Support American 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!
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Makes sense to me. Anyway he had me at “if you want a quality anime like Trigun, Cowboy Bebop or Evangelion,”. Quality indeed. I really miss that in anime.
it’s always been a neat idea, anime fans shelling out money to some newcomer so they can make their dream project is kind of crazy. In a case like this people would be investing in talent they know, IP’s they are already fans of…. not someone/something they know nothing about. Also, the fans aren’t going to fund production when they barely even support DVD releases enough to support the R1 industry. Frankly I don’t see enough on this “Mayexu” to be interesting enough to spend money on if it were actually completed. It’s just one boring generic pic and logo.
If fans actually want to fund anime, small group of “angents” should contact creators of shows to see if they were open to the idea. Say creative talent behind Bebop (as it was used as an example), once they had them, then anime fans could pool their money to fund their creative efforts.
Well, I wish those guys all the best in their endeavors… I just hope (and expect) they’re motivated to succeed by more than a whining about why anime produced twelve or fifteen years ago is no longer in style, relatively speaking.
Fan-produced “anime” comes in all shapes and forms. Some companies have been working on projects for years only to fade away (see White Radish Prods.), while there are also some artists work on their own projects but eventually take positions at more reputable co-production outfits (see Chris Moujaes)… and so on. The business of licensing and distributing anime in the west is expensive and, as we’ve seen lately, a losing proposition for some. As a result, the “I’ll do it myself” or the “Let’s co-produce it ourselves” have become increasingly common approaches.
Kinda neat, but their demo reel of like, 4 pencil sketches does not instill me with much confidence.
Also the Evangelion and Trigun franchises have had feature films in the past year :p
There are currently shows like Kaiji, C/Anohana (Noitamina for my original unique fix), Deadman Wonderland, Saint Seiya Lost Canvas to name very few examples, as long as there are series like the ones I mentioned its ok to have series like dog days, oretachi, oreimo, kissxsis, xxxx random harem anime.
I dont mind that shows like Madoka which I have 0 interest in, break the sales charts, etc. So long as there are options for everyone its ok I guess.
I guess I am one of the nerds who likes those stereotypical harem anime. That being said, I like the idea of Western animations aimed at a more mature audience. But you can’t criticize the modern otaku community and expect that people will support you right away !