Gone Fishing.

OK, hear me out.

Re:Zero is originally a web novel. Tappei Nagastuki, the author, had been writing the series online for free while working at a butcher’s shop (not gonna make any jokes on how that inspired the torture scenes). The web novel was not popular and it hardly ever made the #300 ranking. Shortly after, the web novel was adapted into a light novel, which didn’t sell that well either. It got 3 different manga adaptions and guess what, they didn’t sell that well either.

Despite all that, someone at Kadokawa had been insisting on doing an anime adaptation for the past 2-3 years. Not only was the anime finally green-lit, but it also got 25 episodes with LOTS of dedication and effort put into it (amazing OST, skipping OP/ED all the time, all that promotion for Episode 18…). There was literally no reason whatsoever to believe the show would be successful or profitable. Spring anime season was announced and no one even considered watching Re:Zero because it looked like your average fantasy harem series. The anime had to compete with other successful airing anime at the time like My Hero Academia (which got a lot of promotion due to manga readers) or Kabaneri (which had all that SNK-related hype to it).

And yet, Re:Zero managed to grasp viewers’ attention on its own merits. Casual viewers became fans and kept spreading the word. Right now, the web novel has seen a huge boost in popularity, the light novel got another boost in sales and it’s speeding up its publication, the anime is one of the best selling of the year, Rem merchandise is flying off the shelves, and it even got its own videogame recently. I’ve seen this series grow from being “a SAO clone” to pretty much being the most popular anime of the year.

1. am trying to flirt with you

2. wanna be your friend

3. none of the above i just like what you post