Mahou Shoujo Ikusei Keikaku - Volume 17 - Chapter 7

Shufflin Learns to Dance

When your boss summons you to their office by name, you get nervous. Even if said boss was fairly understanding yesterday, there was no guarantee they’d be equally understanding today.

Hamuel knocked on the thick, black-lacquered wooden door, and after receiving a reply, she said “Pardon me” and went inside.

It had a dark-gray carpet, a dark-brown president’s desk, and a sideboard and bookshelf of the same color; the only decoration was the classical clock on the table. All the colors in the room were extremely bland, including that of the room’s occupant, who wore a slate-colored suit. He looked like a jaded businessman, but he was actually a mage. At the center of the desk was a laptop, the light of its screen illuminating his expressionless face.

“Thanks for coming, Hamuel. First, I want you to look at this.”

Hamuel moved next to him and looked down at the laptop screen. It had various links in garish fonts—NO NEW REPORTS, FAVORITES, CLICK HERE FOR THE TOP RANKINGS, LIVE BROADCAST, RECOMMENDED POSTS, MAGI-MAGI NEWS, MAGICAL GIRL FESTIVAL! ALL HIT SERIES HERE!—along with tons of pictures from magical-girl anime.

Her boss’s expression remained unchanged as he faced the laptop, his fingers laced in front of him Hamuel maintained a similarly stoic expression as she nodded. There was something oddly comedic about a middle-aged man gazing sternly at a silly website, but Hamuel wasn’t so immature that she would burst out laughing. She eyed the screen with the same ultra-serious look as her boss.

“This is Magi-magi Video, the video-hosting site for Magical Kingdom personnel, right?” she said.

There were a number of websites that could be viewed only by those who possessed magical aptitude. Ordinary people couldn’t know about them, and they wouldn’t be logged in the Internet archives. A magical girl who was the former head of the IT Department had developed the technology to filter any outsiders. Even now that said magical girl had been kicked out of her position for criminal activity, the technology had all been passed on and was still being used.

Magi-magi Video had been established for communication among Magical Kingdom personnel. Announcement of research results, advertisement of products, canvassing for your faction, official streams of magical-girl anime, and other official matters were just about 10 percent of the content, and the other 90 percent were hobby videos.

Her boss scrolled and clicked a number of times with practiced movements, going through the trending page to go to a channel page. It was titled “Puk’s Page,” with a long list of videos that read “Live broadcast on X day, X month,” with different dates marked.

“As you can see, the Puk Faction is posting videos,” said her boss.

He clicked on a video to play it.

It looked like some sort of conflict zone. In the center of the screen, beside a fallen street sign with concrete rubble scattered around, there was a figure. The camera gradually zoomed in, and the figure grew larger.

It was a girl. She looked less than ten years old. Hamuel let out a little breath. Magical girls were all beautiful when they transformed, but even being one herself, she thought this one’s beauty seemed a head or two above the rest. Her distinctive tartan skirt and very idol-esque school uniform didn’t look cheap at all. She was indeed like an idol in the literal sense. The girl hugged a ribboned mic to her chest like something precious as she gave a little bow. The ribbon at her waist and her full golden hair bounced like living things.

The music started. It was an idol song from the 00s. The girl began to sing while performing the sort of idol-style dance you’d expect. Not only was the girl beautiful and charming, Hamuel felt an unconcealable holiness—sublimity, even—in her smile and the way she moved. She didn’t even need to look at the tags—“IRL goddess,” “her singing is a gift,” “so glad Lady Puk seems to be enjoying herself”—to know who this girl was. She was the leader of the Puk Faction and the incarnation of one of the Three Sages: the magical girl Puk Puck.

After about thirty seconds, Hamuel’s boss clicked the BACK button. “We’ve received reports that viewing this video for long periods of time has a negative effect on mental health,” he said.

Hamuel had just been thinking she wished she could have seen a bit more, and she squirmed in her seat. She’d almost been sucked in. This was exactly why you couldn’t let your guard down with the Puk Faction.

“When Puk posts, she takes the top of the daily ranking in everything: views, comments, and favorites,” Hamuel’s boss told her.

“That’s pretty amazing.”

“So we’re going to be working on a counterstrategy.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“On the day when a Puk video is planned to be uploaded, we’ll hit back with a video of our own and steal the top video ranking.”

“Hmm.”

“You’re going to make a video and post it for us. You don’t need to worry about craft. We’ll leave that to the supervisor and director.”

The boss’s lips contorted just slightly. A breath leaked out the corner of his mouth.

“The Osk Faction’s been in dire straits ever since the mainstream faction that backed Grim Heart made that mess. Our supporters decrease day by day, and our forces are at three quarters of where they were previously. And the bad image follows us around, no matter what we do or where. We’d like to wipe that away, somehow. We want to show off that we’re not like the old Osks—we’re a clean faction.”

“So that means this?”

The boss nodded, and his subordinate nodded back. The mainstream faction getting themselves ruined had opened up the organization a bit, but vertical relations were still strict, and the Osk Faction’s forceful, top-down methods hadn’t really changed. As a newbie manager, Hamuel had no right to refuse even the strangest orders. Sometimes, she just had to put on a serious look and do it, even if she was thinking with exasperation how ridiculous it was. Hamuel was well aware of this.

“The old guard must see this as making a gesture toward the masses. I was given a biting look and told to make this succeed, no matter what.”

“Oh my…”

“Hamuel, I’m entrusting you with a full set of Shufflin IIs. I want you to produce a wonderful video that says Here we are, the Osk Faction, and concentrate on a PR campaign.”

She had the equipment. She had the personnel. She had even gotten them to lend her a studio. The Puk Faction had certainly made full use of their funds to put together nothing but the highest-quality products. It was by preparing enough of the same that they’d be able to stand in the same arena for the first time.

It was very ridiculous. But it was also an opportunity. Hamuel had no accomplishments, no credits to her name. She would make this video production her first accomplishment and her foothold to success. At some later date, it would certainly be announced during a meeting that this was the sort of thing they were doing for their image improvement campaign. While it would be out of the question to make a boring video that was exposed and tank her reputation, if Hamuel made a wonderful video that anyone approved of, then her reputation would go up, and she would be entrusted with more important work.

The Shufflin II’s greatest strength was their numbers: They came in a set of fifty-two. Furthermore, being a singular unit to start with gave them a sense of unity that set them apart from just getting together a big crowd of people. Hamuel checked the videos on the site that were particularly popular and thoroughly researched the trends of videos that were liked. She counted the views, number of comments, and favorites by each video genre, and after discarding let’s plays, experimental videos, sports videos, animal videos, AMVs, etc., what remained in the end were song covers and dance covers—and realizing that the fatal flaw of singing together was that they all had the same vocal quality, she picked a dance cover. She got a pro to do the choreography. The Osk Faction connections were deep and broad.

“You, over there! Stay in sync! One, two, one, two… You’re falling behind!”

Hamuel’s magic radio was good for directing groups. She could give individual directions, prompt the attention of the whole, and send messages to certain suits. This meticulous instruction-giving couldn’t be accomplished just from yelling through a megaphone and was made possible by the magic radio, and Hamuel’s skill to use it well.

Taking into account Magi-magi Video’s demographics, they selected the cute, poppy, and up-tempo hit Daisy Carnival as the background music, which was widely known as the opening theme of Magical Daisy season two. Plenty of magical-girl anime were more well-known, but Magical Daisy had them beat as far as the number of surreal AMVs was concerned. On Magi-magi Video, the song was even more widely recognized than Cutie Healer or Star Queen.

“Make it happy! And fun! And cute! You all should be able to do it! Okay, one, two!”

The Shufflins had their quirks, too. The hearts were cowardly but expressive. The clubs’ movements were sharp, and the spades were good at action. The diamonds weren’t good at dancing, but they were essential for shooting, sound, editing, and other tasks. Hamuel gave instructions to the majority or to individuals using her radio, going for even more refined motion, charming gestures, and group beauty. She sweated with the Shufflins, worried over things with them, and watched from the shadows as they secretly practiced on their own. After a whole month of struggles, the video was finally complete.

Objectively speaking, it was a great dance cover video. It had perfectly coordinated dancing that only the Shufflins, all as one, could execute. The background was professionally done CG. The Shufflins danced in a mysterious forest drawn with avant-garde and psychedelic colors, with a giant caterpillar and a Cheshire cat watching over them. The club corps came to the front, then moved to the back, swapping places with the hearts as they came up, and then the video zoomed in on the cherubic expression of the Two of Hearts. The black team and the red team went forward at a diagonal, passing by each other without colliding, then changed direction at a forty-five degree diagonal, and the black and red passed by each other once more. Then they jumped, jumped, threw up their hands, did a spin to the side, and a spin vertically. It was wonderful.

Once it was all over, Hamuel wiped the sweat off her forehead. The Two and Three of Hearts were so moved that they burst into tears—Hamuel gently patted their backs, offered an appreciative “Good job,” and bowed her head. She gave each and every Shufflin a firm handshake, and they complimented each other.

Hamuel input the title of the video: “Shufflin Learns to Dance.” It was Friday night, around when there would be the greatest influx of viewers, and also the moment when Puk Puck’s video submission was scheduled. Hamuel also didn’t forget to casually mention the Osk Faction’s name in the description. She went frame by frame to select the best shot for the video thumbnail, ultimately settling on the Ace of Hearts jumping in the air with a big smile.

So then now for the view count and the comment count. Would it be a lot, or not so many? Her future would be decided based on this number. Heart racing with hope and unease, Hamuel opened up the video page. Magi-magi Video showed viewer comments in real time, making it clear at a glance if a video was popular. So would it—?

Ohhh…wonderful.

It was better than expected. Just by refreshing the video page once, the view count and the number of comments went up by a hundred, a thousand. All the comments were positive. Comments saying the Ace of Hearts was cute came in succession, only to be swallowed by the group of comments saying the Jack of Spades was cool. The Shufflins gathered around Hamuel also chittered their innocent glee as they commented on the video with their magical phones.

Confirming her success, Hamuel refreshed the page once more. There were even more views and comments. Refresh it again, and they went further up and up. At this rate, maybe they really could make it to the top-trending videos. The number of comments continued to increase, becoming such a deluge that it was even hard to read the comments saying the Ace of Hearts was cute as they flowed right to left, and the comments saying the Jack of Spades was cool became a greater river that flowed from right to left.

…Huh?

Hamuel cocked her head. Something felt off. She refreshed the page once again. There were even more “the Ace of Hearts is cute” and “the Jack of Spades is cool” comments. She peeked at the magical phone belonging to the Four of Hearts, who was right beside her, commenting on the video: The Four of Hearts is cute. Hamuel then peeked at the magical phone of the Seven of Clubs, who was typing in another comment: The Seven of Clubs is so elegant.

Hamuel face-palmed.

All the comments were so uniform, with no individuality to be seen. Hamuel had thought these were what people called a “barrage of scrolling comments,” but upon closer inspection, it was nothing but the most bare-bones compliments, like “cool,” “cute,” “elegant,” “great,” and “awesome.”

Hamuel’s magical phone alerted her to a new message with a ding. It was from the research team:

The Shufflin video was great. Our Shufflin prototypes and the Shufflin IIs are so glad, they’re commenting on it.

Her phone dinged again. It was from the captain of the engineering unit, which was made up of diamond Shufflins:

I saw the Shufflin video. The Shufflin dance was super cute. Our girls are so happy, they’re commenting, too.

Hamuel got another notification, but she didn’t bother checking anymore. She went back to the video page, and when she refreshed it, there were even more views and comments. The comments were all uniform, a barrage of comments like a meteor shower was flowing from right to left. The comments all said the same thing and were submitted at the same moments. It was just like the same person had made a large volume of comments.

Could this perhaps be…an incredibly large-scale sock puppet operation?

Hamuel looked up at the sky and wondered how she would tell her boss about this. Unable to come up with any ideas, she posted a single comment on the Shufflin video: The Ace of Hearts is magi-cool.