Japanese Entertainment: A Comeback Beginning from Bankrupt President

Once a movie is made, it's meant to be shown to an audience; it can't just be made for your own viewing pleasure.

Right now, Ze Cheng and He Ye have two places to rely on.

The first is the small theater chains scattered throughout the country. Although these theater chains have a small number of screens and can only accommodate a small number of viewers per screening, and their environment and facilities are not as good as those of large theater chains like Toei, their advantage lies in not being disturbed.

There's a lot of room for maneuver here. Ze Cheng and Ye Ye could even cover the venue rental fee, book the entire venue, and then arrange the ticket sales and screenings themselves.

Of course, both Zecheng and Watanabe Entertainment can rent venues; this is normal business practice.

But that depends on how ruthless Watanabe Entertainment is. If they keep renting these venues and don't give Ze Cheng He Ye a chance to get involved, then Ze Cheng He Ye will only praise them for having a lot of money.

A single venue can generate tens of thousands of dollars a day. There are so many venues across the country. Do you really want to spend over ten million dollars a day on this kind of thing?

What kind of money-devouring beast are you?

Even if Watanabe Entertainment does actually do that, Kazuya Sawashiro doesn't need to worry too much, because he can still use streaming channels, like Netflix.

He has a good relationship with YouTube, which has its own paid channel. As long as Kazuya Sawashiro's content is acceptable, it can be uploaded, allowing everyone to see the purchasing power of her fans.

Platforms like Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, and YouTube can release trailers, behind-the-scenes clips, and documentaries about the film's production first, using this free content to attract viewers and get them to pay.

Ultimately, going to the cinema requires paying a fee.

If audiences realize that Kazuya Sawashiro and Aki Amano have produced a decent movie, there's a good chance they'll support the two of them.

As for the plot, Ze Chenghe isn't too worried; his current concern is the publicity and distribution.

Thinking this through, Kazuya Sawashiro looked at Aki Amano and asked, "What do you think about launching a paid YouTube channel? As long as we do a good job with film rating and distribution, the theatrical release issue won't be a problem for us."

"That sounds good," Aki Amano nodded, but still harbored some concerns, "but wouldn't it be a waste to just let those theaters off the hook like this?"

Although small cinemas only have a little over two hundred screens, they account for nearly 40% of the films shown in China. Many low-budget films break through from these venues and eventually become dark horses at the annual box office.

"I don't think they'll let us launch so easily. Even if we have a plan to deal with Yuko Yoshioka, we can use the remaining time for promotion. I mean... wouldn't you like to have a different experience at this time?"

"Um?"

Upon hearing this, Amano Aki sat up straight and smelled a very familiar scent.

She sensed that Kazuya Sawashiro was up to some mischief again, because his current expression was exactly the same as when he said he was going to beat Watanabe Entertainment up. Amano Aki remembered that smile vividly.

She moved closer and asked, "You wouldn't happen to be...?"

"That's right, it seems you already know what I'm thinking after experiencing it once," Kazuya Sawashiro didn't hide anything and openly admitted his wild thoughts, "Could we create a completely new Aki Amano based on the character's personality in the movie?"

Bringing the movie to life—that's the idea that Kazuya Sawashiro came up with for promotional purposes.

In the end, the character she played was successfully assimilated, and something of unknown origin replaced her, living in a completely different way. So why not carry this character design into reality?

Even a limited-time role during the movie's run sounds pretty good.

After Kazuya Sawashiro explained it this way, Aki Amano finally understood: Kazuya Sawashiro was complaining that she wasn't lively and cheerful enough before.

"Are you asking me to pretend to be very cheerful? Is it possible that I'm not actually the kind of sentimental woman, and you just haven't really understood my inner world, which is why you think of this? The person in the movie at the back is the real me."

Amano Aki made it very clear that Sawashiro Kazuya had definitely made a mistake.

When these words reached Sawashiro Kazuya's ears, he naturally assumed that Amano Aki had misunderstood something, otherwise he wouldn't have said such a thing.

Can you sense the slight resentment in her voice?

It's as if Kazuya Sawashiro has done something extraordinary.

But what did he do? He just wanted to have Aki Amano embody the character's persona during the film's promotional period, creating a feeling that the real world was being invaded. This didn't even require Aki Amano to do anything extra.

It's super simple: when shooting promotional videos, speak and smile like a movie character, making everything move towards an unrealistic perfection.

Once the publicity campaign is over, she will be exactly the same as before, it won't affect her at all.

Could it be that Kazuya Sawashiro misunderstood something?

He thought for a moment and gave a very simple explanation: "Um... I really don't know what you're thinking, but what I'm thinking about is the movie's promotion. Could you use the state of a movie character to shoot promotional materials? It's that simple."

"...Then let's shoot some promotional materials."

Realizing he had overthought things, but still unable to be honest about it, Amano Aki could only express his feelings in a slightly louder tone than usual, while also asking Sawashiro Kazuya to look at his big, bright eyes.

Isn't it beautiful?

After watching, you can't call her a gloomy girl anymore. She's actually a sunny and cheerful girl. She was just too overwhelmed by the pressures of life to smile before, but now she can smile happily.

...

As part of the publicity and promotion, a lot of preparation work needs to be done.

Firstly, it's about editing suitable trailers and promotional videos to attract viewers. However, this is something that can be done incidentally during the editing process, so Kazuya Sawashiro has prepared quite a lot and is just waiting to release them.

He was more concerned with other things, so he hadn't been at the office for the past few days.

Kazuya Sawashiro visited Tunecore Japan's headquarters to discuss the online streaming of movies. This company not only handles song streaming but also acts as an agent for movie streaming; they are a professional agency.

How to upload it was their business, and Ze Chenghe needed to provide the corresponding materials, because it took time to review them, so Ze Chenghe waited for them for a few days.

Once the other party confirms that there are no problems, the details of the cooperation will be discussed, and only then will the cooperation plan be finalized.

Tunecore Japan takes the lead in releasing the product. They will proactively connect with various streaming platforms to arrange the specific launch time and work, and conduct corresponding promotion. The rest will be handled by Kazuya Sawashiro himself.

He can proactively cooperate with the publicity efforts there, releasing relevant content and making appropriate plans.

As for theaters, if they think their film is good, they will definitely come to them on their own initiative, so there's no need to worry about that.