Animation Theme Song Ideal World Cup

My main gig as an artist? An Animation Theme Song Ideal World Cup. The name sounded grandiose, but it was way simpler than it seemed. You pick 128 theme songs from anime that any otaku would recognize just from the title, then run a tournament bracket. Keep choosing your favorite until only one ultimate track remains.

Anyway, before kicking things off, I had an announcement for the viewers.

"I'm doing this strictly by my own tastes, so don't ask me to pick something specific~"

With that heads-up out of the way, I dove into the Animation Theme Song Ideal World Cup for real. The first matchup popped up right away—

"Whoa, hold up, this one's showing up already."

It was the OST from Electricman, the one we'd just done a watch-along for yesterday. That signature metallic edge, aggressive as hell—just pure Electricman vibes.

Its opponent? "That guy from Monthly Shojo. This one's fun."

Pretty popular anime in its day. Solid track too.

For now, we'd listen to each ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠one. Everyone knew 'em, but replaying would jog the memory better.

Dun dun dun dun—!

The first track hit hard with that sound. Made sense—the world's setting was brutally bleak. Protagonist's a total psycho; it's a miracle anyone's alive in there.

"Okay, next one."

Cut it midway and queued the other.

Dee-ri-ring—! Ding ding—!

Guitar kicked in, that classic romcom chill vibe washing over. Definite banger.

But—

"I'm going with the Electricman track."

No helping it. I was an Electricman fan down to my bones.

No backlash in chat even after picking Electricman. This track was just in a higher weight class anyway.

"Alright, onto the next."

As we rolled on, viewers would start splitting into factions, I figured. How far had we gotten?

"What the...?"

Viewers had ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠spiked even more. Seriously? There were way better streamers out there—smoother talkers, pros at games. Why flock to my stream?

It bugged me, but I couldn't kick 'em. They weren't here throwing stones for my screw-ups; they were genuine fans.

Still, I had to ask.

"Why's everyone watching so much? I picked this long-format content on purpose to avoid peak viewer times."

Chat exploded—

"I legit know nothing about this stuff. Don't viewers usually drop off for long streams?"

I was dead serious. My Nyoutu.be uploads over an hour got skipped plenty, and that was edited—no way raw live streams pulled big numbers.

Oh. Learned something new. That's why they kept piling in.

Won't do that next time.

"Alright, that's it for today."

Quick wave to the viewers, and stream over.

Total runtime: 8 hours 32 minutes. Compared to my usual streams, it was insanely long.

"Gahhh..."

My body screamed on its own. Exhausting as hell.

No more of this next time.

I'd had a blast doing it, but I'd barely ever streamed this long—stamina just wasn't there.

Gotta build up endurance or something—

While pondering that, I checked X-Net DMs. One new message waiting.

"Oh."

Already up? Makes sense—they'd finished editing, just waiting on my thumbnail illust.

Still wild thinking about it.

A big Nyoutu.ber with tons of subs personally hitting me up for art. Unthinkable back in the day.

Musing on that, I clicked the link.

And—

"Nice."

There was my illustration, proudly thumbnail-ing Seri's latest video.