The San Diego Convention Center was packed with people in July.
The hot weather could not dampen the enthusiasm of the fans, and all visitors attending the San Diego Comic-Con were enjoying this annual event to the fullest.
Especially in front of the official booth of Washimine Entertainment, it was surrounded by people since the first day of the exhibition.
Thanks to the success of the movie "Fate", the treatment that Washimine received this year and last year is completely different.
Last year, if it weren't for the popularity of a few actors singing and dancing on the stage, there probably wouldn't have been many people stopping by Washimine's booth.
But this year is different. Because of the need to promote the movie, when the comic convention opened in San Diego, only a few non-main actors such as Sakura Shimoya and Mark Ruffalo participated in the Washimine booth to promote the comic convention.
But even so, the number of people visiting Washimine's booth these days was terrifying, and everyone had infinite enthusiasm for the "Fate" crew members.
But today is obviously different from the previous few days.
Because all the actors including Lily Wettin, Tohsaka Rin and others will be in the booth today.
Nanaya imitated the routine of Japanese idol handshake meetings and started a signing session at the booth.
All visitors to the booth have the opportunity to buy a collector's edition of the "Fate" novel, and then they can choose an actor to sign the novel.
"This is just a handshake meeting with an idol! You are such a jerk."
After hearing about this activity, Rin immediately complained to Nanaya.
As a former Japanese idol, she is certainly not unfamiliar with this kind of activity, as she has done it too many times.
And Rin knew better than anyone that this was much more strenuous than any handshake meeting he had ever attended.
You know, there is no signing process in ordinary handshake meetings.
At this time, inside the exhibition, where the fans could not see, Nanaya and Ori were sitting together, watching the event and making relevant notes.
As for other crew members, such as Shonan Rantaro and others, Nanaya also recruited them as soldiers.
They were asked to serve tea and water to the actors, or help with some trivial chores.
According to Nanaya's division of labor, all the main actors have a follower following them, and the only extra one, Ori, follows him as his follower.
In fact, Nanaya himself is also quite popular in North America. Maybe he is not as popular an idol as Lily, but he is still admired by many fans.
There are also quite a number of fans who hope to shake hands with Nanaya, get his autograph, etc.
It's a pity that Nanaya, who knew that the handshake would be quite tiring, was very cunning. He did not show up from the beginning of the event, but just sat backstage and watched everyone busying around.
In his spare time, he sat with Ori and commented on the signing event.
"Senior, isn't it not good for us to be lazy like this?" Ori asked in a low voice.
Everyone was busy, leaving only himself and the guy next to him watching the show, which made Ori, who still had a conscience, feel embarrassed.
"How can you say I'm lazy?" Nanaya asked with his eyes wide open. "This is the most direct opportunity to observe the popularity of the characters. It is very important to record the popularity of each character so that we can make more reasonable arrangements for each person."
"Senior..." Ori looked at the thermos cup in Nanaya's hand with disdain, "If you didn't have the wolfberries soaked in water, I think your words would be more credible."
"Well, I'm just trying to stay healthy."
Nanaya didn't blush at all. He calmly unscrewed the lid of the cup, took a sip of water, and answered.
"Ori, you have to know that men will age very quickly after the age of 30, so you must pay attention to maintenance..."
"That's enough, let's talk about popularity."
Ori interrupted Nanaya's unscrupulous speech.
Nanaya put down the cup in his hand with regret, he picked up the statistics table and took a look at it.
"As expected...Rin's popularity is still a little lacking."
"Yeah." Ori agreed, "There were a lot of people on the Tohsaka side at the beginning, but now there are fewer and fewer. Miss Johnson is starting to overtake them."
As the heroine, Rin must have a certain popularity.
But this is North America, and the disadvantages of the yellow race cannot be easily compensated, even if Lin has a quarter of white blood.
Who made Lin only have some Western features in her face shape and features, while her skin and hair color are all standard yellow skin and black hair.
If it was replaced by Elle with blonde hair, maybe it would be better.
This disadvantage does not mean that there is a difference in aesthetic taste between Westerners and Easterners. Rin is not considered a beauty in the eyes of Westerners. Nanaya believes that his little Rin is one of the most beautiful girls no matter where she is.
The number of people on Rin's side is smaller than Lily's, simply because Lily is more popular.
The reason is simple, because there are quite a few yellow people in Lily's team.
"This is probably what is called American arrogance." Nanaya sighed.
Ori seemed very surprised: "Huh? I thought it was because of the difference in aesthetics between the East and the West?"
"Tsk tsk."
Nanaya wagged his finger and said in a tone of someone who has experienced it: "Ori, I thought you've been with me for so long, you should be very familiar with this kind of thing. I didn't expect you to be so sweet~~ How can I trust you to hand over the big project to you?"
"This has nothing to do with the big project!"
Ori blushed and argued unconvincedly.
"How can it not be related?" Nanaya said in a serious tone, "Our [Erque Studio] is now an international film and television studio. As an important director of our studio, how can you not understand the preferences of European and American audiences?"
"Forehead..."
Oribei was speechless. After some mental struggle, he could only bow his head and admit defeat.
"So what's going on?"
"Hehe." Nanaya said proudly while drinking wolfberry water, "Since our little OriOri asked the question sincerely..."
"Stop making so much noise, hurry up and speak!"
Nanaya curled his lips helplessly at Ori's quick temper, and then began to explain.
In fact, when it comes to the appearance of Oriental people, or yellow people, there is actually not much difference in aesthetic taste between Easterners and Westerners.
The most intuitive manifestation of this is that on some indescribable websites in Europe and the United States, if you sort by download volume, the Oriental female protagonists in the top few films all have looks that are in line with our own aesthetic standards.
So when it comes to aesthetic concepts, the difference between Easterners and Westerners is really not that big.
As for the fact that Eastern female celebrities born in Europe and America seem to be extremely ugly in our eyes, in Nanaya's opinion, it is mostly because of Westerners' face blindness.
After all, when satisfying physiological needs, everyone just needs to find someone with a pretty face. As for who the leading actor is, it is not very important, unless it is some particularly famous person.
But as an actor or a celebrity, you can't simply base your preference on appearance.
Because the promoter needs it, so no matter how good-looking they are, you have to make people remember the actors you promote.
Otherwise, a few celebrities won't be able to tell them apart, which would be an even bigger problem.
"So, when Europeans and Americans make choices, they don't choose what they think is the most beautiful, but what they will never mistake." Nanaya made the final conclusion, "If you really want to say it, this can also be regarded as a disguised form of strong aesthetics."
"I always feel so sad." Ori said weakly.
"Don't say that. We ourselves often fail to tell the difference between Westerners' appearances." Nanaya snorted coldly. "There are many people in the East who think that Gandalf and Dumbledore are the same person."
"Nani? Aren't they the same actor?"
"..."
[If there are foreign actors in the crew of Ori in the future, should he be assigned a special assistant to prevent him from mistaking the wrong person? ]
Nanaya thought carefully about the constructiveness of this question.
While Nanaya and Ori were chatting, the morning half of the autograph session had already ended.
Several actors looked listless during their lunch break, although they didn't need to shout or do anything strange when facing a fan.
All you need to do is shake hands with the fans, have a brief chat, and then write your name on the title page of the book.
From this perspective, interacting with one fan isn't that tiring, but when that number is multiplied by several hundred, it becomes a very torturous job.
Not only did several actors' throats become hoarse and their hands become sore, but even their legs became numb from maintaining the same posture for the entire time.
"I'm going to die."
Scarlett leaned back in her chair in a very ungraceful manner. She was so tired that she didn't care about her image at all.
Since there are no fans around her now, she might as well just give up.
The situation wasn't much better for the others. Even Sugiyama and Setant, two male idols who often participated in similar events, were too tired to move.
"It's already pretty good. If it was a handshake meeting for Japanese idols, you would probably have to take one more in the morning."
Nanaya's words made Rin's expression become very strange.
[Nanaya, you actually used the proper noun "bu", are you really treating this as a handshake meeting? ]
Scarlett said unhappily, "Humph, no wonder some people have been saying that Japanese idols are a profession that violates human rights. It turns out to be true."
"Hmm...my hands are sore."
Lily lay listlessly on the table, rubbing her wrist and complaining.
As the most popular one, she was so busy in the morning that she didn't even have the chance to drink water. She only had a 5-minute break during the halftime.
"Here you go, put it on quickly."
Rin, who had experience in handshake meetings before, threw two plasters at her.
"I don't really want to post it. It's ugly."
"If you don't want your hands to be as swollen as radishes tomorrow, I suggest you put on the patch." Rin said firmly.
Perhaps it was because Rin rarely showed his authority as captain, Lily could only put on the plaster reluctantly.
"Okay, Lily. This is for your own good." Nanaya said as he distributed the remaining ointments to others.
Everyone put on the plaster, even the male actors.
"It's a rare opportunity for me to experience the thrill of being a star. This is probably a problem that only big stars have."
Mark tried to liven up the atmosphere by making a few jokes, but it was obviously not very successful.
"Rin, come out for a moment."
While everyone else was resting, Nanaya hooked her finger at Lin and said, "I have something to ask you."