Jman

There’s a new trend in animation and it’s sweeping the internet - Crowdfunding money for pilots! Anyone who’s following Western animation and even anime recently is starting to see something of a “good old boys” network forming where it’s very hard for people to get their ideas seen by the masses unless you know the right people and agree with their ideas. In Japan that usually means having an in at a manga or light novel publishing house to pitch your show. And there’s only so many times one can write about Joe Schmuck who’s good at vidya games going to a world and being the best ever (a premise Gundam’s creator Tomino deconstructed decades ago in Aura Battler Dunbine). In America that means being a CalArts graduate or joining Women In Animation so your generic pro SocJus show can air as part of whatever agreement activists made a studio sign. Just make sure to show up to the D&D game on Thursday. Or else. So we have people taking their cases to the masses with pilots like “Bean Bandit” - A fusion of Riding Bean and Gunsmith Cats that debuted yesterday at a convention to mostly positive word of mouth with a creator in Kenichi Sonada that seems to be on the outs with most of the big studios. Here’s the trailer - Or “The Mighty Grand Piton”, a 2 minute proof of concept made by British studio The Line after its writer looked up Caribbean anime...only to find nothing but Pirates of the Caribbean fan art... And then we have Mecha Ude, a pitch from a Japanese student who hoped to bring her concept to series and get more experienced animators on board. This one was successful enough to fund an English dub - These are hardly the only examples. A while back, the former studio AIC attempted to crowdfund money for pilots to old properties, and they got enough money for remakes of “Megazone 23” (an OVA widely considered to be a major influence on The Matrix) and Pretty Sammy (yes, the magical girl parody spinoff of Tenchi Muyo). https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2019-03-24/megazone-23-reboot-project-only-remakes-part-i-and-ii/.144973 So anyway, crowdfunded pilots. Any interesting ones you want to share? Comments on the ones here? Thoughts on the phenomenon?

The Rising of the Shield Hero 1-4.

I love Genndy’s work a lot, but yeah, putting an industry as insular as Western animation on blast where everyone knows everyone and all the people have the same style and play Dungeons and Dragons on the weekend where they can’t help but reference it in every show (as if the rest of the world gives a flying fuck about D&D) is a one way ticket to being blacklisted.

Toonami and Elation say fuck it -

Yeah, I’ve said it before, but combat sports can’t really be compared to traditional stick and ball sports, especially in adaptations. Your layman may not get the rules of tennis, but they’ll get a fist punching someone in the face.

“Ladies and gentlemen, we are proud to announce High Guardian Spice!”

I’m kinda wondering if they’re gonna tackle the dumber aspects of the fandom. Humanity was collectively embarrassed over the chicken nugget fiasco, and if they don’t take the piss it will be a missed opportunity.

After it’s sort of become identified with incel culture, so...good luck with that!

More than you would think. Especially concerning Dragonball and MHA. It’s just that most of those people rely on On Demand for their stuff and only watch when there’s no direct interference. That’s the weird dichotomy to me. The anime market is bigger than ever, with more people watching than ever. But thanks to the decrease in over the air viewership, that hasn’t translated to ratings for Toonami.

Magic Knight Rayearth 21. This proof of concept trailer that makes me pissed stuff like this doesn’t get animated to a whole series but we get the same “diverse” shit from what can’t be more than a circle of 15 goddamn people.

Let’s see if it gets more than one episode like Korgoth did.

Oh good. Put it further in the range of sports and PPV’s. That isn’t likely to backfire. Wasn’t the idea of starting later a way to ensure the audience didn’t have any other commitments besides just going out and watching everything on demand?

It is a 20 year old series. My guess is that means the voice cast is no one special (i.e. no stunt casting) so they don’t need to scream it.

They are back to the pre Family Guy strategy of throwing everything at the wall and seeing what sticks because the writer of their remaining most popular show is a barely functional alcoholic. Something had better land... Shame that they alienated so many people during the salad days like Brendon Small.

Might be worth watching them in the park on the FUNi app...