Kurosawa was in a good mood.
After a month of steady growth, Detective Conan had reached a remarkable level of popularity. At the time, he had gambled his future by signing Takumi Sato, but yesterday's meeting with the board of directors fully validated his decision.
Hinotori Publishing was betting big: they considered that Detective Conan could become one of their flagship titles. Not only did they approve a significant investment in promotion, but the poster illustrated by Mirai-sensei himself had been celebrated by all.
Kurosawa had full confidence in the future of the manga.
But when a work goes viral, it's not all applause.
It all started with a seemingly innocent post on the official forum of the Japanese Mystery Association:
"I recommend that they read Detective Conan. It's much better than any mystery novel."
The fan who wrote that didn't mean to offend. But I did not know that this forum was not a neutral space: professional writers, critics and academics of the crime genre met there. And they didn't take it well.
noir_writer77 "Better than novels? What a joke. You should go to sleep, girl."
koutarou_bookworm "Who wrote Detective Conan? The name already sounds like it's for kids."
crimson_logic "I think it's a manga. The protagonist is a boy with a Sherlock complex. A romantic fantasy for teenagers. Meh."
The answers started soft. Then, they escalated:
logicpurist "The author must have the IQ of a brick. 'Reasoning'? This is parody."
misdirection77 "The protagonist is a fool. The girl looks like something out of a cheap idol novel. And on top of that, they call him a genius?"
chairdetective "I leafed through it out of curiosity. The boy becomes a boy and lives with an older girl... Is this mystery or soft shot with plot?"
vintagenerdjp "Haha, Trailer of the Day: 'Elementary School Student and High School Girl: especial.avi Edition'"
akai_moon "Pass me the torrent! Say... academic research and such."
ilikemike "HAHA calm down, haters. Mirai-sensei's genius is not stopped by a storm of salty comments!"
And the situation only got worse. The administrator of the forum did not stop the attack: he highlighted it on the front page. What followed was an avalanche of insults, mockery, and belittle on Detective Conan and his fans.
The original user ended up crying. He captured the responses and posted them on Twitter.
The community responded in flames.
Screenshots, hashtags, viral threads. Fan groups such as ConanKurai, TeamKogoroLovers, Guardians of Riddles, and The Elder Sisters Alliance were activated in droves.
In less than an hour, someone publicly announced:
"At 10:00 we attack! Digital holy war. We want an apology from the forum or we collapse it."
At 9:55 a.m., Kurosawa opened the forum's website.
Part of him knew this could be a publicity bomb. The other part... He feared the consequences.
57… 58… 59…
Click.
"Huh?"
The page didn't load.
"What's going on? Is the network down?"
The forum used to withstand hundreds of thousands of daily accesses. It was strange. And the publishing house had a business network. Nothing was to go wrong.
He pressed F5.
Waited.
Two minutes later, the page revived. Slowly.
And what he saw left him cold.
[Holy War]The Conan Detective Support Squad has entered combat.
[Holy War]The Alliance of Elder Sisters Who Love Shotas answers the call.
[Holy War]Mirai-sensei's Crimson Enigma Battalion is deployed.
[Holy War]TeamKogoroLovers launches offensive emoji.
[Holy War]Server down: New objective unlocked.
Live commentary | ilikemike "I put on my digital cloak and my Conan avatar. Come on, sisters! By Mirai-sensei!"
Kurosawa covered his mouth.
I didn't know whether to laugh... or call their legal department.
Because what was coming now was not going to stop easily.
The entire forum was flooded with bright red text. Banners with the logo of the Holy War covered every corner. Kurosawa instinctively looked at the bottom left corner of the screen: 88,238 users logged in at the same time.
'Wasn't it supposed to be 30,000...?'
He pressed F5. The page crashed.
"Again?"
He tried again. Nothing.
He left the site and accessed Detective Conan's chat channel, where he was logged in under an alias.
Comment | lemonfox_84 "They took me out!" Comment | kuro_aster "The room fell! It doesn't burden me anymore!" Comment | susumewalk "Twitter is on fire. I upload capture..."
The canal was in chaos. One after another, users reported disconnections. Kurosawa opened one of the shared catches and his jaw tightened.
It was a screenshot of the Association's own forum. It showed that just before the crash, the number of connected users was:
99,997.
'One hundred and ninety-nine thousand...?'
Comment | theorynohana "That was before they were thrown out en masse! The forum holds 100K, then throws itself into excess." Comment | nadeshikokawaii "We are more than a hundred thousand!" Comment | queen_deduction "Shut down that server!" Comment | ilikemike "Two hundred thousand souls honoring Master Mirai-sensei! We already won, sisters!"
Kurosawa swallowed. All of this had been gestated in less than a day.
'If there are more than 100,000 connected, and Detective Conan is only sold in physical form...'
Even with a conservative ratio of 10 readers per user...
'It means that the real base exceeds one million readers.'
One million. Detective Conan was, without a doubt, the most popular original manga in the country.
He felt his skin crawl.
But then, everything changed again.
Comment | akashifire "Nooooo! They activated membership mode."
"Membership mode," also called invincible mode, blocked access to unregistered people. It could not be browsed, posted, or read.
The holy war... he stopped.
Kurosawa exhaled for the first time in the hour.
'Good. Heretofore. It has been more than enough. We will have visibility in all the news...'
The chat screen flickered.
Comment | sweet_weeping "ALERT! Bomb is coming." Comment | watermelongeek "What happened now?" Comment | kana_paprika "Uploading screenshot..."
The image appeared.
Kurosawa couldn't believe what he was reading.
"If they don't apologize, the holy war will not stop. Detective Conan's squad of hackers joins the attack. Wait a few minutes... we will take control of the forum."
"Hackers...?"
His face paled.
This... it was no longer fandom.
It wasn't just passion or protest. It was illegality. And if the Association filed a formal complaint...
'This can go to court.'
Detective Conan would cease to be a viral manga.
And it would become a national scandal.