Chapter 160 - A Massive Card Game

It didn’t take long for the Weibo to be shared everywhere, in particular in the ACG community,

This song actually had several Chinese versions. Chen Mo chose the version that was closest to the original and better suited the title Gokuraku Jodo.

In Chen Mo’s previous life, Onmyoji made this song popular. This song was associated with Onmyoji ever since MikuMikuDance models of Onmyoji were made.

It was because Gokuraku Jodo and Onmyoji were both popular in the ACG community, and had an even better effect on the ACG community when combined. This was why Chen Mo decided to use this song to promote the game as its theme song.

In just a few days time, Gokuraku Jodo took over the dance section of every major streaming platform.

The song spread at an incredibly speed. It received explosive growth on the first day, there were people learning the dance on the second day. It didn’t take long before song and dance covers started appearing!

The dance, covers, and ACG sections of major streaming sites were all filled with Gokuraku Jodo. Many of them have listened to it many times and could recite the dance moves backwards.

And Onmyoji was also becoming more and more familiar.

Gokuraku Jodo’s explosive growth did wonders to Onmyoji.

It started on Weibo, where many artists posted their creations of the characters from Onmyoji. Some were cute, some were alluring, and all of them were based on Onmyoji.

There were original works as well as commissioned works. Onmyoji became a popular topic among the most influential in the ACG community.

There were also sketches related to Onmyoji, focusing on interactions between Shikigami in the story, which also became trending on Weibo.

It didn’t end there, Chen Mo released another video following that, titled ‘Onmyoji Mobile Game Voice Actor Promotional Video: Complete Version’.

This video covered all the artwork and voicelines of Shikigami. Although it was very short as each Shikigami only had one line, the lineup of voice actors were still really shocking.

“My goodness, this voice actor lineup is amazing. They are all the top voice actors for anime!”

“Kugimiya? Kazuhiko Inoue? Taro Kubo? Aki Toyosaki[1]? What a way to spend money!”

“Ahhh! My ears are pregnant!”

“These drawings are so good I want to lick the screen!”

“Can someone make sure it’s a mobile card game? A mobile card game?”

“Maybe it’s only cards in the game with no models. Did you forget about I Am MT? It’ll be amazing if they even give an animated card, I think that it’s just a gimmick!”

“If Chen Mo was willing to spend so much money on the artwork, music, voice acting, it wouldn’t be a stretch for him to spend money on models too! If he made 2D models like Demon Slayers 2, it’s going to look so much better than Demon Slayers 2!”

“I don’t think Chen Mo will settle with being the same as Demon Slayers 2, he never liked being the same in the past. Anyways, is a card game that has no cards still a card game?”

“Whatever, let’s just wait for the game to be released. I can’t wait!”

—

Onmyoji was finally released!

This time, Chen Mo released on both Thunderbolt Gaming Platform and the official appstore in order to reach out to as many mobile card game players as possible.

Chen Mo didn’t spend a huge sum of money on advertising like Emperor Dynasty Entertainment, nor did he have a huge IP. However, Onmyoji didn’t lose in the popularity department compared to Demon Slayers 2.

It was because Chen Mo chose the ACG community as the start of his promotions. There are artists, dances, sketch producers, and other creators, a community filled with creative people.

And you could even say the quality of Onmyoji was as good as it gets, especially in characters and voice acting which were completely unique in the Chinese video game market. It didn’t take long before it attracted the attention of many fans of the ACG community.

These fans would also willingly promote Onmyoji, artists would make their own creations, and creators would promote one another. Combined with Chen Mo’s own promotion, it was easy for the game to promote itself.

In addition to Gokuraku Jodo’s popularity, Chen Mo’s previous works, and a wave of excitement in the mobile card game market driven by Demon Slayers 2, it allowed Onmyoji to gather the attention of many before release.

Chen Mo spent much less money on advertising compared to Emperor Dynasty Entertainment, but it achieved more or less the same effect.

Many players started downloading Onmyoji from either the Thunderbolt Gaming Platform or the official app store.

They realised the game was quite big?

“My goodness, the internet is so slow. How come it’s not done after two minutes?”

“I’m not doing either. Hold on, this game is over 1GB!”

“Huh? You’re joking right? It’s a card game!”

“My goodness, it actually is 1GB, no wonder it was so slow.”

“I’m out of storage on my phone, I have to delete some things!”

“It’s just a mobile card game. I thought that 480MB for Demon Slayers 2 was a bit ridiculous, but Onmyoji is 1GB?”

“Maybe Chen Mo is back to his old self? Ten years making games, nine years in CG? Maybe there are lots of cinematics in this?”

“My goodness, what is he trying to do?”

“I think it’s a good thing, this means that Chen Mo isn’t trying to hustle us. This game must be really high quality. Just think about the voice acting and the artwork. This shouldn’t be the usual card based card game.”

“Makes sense. I’m done downloading now! I’m playing the game!”

The game started with a simple cinematic.

“This story happens in a time where humans and monsters live together…”

It was a deep Japanese dub with a mysterious background music, covering the world that the game was placed in.

“This magnificent and splendid, whimsical world, which belongs to the demons and monsters, is all yours to explore…”

There were four different characters on the screen after the cinematics ended, all with their unique features.

It was Abe no Seimei, Kagura, Hiromasa, and Yao Bikuni.

The players were shocked to see artwork of shuck high quality, trumping every other mobile card game on the market! Nobody would doubt if someone took a screenshot of this claiming it was from a PC game.

TL note: It’s not her name in the raws, but it was close, I just assumed it was her because all the other names are actual voice actors for the game.