Chapitre 23: Traitor
Éditeur: Henyee Translations
The shooting of Balala the Fairy was making smooth progress.
Mid-December, there came a brief adjusting period of the shooting.
Initially, when they couldn't find an actor for Prince Fun, Wang Kui suggested that Meng Lang play the role himself.
Meng Lang took the advice.
Hence, he moved all his scenes to mid-December, devoting the period from December to early January to shoot his own scenes.
The shooting gave Meng Lang a first-hand experience of how hard an actor's work was.
Remembering the lines was the simplest task among all things. He also had to figure out his position and his acting style for each scene…
Other actors and actresses had him, the director, to give them instruction, but he had no one to turn to except for himself.
And that wasn't the hardest part.
The hardest part was to speak in the genuine "Fairy Castle accent"!
Prince Fun wasn't that attractive a character in the original version. The actor was also a mediocre one who didn't stand out in any way.
However, his unique accent gave soul to the role and "Fairy Castle accent" had also become the most attractive aspect of the role.
During the shooting, the crew only found their director's accent odd, but didn't find it exceptionally funny.
From a bystander's point of view, Meng Lang also couldn't understand why "it's none o' y'all business" suddenly became a meme.
Although he couldn't understand it, this didn't stop Meng Lang from recreating it. After all, he also wanted to know if "it's none o' y'all business" could become a hit phrase online again.
…
Something big happened before Christmas that year!
After some pre-broadcasting promotion, TBS aired the dubbed and repackaged Blazing Teens to the Japanese audience.
Once the TBS broadcasted it, Meng Lang found some time to check his email for the good news Mr Ishikawa sent him.
Blazing Teens's viewing rates skyrocketed on the first day and even defeated the popular show of NHK, "Amnesiac Mother".
Compared to this country, Japan had much fewer TV channels, which meant that the audience had much less choice.
If one of the limited TV channels had a popular show, group psychology would lead to viewing rates that were high enough to shock any TV professionals here.
Blazing Teens had achieved a viewing rate of 34.5%!
"This is great! Meng San, the president of my company, is very interested in the cooperation mode you mentioned and he would like to further discuss it with you."
Meng Lang was finally relieved after he read Ishikawa's email.
An exceptional viewing rate was great news. That way, it was possible to work with the channel again. If the show turned out to be a failure, it would be very difficult to attract TBS' attention again.
After logging out of his email box, out of curiosity, Meng Lang went to the largest online movie and television review forum, to see how the Japanese online community felt about Blazing Teens.
[Webpage being translated…]
"とてもクールです."
[It's so cool!]
"監督は天才です.霓虹の監督は彼に習うべきです."
[The director is a genius! Our directors should learn from him.]
[Only registered users can use the "like" function…]
"李飛は神です."
[Li Fei is a god!]
"ミリーは私の妻です."
[Mi Li is my wife.]
"A Chinese student studying in Japan sends his support!"
[Translation failed…]
"보기가지루하다."
[So boring.]
Most of them were positive reviews!
There were as many as over 100 posts on Blazing Teens on this forum, which proved how unbelievably popular the show was.
The show had only been broadcasted today and over 100 posts was already a scary number.
After all, the forum only had a little over 50,000 users…
After checking the forum, Meng Lang went over to the official webpage of several media outlets to see their news report.
Most of the Japanese media reported on the incredible viewing rates of Blazing Teens, but most of them were mocking TBS.
According to them, TBS had degenerated. The channel had turned to a TV show from this country to save its viewing rates.
Why wouldn't the channel consider Japanese or American shows, which were more finely made?
TBS was such a traitor!
The media review on Blazing Teens had been mostly negative, criticizing Blazing Teens through colored spectacles.
A senator even said during an interview that the government would adopt more rigorous censoring mechanisms, banning certain inappropriate foreign movies and TV works.
What the hell?
As if calling TBS a traitor wasn't ridiculous enough, some senator of the opposition party actually tried to ban the show. Who on earth did he think he was?
The media reviews aside, from the audience's perspective, Blazing Teens was a great success.
TBS should have seen that as well, which was why they had agreed to Meng Lang's request for future cooperation.
As for being called a traitor, TBS couldn't care less.
Money spoke louder. As long as there was profit, there was business.
The media was all empty words. Even if things got physical, TBS was still sure to be the winner.
The popularity the show gained in Japan gave Meng Lang a confidence boost.
The feature shows in this world had chosen the wrong path. They were supposed to be live-action shows targeting children and featuring toys, but had ended up becoming sci-fi horror cult TV series…
The audience had never seen a novel feature show like Blazing Teens that had been so "finely made".
This was what a feature show supposed to look like!
Happy, enthusiastic, and all-age shows should have been what feature shows aimed for, not some creepy horror shows, which didn't even have any toys at all. The directors were puffed up with pride after some idiotic comments online called their shows "divine".
They had actually tried to attract the grownups with such shows.
Forget about it. There were more Hollywood sci-fi blockbusters out there than they could choose from. Why would they want to watch a childish TV series with inferior special effects?
The feature show directors of this world had gotten it completely wrong.
It was with such a background that Blazing Teens' success became so plausible.
It was all thanks to the comparison.
Blazing Teens might have been crappy, but compared to its peers, it was a miracle!
After the show gained popularity in the Japanese market, more European and American TV channels contacted Meng Lang.
Their reasoning was the same as TBS.
We need yo-yos!
Meng Lang accepted all offers, regardless of the prices.
Afterward, the newly set up official Weibo account of Pengda Pictures created a post, which had gone viral and soon took over the frontpage of Weibo.
Even the haughty national owned media retweeted the post, calling it "the most incredible cultural export" of the literary and art circles.
Blazing Teens had gone viral overseas!
The movie and TV industry was baffled by the news.
Recalling all the works that had been ignored at Cannes, Berlin, and Venice, a lot of directors didn't know what to say.
Was this feeling called envy?
Why did so many people like this children's TV show?
The audience nowadays was incorrigible!
-- Cadeau
reçu