Nirvana Top Laner, Reborn Tokyo Girl

Chapter 263, page 260: Shimamura is the protagonist.
Incidentally, there were actually rumors before that the main character of the music video for this World Championship would be Yuna Shimamura.

It is said that because of Shimamura Yuna's qualification, Riot directly overturned its previous World Championship promotion plan and changed its promotional direction.

The previous publicity strategy focused on the Chengdu S-series tournament, aiming to showcase more local elements and invite big-name local singers.

However, almost after the Vanguard Tournament ended, Riot was already fully committed to building the S-series around Yuna Shimamura.

When these rumors first started circulating, many people didn't believe them.

Even Shimamura Yuna herself didn't believe it.

People felt that Riot Games probably wouldn't do something like openly customizing a whole year's worth of promotion for a single player.

This is somewhat unprecedented.

However, after the promotional message for the S-series was released some time ago, everyone believed it.

The so-called S-series promotional slogan is a signature title that appears every year during the S-series.

The most typical examples are the pinnacle of S8 and the eternal heroism of S7.

For various reasons, the promotional slogans of the past two years have left the deepest impression on most Chinese players.

In short, the annual promotional message is to give the World Championship a theme, a style, and a subtitle.

This makes the World Championship (S-Series) more story-driven and legendary.

What the original promotional message for this year was, is now unknown to the audience around the world.

However, the promotional phrase released so far is "Gathering brilliance".

To be honest, once this promotional slogan came out, everyone basically knew that this year's campaign was indeed designed to generate traffic specifically for Yuna Shimamura.

The word "shining" is a word that Shimamura Yuna has mentioned frequently in many interviews.

She mentioned this word in many of the interviews that went viral.

The combination of a Japanese girl and dazzling lights, a rather stereotypical and somewhat chuunibyou (delusional) combination, does indeed make it easy for people to form a deeper impression of her.

How popular has this term become now?
In some Japanese anime on Bilibili, if words like "shining" or "kirakira" appear, pet lovers will come out and say something like, "Shimamura-san is here."

Although it's annoying, petting dogs has an immunity from being KY (inappropriate or discouraging) and scolding them won't help.

If you say "petting dogs is KY" (a derogatory term for someone who enjoys playing with dogs), you'll get attacked by these abstract maggots who say "the world of anime and manga is in chaos."

There's no way around it; having more people means having more say.

But putting everything else aside, "shining" is indeed a very distinctive and iconic word that reflects her personal style and characteristics.

This year, Riot used "Unity and Brilliance" as their promotional slogan.
It's not that it's impossible.

Actually, it's quite suitable for the atmosphere of the S-series.

After all, the World Championship is indeed the ultimate event that brings together all the shining moments of League of Legends throughout the year.

For most teams, victory or defeat hinges on this one battle.

For viewers, the performance in the S-series accounts for 90% of their evaluation of a team's performance throughout the year.

Success in the World Championship is success, failure in the World Championship is failure.

The team that fails before the World Championship but succeeds at the World Championship is the biggest winner of the year.

Conversely, teams that are successful before Worlds but perform poorly at Worlds are the biggest losers of the year.

That sounds strange.

How can someone who won so much be considered a loser? They're more like a minor winner, right?

But that's the truth.

This is the underlying logic of the game League of Legends.

This game is all about the S-rank tournament.

The more you win before the World Championship, the higher the expectations are, and the more ridiculous your elimination from the World Championship seems.

The World Championship is everything, the World Championship is everything.

Therefore, it's perfectly reasonable to say that the World Championship (S-Series) is a tournament that brings together brilliance, and that the S-Series champion is a team that brings together brilliance; it perfectly reflects the atmosphere of the game League of Legends.

but.
Did you happen to shine in the very year that Shimamura Yuna was at the height of her hype?

If you said this wasn't custom-made for Yuna Shimamura, no one would believe it.

But your fists aren't afraid of you seeing through it.

Their goal for this year is obvious: they hope Shimamura Yuna will win the championship, which directly fits the theme.

'Gathering and Shining'—who gathers and who shines?

Of course it's me, no choice!
They'll win the championship directly, then start creating a god-like figure to succeed Faker, ensuring the matches still generate buzz even after Faker retires.

They've got a lot going on and on.

And what's even more subtle is...

Riot Games secretly buffed several light fighters in the World Championship patch.

Camille, Fiora, Yone—they've all been buffed.

There were also nerfs to some other heroes.

While these aren't particularly groundbreaking changes, the adjustments to these heroes are only minor tweaks. For those who don't know how to play them, they'll likely still be unable to get playing time.

But, how should I put it?
This should be considered a good thing for people who already play these heroes.

Let's just leave those aside.

As mentioned earlier, many of these buffed heroes were already rarely seen in the top lane, so the buffs don't really change anything.

However, the most customized buff is probably Riot's public announcement that in the World Championship patch, the "lane swap penalty timer" will be extended separately for the top lane.

Extend by half a minute.

This change doesn't seem like a big deal.

After all, the penalty time for switching lanes is only slightly delayed compared to before.
However, judging from the results, the impact should be very significant.

That half-minute is enough to miss many opportunities to switch lanes, causing some chances to be able to switch lanes without taking damage to be missed.

That's how it is.
Whether you're in the top or bottom lane, Riot wants you to die in your lane as much as possible and not wander around aimlessly.

So who benefits from this?

This is certainly good news for Shimamura Yuna, who already has an advantage in online matches.

Therefore, this change was unanimously criticized online as "customization".

However, since the lane change was not very entertaining, people criticized it but didn't find it unreasonable.

On the contrary, I felt that "if it weren't for Shimamura-san, we don't know how much longer we would have to watch Sima change the line."

Incidentally, this change also occurred in another parallel world without Shimamura Yuna.

Netizens have indeed criticized the wrong person.

Riot Games' current strategy is very clear. That is to say...
They knew that directly and openly commissioning a custom order for Shimamura Yuna would cause considerable controversy and make her victory seem "illegitimate" if she actually won.

This is not in the Riot's interest.

However, they didn't want to do nothing and leave Shimamura Yuna with no advantage in the version, or even a disadvantage.

Most of the heroes that Shimamura Yuna played were "weak characters" for the players, so it's reasonable to buff them appropriately.

As long as the buffs aren't too drastic, and other overpowered heroes in other versions are nerfed, Shimamura Yuna will have a very comfortable time playing.

At the same time, lane swapping is an unreasonable and unentertaining gameplay style, so it's normal for it to be nerfed.

All adjustments are reasonable.

It's reasonable from both an aesthetic and balance perspective.

It just so happens that it also aligns somewhat with Shimamura Yuna's interests.

What Riot Games needs to do is ensure that Shimamura's adaptability to the World Championship version is no lower than it was during the Vanguard Tournament and MSI.

In any case, we absolutely cannot release a version that makes Shimamura Yuna uncomfortable to play.

Similar to what happened with RNG in S8, where a single nerf crippled their bot lane core and mid lane utility player, indirectly causing their star player to retire during a career slump for various reasons, Riot certainly wouldn't do that again.

And what do the audience think about these things?
Although it's obvious to everyone that Riot is customizing for Shimamura.
However, the things that Shimamura played with were indeed all garbage.

So let's customize it if we want, and enhance it if we want; it's all reasonable.

Rather, many viewers actually want to complain that some heroes who haven't appeared in competitions for hundreds of thousands of years, such as Vladimir, might have been completely ignored by Riot if it weren't for Shimamura Yuna playing them.

And so, as time went by, rumors spread like wildfire that this World Championship was specially made for Yuna Shimamura.
The time has finally come for that "custom-made theme song" that the whole world knows was created for Yuna Shimamura.

You've customized the hero buffs and lane swap changes.

How customized will the music video be?
The entire WBG team was very curious at this point about how Yuna Shimamura would appear in the music video for this World Championship.

It will be like UZI in S8, just a fleeting moment in a key shot.
Or will people say that he simply gets more screen time than others, just like Chovy did a couple of years ago?

This is the most custom-made music video you can imagine.

However, to everyone's surprise, things turned out to be even more customized and exaggerated than anyone had imagined.
That's right, this World Championship music video is entirely centered around Yuna Shimamura.

The art style is very Japanese anime-style.

It's not the art style of a typical shonen manga.

It's a very pure, exquisite, and everyday Japanese art style.

Then, unlike previous years, it didn't start with professional players cosplaying as various heroes for a chaotic brawl.

This year, contrary to the norm, the plot unfolds like a slice-of-life anime.

The opening shot shows a little girl lying on her bed at home.

Because of the art style, it's not very clear who this little girl is.

However, she is petite, short, and very thin.
The first person that came to mind for the audience was Yuna Shimamura.

The comments section was filled with things like "Is Shimamura really the lead actress?", "Shimamura is really showing off!", and "Custom MV".

As you continue watching, you'll find that the music video has a very refreshing style.

The main character in the music video, a Japanese high school girl who is suspected to be based on Shimamura, looks a bit sullen.

The house looked dilapidated, and there were many negative elements in the scene, such as various psychotropic drugs on the table and the obviously messy furnishings in the room.

These images are meant to suggest that she hasn't been doing well lately.

The female protagonist, looking utterly dejected, lay on the bed for a while before seemingly hearing a noise.

So I got out of bed, carefully opened the door, and through the crack, I saw my sister, dressed in a business suit, on the phone, seemingly arguing with someone, her face showing exhaustion and unhappiness.

The music video production company used these few short shots to convey the message that "the female protagonist is at a low point in her life" to the audience in the shortest possible time.

In short, I'm not in a good state, and my family's situation isn't good either.

Just then, the scene shifts. The female protagonist suddenly closes the door and lies back on the bed.

Seemingly trying to escape some reality, he took out his phone.

Upon closer inspection, it turned out to be a League of Legends game match being played.

The rhythm of the music suddenly became cheerful at this moment.

The scene shifts, and everyone is drawn into this "world of competition" along with the female protagonist.

Then, for about twenty seconds, it's the classic scene from Riot's annual World Championship MV: a chaotic brawl of professional players cosplaying.

Many classic scenes flashed by.

Examples include Faker's broccoli, Clearlove's Evelynn, and the Zed vs. Zed battle.
In short, these are many memorable moments from the games.

After watching these matches, the female protagonist, who had initially looked utterly hopeless, suddenly had a glimmer of light in her eyes.
Okay, let's stop for a moment.

Having read this far, Shimamura Yuna had a pretty good idea of ​​how things would develop.

At the same time, she finally confirmed that Riot Games was indeed using her as the protagonist of this music video.

However, the problem is...
This is so awkward!
Yes, it was really awkward.

She understands that the music video needs some artistic processing in order to convey its meaning.

The arguments between the sisters outside the door and the various pills inside the room are all simple ways to present the protagonist's unfortunate situation.

The subsequent music video features a chaotic cosplay battle among professional players, which serves two purposes: firstly, it helps viewers recall memorable moments from League of Legends competitions, and secondly, it expresses that for the female protagonist, League of Legends is like light.
This content is partly true and partly false; it's somewhat similar to my own real experiences, but not entirely the same.

This made Shimamura Yuna feel inexplicably awkward.

It was so awkward that she felt like she should find a hole to crawl into.

Her face turned red when she saw this part of the music video.

I'm already planning to close the webpage and find somewhere to hide.

But in the end, after hesitating, agonizing, and considering it for a while, she still didn't do it.

Instead, he patiently continued reading.

And what followed was exactly the formula she had expected.

The development was exactly as she had initially predicted.

As the fantasy segment of the Cosplay free-for-all ended, the female protagonist returned to reality from her immersion in the competition.

The music's rhythm also slowed down again.

The female protagonist put her phone aside and lay on the bed for a while.

Then, it seemed that a decision had been made.

The scene shifts, and the music reaches a climax.

What happens next in the music video is basically Shimamura Yuna's memories of the past year.

(End of this chapter)