crowdfunded OEL anime?

[DaFool]

from:
http://www.animenation.net/blog/2011/05 ... can-anime/

Artist, anime fan, and former FUNimation employee Jose Briseno is now leading the development of Mayexu, the first “audience financed anime.” The project now hosts its first video podcast and is now accepting donations toward the development of the project.


Jose Briseno explains:

During my time at Funimation I began looking over the quality of what was being produced in Japan, as well as what the internal attitude towards anime. I realized the future of animation is in self creation, and crowd financing. If people want quality stories, animation, and characters, why not save your money paying Brand Managment companies who market and localize work, and just pay to produce what you want to see? That’s the idea I had behind Mayexu, if you want a quality anime like Trigun, Cowboy Bebop or Evangelion, pay the artist, not the distributor. With social networking it makes complete sense to make an anime by fans, for the fans. It seems like the quality of anime’s coming out of Japan have been on the decline, the majority of anime is cookie cutter Harem. I believe American’s look at animation in general as a form of entertainment exclusively for children, that it can’t carry emotional weight or have a real message. Anime is a beautiful art form that should be taken seriously as a mature form of entertainment, and we aim to change that pre-convieved notion. We’re looking to kickstart the anime industry in America!

site:
http://www.drawthisblog.com/

[AllegroDiRossi]

Well, aside from the pretentiousness of these guys (Seriously? No good anime in the past few years? Madoka? Kuroshitsuji? Gosick? And you think you can just make the next trigun/FMA/Bebop/etc.?), I think that it's a good endeavor. It's kinda like the doujinshi market in Japan. At the same time, I'm wondering how much support they'll actually get, especially when it seems like most anime fans here don't even support the anime market in America.

[J. Datie]

I'm not gonna beat around the bush here, this isn't going to end well. They want me to help spread the word about a project whose name I can't pronounce or remember how to spell, in order to raise $50,000 to create a show that they claim will rival Evangelion and Cowboy Bebop in quality, but their only proof of this is a picture of a very generic looking shounen main character and a few sketches that look like a Dragon Ball Z doujinshi. From what I can tell, they plan on combating cookie-cutter harem shows with a cookie-cutter action show. And that is literally all I know about this project, because that's all they're telling anybody. No plot summary, no introduction to the setting, no character profiles, Final Destination. Unless they start revealing more information that both unique and interesting, I'll be surprised if they get over $1,000. Surprised and depressed.

Also, the very topic is number nine on the first page of a Google search for "Mayexu". That's... probably not good.

[DaFool]

Instead of animating everything themselves, they should just do pre-prod then use the cash to outsource to an experienced studio. I sincerely believe in economies of scale now (I used to respect indie animators who spent 3 years creating a 5-minute short, but no longer -- with Youtube today and tons of content, it's silly throwing one's life away to create content that will never be noticed.)

$30,000 and using Flash animation (it's not that bad... in fact western Flash animation is leagues ahead of Japanese Flash animation, which still give off that "Hey look, folks! I can tween!" vibe). My company is one of the outsource studios currently working on a TV series for Disney.

Or whatever studio that did Training With Hinako. They must be reeling in cash right now. I mean, 2D tits or 2D bulging muscles... can't be that hard to do, amirite?

And before anyone screams "b-but the production quality!!!", I dare you to take a look at Haibane Renmei blu-ray collection, complete with upscaling and unfixed off-model animation errors. Unremarkable harem anime like Infinite Stratos have sky-high production values compared to it. But guess which one is the classic worth keeping 10 years later?

[Auro-Cyanide]

Yeah, I'm a little skeptical as well. There is not really enough information.

Also, I really, REALLY, don't want general fan communities to be in charge of what does and doesn't get done. 'You can't please everyone all the time' and 'Too many cooks in the kitchen' jump to mind.

[Watercolorheart]

So, in other words, they're just doing this? http://www.kickstarter.com/discover/cat ... ef=sidebar