, enough to completely overturn all old era rules!
……
The first Saturday of August, 2:25 p.m.
The entire Neon seemed enveloped in a wonderful atmosphere full of contradiction and expectation.
In countless families, countless offices, countless still-open coffee shops and izakayas, televisions were unanimously tuned to the Tokyo Television Station channel.
Many of them weren’t fans of variety shows.
They were just forcibly dragged by that week-long, overwhelming public opinion storm to the table of this controversial game.
They wanted to see if that young person hyped to the heavens by the media would create a new myth or become a huge joke mercilessly punctured by the era.
Tokyo, in the study of a certain exquisitely decorated apartment.
Senior film critic “Spicy Tang Lion” sat solemnly at the desk.
In front of him was the latest model Sony Television, beside it a stack of prepared snow-white manuscript paper and a Montblanc pen filled with ink.
A cold, superior sneer from a professional hung at the corner of his mouth.
He had already decided on today’s column title—The Fall of a Genius: A Splendid Suicide triggered by arrogance.
He had even drafted the article’s opening.
“…When a storytelling genius tries to challenge the iron wall of variety shows full of flames and passion with his icy cold movie logic, all we can see is a doomed, tragically colored Quixotic charge…”
He just needed to wait, wait for that young person to offer the perfect footnote to this manifesto with an already destined ending through a clumsy performance.
2:30 arrived on time.
A childlike and addictive, simple to near-brainwashing electronic music suddenly blared from the television’s sound system without warning.
That melody, like a naughty child, instantly seized all listeners’ ears in the most unreasonable way.
The image lit up.
No gorgeous stage, no dazzling lighting.
Just a somewhat shabby yet warmly familiar studio like a community activity center.
In the center of the stage stood two figures.
“Huh? Isn’t that… Kinichi Hagimoto and Shingo Katori?!”
Spicy Tang Lion’s brows furrowed imperceptibly.
He naturally knew these two.
Kinichi Hagimoto, the veteran comedy entertainer famous in the Kanto Region, known for his approachable and amiable style.
Shingo Katori was a rookie idol once heavily promoted by Kanto Television Station, sunny and handsome, full of youthful vibe.
These two might not be big names in front of the Tokyo Faction’s glittering top stars.
But for the old viewers who grew up watching Kanto Television Station programs, they had an irreplaceable, family-like familiarity.
“Hello, audience friends! Good afternoon!”
Kinichi Hagimoto waved at the lens with his signature infectious smile: “Welcome to watching the National Creative Imitation Show—Super Change Change Change, newly crafted for you by our Tokyo Television Station!”
“Yay!” Shingo Katori beside him cooperatively made a vibrant victory gesture.
This opening was standard, even… a bit tacky.
The sarcastic arc at Spicy Tang Lion’s mouth deepened.
However, just as he was about to pick up the pen to write the first biting comment.
After the host’s introduction, the first performance began.
“Hm? So fast?” Spicy Tang Lion noticed something off about this variety show—the rhythm was shockingly fast.
The stage background suddenly dimmed.
Spotlights came on, and the first performance officially began.
No announcement, no introduction.
Just a man in a black bodysuit performing a mime full of fun and visual impact in front of a pure black background.
Those two hands in white gloves sometimes turned into rolling bowling balls, sometimes scattering pins, sometimes a typewriter furiously typing on a keyboard…
“…This!”
Spicy Tang Lion’s hand holding the pen suddenly froze.
For the first time, undisguised surprise appeared in those eyes always full of scrutiny.
This… what kind of play is this?
Then the judges appeared on stage, all veteran actors and producers from Kanto Television Station back then; Spicy Tang Lion couldn’t name them all but they felt familiar.
And these judges directly gave scores based on the just-performed act, doing conventional scoring.
This didn’t surprise him.
But…
For Spicy Tang Lion, that performance was indeed too brilliant; he still hadn’t recovered.
“What a novel performance style…” Spicy Tang Lion murmured.
Before he recovered from this novel shock, the second, third, fourth performances came one after another like film reels on fast-forward, at a dazzling speed!
He saw that ingenious creativity of using bodies stacked to imitate a beer being poured full!
He saw that whimsical idea using the simplest bed sheet and fan to imitate Marilyn Monroe’s classic moment!
He saw that astonishing concept perfectly recreating a grand fireworks show using just a few people’s limbs!
One after another, full of wild imagination yet rooted in life, warmly familiar creativities, like a sudden, impenetrable downpour, overwhelmingly bombarded all audiences’ senses!
Spicy Tang Lion felt his brain turned into a mess by a high-speed blender!
His professional film critic rationality, tempered iron-hard by countless bad movies, was at this moment thoroughly washed away by a more primal, purer power called “fun”!
He even forgot what he was doing, what he was supposed to write.
The corner of his mouth uncontrollably, bit by bit, curved upward.
Finally, when the screen showed that comical scene imitating a “ramen master tossing noodles” with the simplest props.
“Pfft—”
He couldn’t hold back anymore and directly spat out a mouthful of tea.
“Haha… hahahaha… hahahahaha!”
A burst of uncontrollable, near-maniacal laughter erupted without warning in this quiet study!
He laughed while slapping the table, tears uncontrollably streaming from the corners of his eyes; that face always full of sarcasm and seriousness now showed only utter exhilaration completely conquered by the purest happiness!
“Genius… this… this fucking is the real genius!”
He laughed while scribbling messily on the manuscript paper with that tea-soaked hand, the handwriting sloppy yet full of survivor-like excitement.
“This is no longer just a simple variety show! This is a national carnival of imagination! Hiroshi Nohara… he… he’s not making a variety show at all! He’s injecting the strongest heart stimulant named ‘happiness’ into this era long eroded by boredom and numbness in a way none of us can understand!”
He crumpled that manuscript paper full of praise into a ball and viciously threw it into the trash can.
Then, he picked up the Montblanc pen and wrote a brand new title on that snow-white manuscript paper, one that would shock the entire Neon Television Industry.
God has descended.
……
This hurricane of pure happiness brought by Super Change Change Change swept across the entire Neon in just half an hour with an unstoppable posture.
In the late-night diner, those night watchmen who had just been worrying about quality were now doubled over laughing, slapping the bar counter with tears streaming down.
“Fuck! This ‘humanoid typewriter’ is too damn funny! Hahahaha! I can’t take it! I’m gonna laugh myself to death!”
In the University of Tokyo male dormitory, those academic overachievers who had just been furious about “betrayal” were now sprawled on the floor, clutching their stomachs, laughing like a bunch of 300-pound children.
“I… I take back everything I said before! Teacher Nohara! You are my god! No! You are my eternal faith!”
In countless families, countless offices, countless coffee shops and izakayas, the same pure happiness-filled, earth-shaking laughter erupted.
They forgot all troubles, all pressures, all dissatisfactions.
In their eyes, only those simple yet pure joys full of childlike fun and imagination remained.
And at the center of the storm, in the office of Hiroshi Nohara Special Production Team.
Hiroshi Nohara just calmly watched the TV, even close-ups of the judges on the judges’ seats with their faces distorted from laughter, a light, victor’s smile hooking at his mouth.
He knew this war was over.
From the moment he decided to bring that era-subverting proposal from that future spacetime to this world, the outcome was already destined.
PS: Keep asking for votes~
