Under the Dog

Just wanted to help how some support for this as it's nearly at the end of it's funding deadline and still has a bit to go. If you can please donate a little to this as it's a chance to let a veteran team make something without being bound by investors and producers and helping to make a new way for good anime to be made.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1300298569/under-the-dog

If you can't donate or just don't want to then help spread the word to others because that works too.

 

Wooooooo!~!~!~ I saw the success last week or something via email!~

 

It's that final days rush. It seems most kickstarters follow a pattern. First they get a lot of money near the start and initial hype and support poors in, things slow down for a while, then things pick up again as slackers come in and current backers up their pledges to show more support. It's too bad though that it wasn't enough of a rush to get even one stretch goal.

 

Yeah a movie really would have been amazing. But this was an early attempt at creating an anime through new means and the initial promise was only a single episode so I guess it makes sense that it wasn't able to get something as ambitious as 5.1 million. Even Mighty No.9 wasn't able to pull that off and it was being made by Inafune in the spirit of one of the most well known franchises ever. So if Mighty No.9 couldn't grab 5.1 million then there is no way an Ova which people aren't even sure if they are interested in would get that much.

But we can be happy that it at least got enough funding for one episode and if funds poor in through the after campain options then they might manage to hit the second episode goal. Plus if more projects like this start up it could mean some good things for the industry as a whole.

 

@Mafiacow tell me the cast names when you get to vote.

 

Will do will do. Probably will also just go with what you tell me to.

 

Wooohooooo! this is some good news.

 

Update! (Someone tell me what this means...)


From email:
From Hiroaki Yura, Founder and CEO of Creative Intelligence Arts
Dear UTD backers,

I sincerely apologise for the silence, it must have been a very painful few months for most of you as we weren’t able to make any kind of announcements. This will be the last update as the Producer of Under the Dog from me, as I attach the Press Release in which we are about to send to the media.

I hope you all understand that I did my best to do what’s right for the project, and I hereby regrettably resign from my post. Please feel assured that you will be in the good hands of the great creators I gathered for this project and they have given me their solemn vow to complete the Anime as intended.

Kindest regards,

Hiroaki Yura

Press Release
January 21, 2015

Contact: [email protected]

TOKYO... With over 12,000 backers on Kickstarter (KS) raising over $878,000 (151% of the budgeted $580,000) the upcoming sci-fi thriller anime, Under the Dog (UTD), became the top funded animation project on the popular crowdfunding site.

After a brief hiatus and silence from the project on the Kickstarter page, the team managing the UTD project, Creative Intelligence Arts (CIA) is announcing its departure from the UTD project and handing over the management of the project to Kinema Citrus. Hiroaki Yura and his company, CIA, spearheaded the overall production and Kickstarter campaign for UTD.

“In order to comply with certain requests from members of the UTD creative team, and to deliver an unhindered product to our backers, CIA is hereby removing itself from the UTD project,” said Producer for UTD and CIA founder Hiroaki Yura.

“We were very excited to concept and develop UTD but believe this decision is in keeping with our goals for enabling creative teams to retain as much rights and autonomy as possible and to have production move forward with full force. It is also an effort to more directly link backers and fans of anime with the creators making the works that they love.

“It is a testament to the enthusiasm the UTD team has that they wished to take over the production and directly handle it themselves. They were awed and inspired by the show of support and dedication from the backers on KS. We leave UTD in Jiro Ishii (original author), Muneki Ogasawara (CEO of Kinema Citrus) and Koji Morimoto (replacement producer)’s capable hands and trust that they will carry on where we left off with such an excellent pedigree of artists to back them up every step of the way.”

Stuart Massie, CIA’s KS campaign manager, PR, and community relations for UTD added, “I think any time you have a significant amount of time, creativity, and money invested in a project as CIA has in UTD, it can be difficult to let that project go. You want to see it through, and I think in a way we are; it will just be without our direct involvement.

“We connected with a lot of fans and we learned a ton on this project. We will take those lessons with us as we move on to other projects with our newly found “extra” time and fans of CIA will not be disappointed in what we have planned.”

 

It sounds like the creators may have decided to change production company on their own. Whether it was because of creative differences or something they don't say but if the creators decided to make the switch I'm assuming that it's for the best.

 

Yeah, kinema citrus is just taking complete control over the project. Here's the follow-up email listing the staff for anyone interesting.
(you can look them up and see previous works. Of course you can look up the official webpage http://under-the-dog.com/ and view the staff at http://under-the-dog.com/en/staff/)

Spoiler

We understand your anxiety but don't worry, the creative aspects of the UTD project have been ongoing.

Let us introduce the new and current staff members for the UTD project as follows:

Jiro Ishii [Original Story]

Yusuke Kozaki [Character Design]

Masahiro Ando [Director]

Kinema Citrus [Animation Studio]

Orange Co. [3D CGI Studio]

Kevin Penkin [Music]

Yukinori Kitajima [Script]

Makoto Fukami [Script Advice]

Seiichi Shirato [Military Background Research]

EM [Mechanical Design]

Koji Morimoto [Producer]

We promise to update you on the UTD project whenever we can and in a more timely fashion.

And surely, we will promptly notify you about progress on its anime production and rewards!

Please keep your eyes open for our project and pass along us any comments you have. For your information we have listed up your questions to date and are preparing responses to post over the next week or so.

Warmest regards,

UTD creative team

 

I'm still curious though as to the exact reason. Did the creative team and production company have a falling out about how to handle production? or did the Production Company run into some problems and chose to cancel their involvement to focus on other things? or something completely different?

 

From what I can understand from the email, they simply wanted to give UTD (kinema citrus) as much creative freedom as possible and not have any limitations or restrictions to it's production. I haven't heard of any conflicts of interest or internal quarreling and I know they wanted a kickstarter to begin with so they could get as much freedom as possible.