The Raccoon's Rise: Anime Reviews and a Family Miracle

"Yena! You're getting a little sibling!"

Filming for Daegu-haeng had wrapped.

The moment the shoot ended, a stretch of easy, unhurried days settled in. I was still only a second-grader in elementary school, so classes let out early, and the only academy I attended was piano.

What anime should I review this time?

While I was turning it over, a commercial spilled out of the TV.

Huh. That anime?

One Punch Man.

It was famous for having absurd production quality. Season one, anyway. Season two wasn't bad enough that you could call it poor—the problem was simply that season one had been made too well. Anyone who watched the first season, then hit play on the second with sky-high expectations, walked away crushed and poured out the hate.

It's coming soon.

I checked the schedule. Broadcast started next week.

Should I review that one too?

I'd enjoyed season one plenty, so a review felt fair game.

Nice. Next anime locked in.

I hoped it would air already.

October 5, 2015.

Around the time the fourth-quarter anime slate began to roll out, one show stepped into the world.

Its name was One Punch Man—an anime about a man who became the strongest hero alive after sacrificing his hair.

People clicked episode one on the strength of an intriguing blurb, and twenty minutes later they were gasping. They had no choice. The quality was unhinged.

Japanese viewers cheered the arrival of a monster anime, and Korea was no different.

The English-speaking side was just as loud.

There were cooler heads, too.

Watching the reactions, Lee Yena wore a faintly odd expression.

The quality holds for ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠all twelve episodes, though.

I was pretty curious how the crowd would flip next week.

I'll just drop a review video.

I uploaded a review of One Punch Man season one, episode one to the channel, and a little while later the view count started climbing at a terrifying pace.

I woke up to find the One Punch Man review sitting past three million views.

Huh?

Ordinarily my anime reviews didn't pull numbers like that. Five million was about the ceiling, and even that looked modest next to the four movie reviews that had casually cleared ten million. So the One Punch Man video had no business being this high.

Three million in ten hours? That doesn't make sense.

I went hunting for the cause, and a moment later I understood exactly why this was happening.

Ah. The Japanese showed up.

The truth was, I'd been putting subtitles on every video for a while. Not me personally—I'd hired translators with money.

It'd be nice if people all over the world watched my reviews.

If I was going to be a YouTuber, I wanted to be the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠best. So for channel growth I'd slapped on subtitles in other languages. English, Chinese, and Japanese were the baseline, plus Hindi and Spanish on top. Having money rotting in piles made that kind of move possible.

What I've earned already is more than I could spend before I die.

Thanks to investments in Bitcoin and assorted stocks, my fortune had ballooned past anything reasonable. The wild part was that it was still growing even now.

Compared to what I've made, this kind of spending is nothing.

Once I hit ten million subscribers, I planned to commission full dubs in every major language.

My weight class is still too light to hire the big-name voice actors right now.

The Neoguri channel still wasn't famous worldwide. In Korea there was barely anyone who didn't know the name, but even next door in Japan, people who'd heard of a YouTuber called Neoguri were a tiny minority.

That's about to change.

Japanese comments were starting to pepper the section, so a decent number of Japanese viewers had clearly flowed in.

I hadn't slacked on anime reviews, so the subscriber count had already broken four million somewhere along the way. Japanese viewers started pouring in on top of that, and even a thin trickle of English-speaking people hit subscribe, and the count climbed by about ten thousand a day. There still weren't that many foreign newcomers, though, so it stalled around 4.2 million.

I guess this is the ceiling for now.

I figured I'd wait for a bigger foreign wave later—and right then, translated versions of the Japanese comments under my video started circulating online.

Viewers who'd been watching without subscribing—especially the middle-aged and older crowd—started mashing the subscribe button like crazy.

"Huh....?"

The truth was, the middle-aged folks who had no idea who Tom Cruise was had missed out on the national pride high during the last incident.

Is that someone famous?

Beats me.

While everyone from teens through their forties had been knocking back a full bowl of patriotic pride, people in their fifties and sixties never got a taste. They simply hadn't known who Tom Cruise was.

This time was different.

This wasn't some particular celebrity endorsing a YouTuber named Neoguri. This was Japanese people acknowledging a Korean YouTuber named Neoguri.

Folks in their fifties and sixties might not have known Tom Cruise. They knew exactly who the Japanese were, though.

Didn't those people used to say Korean culture was low-class?

Right? What in the world is this! Those bastards are acknowledging Korean culture!

Objectively speaking, the Japanese hadn't acknowledged Korean culture—they'd acknowledged a YouTuber called Neoguri. Right now, that little ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠detail did not matter. What mattered was the simple fact that Japanese people were praising a Korean YouTuber named Neoguri.

Watching all of that, people in their fifties and sixties had their eyes roll back in their heads.

"Hey, honey—our daughter! How do you log into YouTube again? It says I need to log in to hit subscribe."

And the staff at YouTube's Korea branch, watching the same situation unfold, blinked hard.

"We're suddenly getting a wave of middle-aged people signing up for YouTube!"

"What on earth is this...?"

"It seems to be coming from a YouTuber called Neoguri!"

"Uh... um... wait...?"

"What should we do, Team Lead?!"

"Send Neoguri a message right now! Be polite!"

"What do we say?!"

"Tell her we want to form a partnership!"

"Yes, sir!"

While everyone scrambled, the animators who had made One Punch Man were sitting there with blank faces.

"I mean, we knew we'd made something good, but I never thought it'd blow up like this."

"Same...."

The popularity had blown past every projection, and everyone was left whistling in disbelief.

And while the whole world was losing its mind, what was the source of the chaos—Neoguri, otherwise known as Lee Yena—actually doing?

"Is the seasoning right?"

"Yeah!"

"Y-yeah, I think it's good...!"

"Then let's eat."

She was eating spicy stir-fried pork with Seo A-rin and Park Ha-jun.

"N-Neoguri's subscriber count went up again...!"

"By how much?"

"F-fifty thousand!"

"Whoa, then you'll hit five million pretty soon."

"Y-yeah! Probably...!"

Listening to the two of them, Lee Yena's face was serene. It looked like the face of a buddha who had already grasped everything.

Whatever happens, happens.

Ever since the Mission: Impossible incident, Lee Yena had given up on thinking too hard.

Time slipped by in a blink.

December 23, 2015.

One Punch Man's first-week Blu-ray sales numbers dropped.

Reading the article, I uploaded my final One Punch Man video—the season one, episode twelve review.

Somewhere along the way, the very first review of season one, episode one had already cleared ten million views. Subscribers had climbed with it, and the Neoguri channel hit five million.

Five million. A seriously high number. But I had no intention of being satisfied with just that. I'd decided that if I was going to do this, I'd become the greatest YouTuber alive—so shouldn't I at least aim for a hundred million?

Of course, it probably won't be easy.

If it were too easy it wouldn't be fun anyway, so this wasn't so bad.

Not long after locking in five million subscribers, the new year dawned. 2016 had begun.

"Please let our whole family stay healthy, and let only good things happen to us."

I made my wish—that our family could live happily this year too.

But a moment later, a bombshell declaration went off.

"Yena! You're getting a little sibling!"

"....?"

I had not seen that coming at all.