High Guardian Spice - Tumblr: The CalArt Anime

[One Man Bland]

This project looks lifeless. What I mean is that even in anime-inspired projects in the West, you can tell that the people behind them gave a damn about the show they were working on. They knew the hallmarks of what made an anime. And for how cringy they were, I felt the passion with their projects. For example, Avatar the Last Airbender is commonly debated as whether it's an anime or not because of how similar it has qualities to them. But that's only because the people who created the show were inspired by East-Asian cultures and wanted to make something because they loved it. Let's break down High Guardian Spice.

It doesn't feel like the creators even care about their show. Tell me what the show is about? A magic school? What separates it from the rest of the crowd? What makes your content interesting? You can't just throw a concept at your audience and expect them to eat it up! If you can't show in 2-3 trailer why people should care about your content, then you need to go back to drawing board and think about your ideas more thoroughly. Ironically, these people are copying the worst aspects of the anime industry. They're applying an overused style (only in this case worse) with very little details, a tired concept, and mixed them together hoping that people would eat them up.

But they aren't. And I'm glad people aren't liking this. You can't just go and say you're "so diverse" and constantly proceed to prove that you aren't. This isn't a show made to entertain or to even create something possibly enjoyable. It's made out of spite. And I can't see the passion with this project. People are right when they say this isn't an anime. Very little of it even looks inspired by anime.

Where are the hallmarks of anime? The big eyes, the tiny head? The weird body proportions/facial expressions? The wacky Japanese-inspired concepts? Even the worst of anime-inspired works got that right. I can't see anything here but a generic American cartoon trying to ride off the popularity of another medium.

I think trying to call this "anime-inspired" implies a level of interest and knowledge in Japanese animation that the people working on this show clearly don't possess. This show doesn't appear to be anything-inspired, much less by anime, so much that it's just trying to attach itself to a recognizable brand with a preexisting audience to piggy-back off of like a leech. Hell, if it weren't being hosted by Crunchy Roll I'm sure that anime wouldn't even factor in to its marketing.

Though frankly even if they did wax on about how the totally love anime/animation and aren't just trying to find a new medium to latch their painfully bland and uninspired drivel onto, it would probably be the same crap that every "I totally love anime" hack in the animation industry cites and references - namely Sailor Moon and maybe Card Captor Sakura if they're feeling adventurous or Dragon Ball Z if they want to say they love action too. And HGS has "we're going to make a ton of unrelated surface-level Sailor Moon references" written all over it.

 

[Mao Hao Hao]

To me it looks like a bland version of Little Witch Academia, which is also about girls attending a magic school, but vastly more interesting to look at and with better character designs.

 

[Commander X]

Seeing the discourse about this show pop up again elsewhere, I continue to be puzzled. I genuinely do not understand who on earth the intended audience for this show is supposed to be.

It's certainly not anime fans, because even taking the style aside, no anime animators, notable or unknown are connected to this project at all. It's all people that wrote and drew western comics, a Tumblr webcomic artist who has proven herself to be comic sales poison, and a woman that produced, uh, Robot Chicken.

It can't be adult fans of shows like Steven Universe or Adventure time because those people are generally not gonna sub to an anime streaming service just to watch one show and for the most part, the type they're clearly trying to appeal to - well, a lot of them hate anime. Sure, a few of them enjoy some token shows and there are plenty of them who obsess over anime but all that aside, they, if you know whomst I'm talking about here, call them "SJWs", call them "snowflakes", "tumblrinas" etc. don't buy anything in any medium. These people don't buy anything either cause they're genuinely broke, slum it and act like they're broke, or don't consume anything that isn't ideologically correct or free of what they would consider problematic elements by their loopy standards. And if they do read or watch or play something often they'll pirate it. Plus, these types of people aren't half as numerous as their loud, obnoxious representation in creative forums would lead people like publishers and other companies to believe, so I don't get companies producing content in any medium trying to sell to them. "Go woke, get broke", etc.

 

[Cubanodun]

As a Godzilla purist, that anime is only good from a technical level

Some say that Shin Godzilla was the best new godzilla movie because the version of legendary was a big meh, i like shin and the netflix movies just because one was directed by crazy ass hideki anno and the second is written by the Butcher himself

To me it looks like a bland version of Little Witch Academia, which is also about girls attending a magic school, but vastly more interesting to look at and with better character designs.

LWB was a peculiar case because people liked the OVA so much that they even made a kickstarter for a sequel amd it was so succesful that they made a full fledged anime, Crunchy just picked a bunch of neon hairs to make a ripoff of it, or worse if you want to speak about a group of women making something identical just go to Rayearth by CLAMP, the only thing that they innovated was making new ways of cringe

 

[HTL5N]

Some say that Shin Godzilla was the best new godzilla movie because the version of legendary was a big meh, i like shin and the netflix movies just because one was directed by crazy ass hideki anno and the second is written by the Butcher himself

I like some of the ideas in Shin and the anime, but they don't give Godzilla enough character. Godzilla is supposed to be anthropomorphic and have a personality other than walking. The 2014 Godzilla is the best Godzilla movie since Destroyah IMO.

 

[DrPrincessMeatball]

 

[One Man Bland]

Seeing the discourse about this show pop up again elsewhere, I continue to be puzzled. I genuinely do not understand who on earth the intended audience for this show is supposed to be.

It's certainly not anime fans, because even taking the style aside, no anime animators, notable or unknown are connected to this project at all. It's all people that wrote and drew western comics, a Tumblr webcomic artist who has proven herself to be comic sales poison, and a woman that produced, uh, Robot Chicken.

It can't be adult fans of shows like Steven Universe or Adventure time because those people are generally not gonna sub to an anime streaming service just to watch one show and for the most part, the type they're clearly trying to appeal to - well, a lot of them hate anime. Sure, a few of them enjoy some token shows and there are plenty of them who obsess over anime but all that aside, they, if you know whomst I'm talking about here, call them "SJWs", call them "snowflakes", "tumblrinas" etc. don't buy anything in any medium. These people don't buy anything either cause they're genuinely broke, slum it and act like they're broke, or don't consume anything that isn't ideologically correct or free of what they would consider problematic elements by their loopy standards. And if they do read or watch or play something often they'll pirate it. Plus, these types of people aren't half as numerous as their loud, obnoxious representation in creative forums would lead people like publishers and other companies to believe, so I don't get companies producing content in any medium trying to sell to them. "Go woke, get broke", etc.

TL ; DR It's made for themselves.

The people behind this like Kate Leth have no real fear of financial failure because, being nepotistic hires who get by solely on claiming misogyny, they are assured that they'll always have a new (albeit bottom of the barrel) opportunity in a whole new industry/company to fall back on; and on the social/critical level they've surrounded themselves with enough thirsty Yes Men and fellow dangerhairs that they can placate any criticisms with reassurances that they're merely jealous, sexist neckbeards.

Without any fear of failure, they don't ever have to ask the question of "who is the target demographic"/"will this demographic watch this" so their focus is on making something that focuses on the thing they love the most: themselves. Pretty much everything these hipsters have ever made is in the name of transforming everything they touch into vanity projects and glorified self-inserts, and since the writer's room is complied entirely of people who that sort of thing appeals to, they create an echo chamber of people who think their life stories full of events like "one time I had bed bugs" or "I was cat-called once" are the most interesting shit ever. It gives them the perfect excuse to slap any ol' boring slog together and call it a day; because, hey, what does it matter if you're going to be given another gig no elsewhere regardless of the public reception or actual success?

Then you have the executive side of things, Crunchy Roll, who probably funded this project because they were cheaper than hiring an established studio to try and compete with Netflix or Hulu with, likely had someone on their staff who's either a soyboy hipster vouching for m'ladies or a fellow Tumblrina recommending her friends, and because they - perhaps arrogantly - believe that their subscribers can stay no matter what they do so it doesn't matter if they divert some funds to an original "anime inspired" series if even one SJW signs up just to watch it.

 

[Cubanodun]

Then you have the executive side of things, Crunchy Roll, who probably funded this project because they were cheaper than hiring an established studio to try and compete with Netflix or Hulu with, likely had someone on their staff who's either a soyboy hipster vouching for m'ladies or a fellow Tumblrina recommending her friends, and because they - perhaps arrogantly - believe that their subscribers can stay no matter what they do so it doesn't matter if they divert some funds to an original "anime inspired" series if even one SJW signs up just to watch it.

The case of Netflix is that they are approaching their anime side by copying a already existing block called Noitamina where projects that would not fly in other sides would end there to test ideas and new animators, this called the attention of some companies here and supposedly there was a wage war to get the rights of working with Noitamina (that amazon won and they released amazon exclusive Kabaneri of the iron fortress)

Crunchy sadly doesn't have the dosh to do that kind of thing, they can't just do a netflix and ask anime studios like BONES or SHAFT to do things for them, so instead they did the Nightmare scenario, they just have to go woke in full force, for god sake people DONT GIVE A SHIT about diversity they want a PRODUCT not a STATEMENT, there is no FUCKING reason for this to exist, they wanted to go original? it was more easy to do ONA or shorts of some kind, get some people that show promise and make something good

But no, just pick dangerhairs that you know 90% of your demographic is going to hate, choke people to death with your wokeness and scream like a ghoul because it failed spectacularly

Funny enough i think Noitamina has released more WOKE products that anyone without realizing it ,Banana fish one of the best anime this season was created by a woman, same as Princess jellyfish that actually has a transvestite that is actually likable and not a token, it was also written by a woman

 

[Ruin]

I don't understand why people are calling the art "anime inspired." It's ultra generic CalArts beanhead style.

 

[Trilby]

To me it looks like a bland version of Little Witch Academia, which is also about girls attending a magic school, but vastly more interesting to look at and with better character designs.

Of course if you went back a couple decades, we had this...

 

[Shokew]

Eh... Why not just give Star Vs. a couple more seasons under these SJW cunts??? Sounds better than making them make something for a medium they don't care about. Or maybe not... Unless you want to see a show people still like really jump the shark.

 

[Next Task]

Kate Leth have no real fear of financial failure because, being nepotistic hires

I've seen this a couple of times. Who is her father/family member that helped her?

Pretty much everything these hipsters have ever made is in the name of transforming everything they touch into vanity projects and glorified self-inserts

Recently there was both the thing about the new She-Ra having the creator's old D&D character in it, and also that (presumably) chan-related image of how when other writers put in their real-world concerns into comics, they made them into proper superhero ideas, eg Galactus, The Dark Knight Returns... and Kate Leth had bedbugs, so she put bedbugs into Hellcat.

It's like they took 'write what you know' so much to heart that they didn't realise how limiting it is when you're narcissistic.

 

[One Man Bland]

I've seen this a couple of times. Who is her father/family member that helped her?

I haven't kept up with Leth in a while, so I don't know the specifics. I do know in terms of family she's closer to her mom, whether it be to praise her one moment only to throw her under the bus for pity points the next.

As far as her outside connections, it's mostly that she got hooked up with connections via a lot of ass-kissing - mostly hipster dudes in the lower rungs of comics like Matt Fraction - when she started that whole Valkyries bullshit, that got her into the same circles as somewhat more successful but still very Tumblr-y people like Noelle Stevenson, and she's been piggy-backing off those people every since. She's kind of like a poorer/slightly trashier Zoe Quinn in that regard.

She's also got a bunch of donate buttons plastered all over social media and her website, so there's that too.

 

[Maggots on a Train]

TL ; DR It's made for themselves.

The people behind this like Kate Leth have no real fear of financial failure because, being nepotistic hires who get by solely on claiming misogyny, they are assured that they'll always have a new (albeit bottom of the barrel) opportunity in a whole new industry/company to fall back on; and on the social/critical level they've surrounded themselves with enough thirsty Yes Men and fellow dangerhairs that they can placate any criticisms with reassurances that they're merely jealous, sexist neckbeards.

Without any fear of failure, they don't ever have to ask the question of "who is the target demographic"/"will this demographic watch this" so their focus is on making something that focuses on the thing they love the most: themselves. Pretty much everything these hipsters have ever made is in the name of transforming everything they touch into vanity projects and glorified self-inserts, and since the writer's room is complied entirely of people who that sort of thing appeals to, they create an echo chamber of people who think their life stories full of events like "one time I had bed bugs" or "I was cat-called once" are the most interesting shit ever. It gives them the perfect excuse to slap any ol' boring slog together and call it a day; because, hey, what does it matter if you're going to be given another gig no elsewhere regardless of the public reception or actual success?

Then you have the executive side of things, Crunchy Roll, who probably funded this project because they were cheaper than hiring an established studio to try and compete with Netflix or Hulu with, likely had someone on their staff who's either a soyboy hipster vouching for m'ladies or a fellow Tumblrina recommending her friends, and because they - perhaps arrogantly - believe that their subscribers can stay no matter what they do so it doesn't matter if they divert some funds to an original "anime inspired" series if even one SJW signs up just to watch it.

IMO one of the many rotten trends let loose by fanfic hags being promoted as real authors is how the rest of us get stuck with their horrible self-wank media.

Two things I noticed about fanfic creators. One, they do not understand that nobody really gives a shit about a fanfic besides the author and her own private circle jerk. Second, a lot of them are more interested in MUH OC than in any piece of media. So it's not strange to find people writing fanfiction about their OCs in books they haven't read, or shows they've barely watched, and then spamming fans of the actual media to read their claptrap.

 

[Ponderous Pillock]

LWB was a peculiar case because people liked the OVA so much that they even made a kickstarter for a sequel amd it was so succesful that they made a full fledged anime, Crunchy just picked a bunch of neon hairs to make a ripoff of it, or worse if you want to speak about a group of women making something identical just go to Rayearth by CLAMP, the only thing that they innovated was making new ways of cringe

LWA wasn't as peculiar a case as you first think. It had a good core of anime fans who followed it because it was a TRIGGER production, Kill La Kill drew in a lot of new fans and got the studio noticed. This was then followed by the experimental shorts which were fairly heavily inspired by Harry Potter and this is where the studio found a surprisingly large western audience to the point Netflix snapped them up. LWA is a decently sized success outside of Japan which is perhaps the only real peculiarity about it.

TL ; DR It's made for themselves.

Then you have the executive side of things, Crunchy Roll, who probably funded this project because they were cheaper than hiring an established studio to try and compete with Netflix or Hulu with, likely had someone on their staff who's either a soyboy hipster vouching for m'ladies or a fellow Tumblrina recommending her friends, and because they - perhaps arrogantly - believe that their subscribers can stay no matter what they do so it doesn't matter if they divert some funds to an original "anime inspired" series if even one SJW signs up just to watch it.

Interesting thing. Some of the stuff Crunchyroll supported? Hasn't been that well supported by their viewers, with a number of the semi-original/exclusive shows they helped pay for not making as great returns as they'd hoped. CR's been desperately searching for some big success they can lay claim to in the same way Netflix and Amazon have for a few years now. They've helped fund more niche shows but these are usually based off of other works with no ability to close the plot properly. They could go to a studio in Japan and create something, indeed CR has the money to do so, and the fact they have chosen not to suggests it's the political shenanigans we can obviously see it as. As a crumb of comfort there's a symbolic office in Tokyo but how much of production will be done there is open to a huge huge question mark.

IMO one of the many rotten trends let loose by fanfic hags being promoted as real authors is how the rest of us get stuck with their horrible self-wank media.

Two things I noticed about fanfic creators. One, they do not understand that nobody really gives a shit about a fanfic besides the author and her own private circle jerk. Second, a lot of them are more interested in MUH OC than in any piece of media. So it's not strange to find people writing fanfiction about their OCs in books they haven't read, or shows they've barely watched, and then spamming fans of the actual media to read their claptrap.

The problem is, when it works. It works very well. Said fanfic folks need a strong hand to guide them, however. This is what happened to CLAMP who went from yaoi fanfic doujinshi to making some of the best known manga that lead to some of the best shows out there (happy to admit, my first exposure to anime was Cardcaptor Sakura).

The problem is people like E L James. Who's badly written fan fiction of Twilight was battered about a bit by an editor who barely cared, then sold to desperate housewives across the Western World, earning her a cool $90m in the process. Which considering the average author gets 10% per book means that the publishers enjoyed the Fifty Shades series very very much.

Corporations always think lightning can strike twice but as we often see, it does not and it's a very expensive mistake to make.

 

[John Titor]

Somehow French people are succesful in making half-French half-Japanese animated series that has at least part of "anime feel" since 80s - Mysterious Cities of Gold that is basically proto-Avatar the Last Airbender but in historical setting, Ulysess 3000, that have pretty much episodic plot, but you can feel that 80s anime atmosphere in animation style, design of science-fiction machines and more recently Oban Star Racers where Japan made 2D animation and France made 3D parts.
I would say 80s american cartoons like Dungeons and Dragons and orginal Thundercats are closer to "anime feel" (scripted in US, but Japanese animation directiors have quite a lot of freedom) than this project, but it's trendy to hate on american 80s so they will probably ban me for mantioning it.

I believe anime had a stronger influence on France compared to America. If that Daft Punk music video movie indicates anything, they love Leiji Matsumoto.

 

[Silence of the Troons]

I believe anime had a stronger influence on France compared to America. If that Daft Punk music video movie indicates anything, they love Leiji Matsumoto.

France is the biggest manga market in Europe and television channels have been showing Japanese cartoons since the late 70s, so to say that it has had a strong influence on the French comic market is an understatement (not to mention that a lot of really niche mangas which otherwise wouldn’t receive much attention outside of Japan are published in France which is nice). Admittedly, I am a little bit biased, but I feel like a French anime streaming service would’ve pulled it off far better than Crunchytroll; they would still have been using the money wrongly, but the presentation and cartoon itself would probably not have been nearly as much of a clusterfuck as HGS (for example, the creator team would probably not have consisted single-handedly of tumblr SJW charicatures who cared more about showing off how woke they are).

 

[Ponderous Pillock]

France is the biggest manga market in Europe and television channels have been showing Japanese cartoons since the late 70s, so to say that it has had a strong influence on the French comic market is an understatement (not to mention that a lot of really niche mangas which otherwise wouldn’t receive much attention outside of Japan are published in France which is nice). Admittedly, I am a little bit biased, but I feel like a French anime streaming service would’ve pulled it off far better than Crunchytroll; they would still have been using the money wrongly, but the presentation and cartoon itself would probably not have been nearly as much of a clusterfuck as HGS (for example, the creator team would probably not have consisted single-handedly of tumblr SJW charicatures who cared more about showing off how woke they are).

Like 85% certain Wakfu is the only anime produced outside of Japan that actually gets a pass by even the most autistically screeching of weebs.

 

[PS1gamenwatch]

France is the biggest manga market in Europe and television channels have been showing Japanese cartoons since the late 70s, so to say that it has had a strong influence on the French comic market is an understatement (not to mention that a lot of really niche mangas which otherwise wouldn’t receive much attention outside of Japan are published in France which is nice). Admittedly, I am a little bit biased, but I feel like a French anime streaming service would’ve pulled it off far better than Crunchytroll; they would still have been using the money wrongly, but the presentation and cartoon itself would probably not have been nearly as much of a clusterfuck as HGS (for example, the creator team would probably not have consisted single-handedly of tumblr SJW charicatures who cared more about showing off how woke they are).

What about Hong Kong or Philippines? They did their own English translations of sentai and anime before they were even known to the West, they dubbed some anime that didn't make it Stateside albeit not a perfect English but still:

 

[One Man Bland]

IMO one of the many rotten trends let loose by fanfic hags being promoted as real authors is how the rest of us get stuck with their horrible self-wank media.

Two things I noticed about fanfic creators. One, they do not understand that nobody really gives a shit about a fanfic besides the author and her own private circle jerk. Second, a lot of them are more interested in MUH OC than in any piece of media. So it's not strange to find people writing fanfiction about their OCs in books they haven't read, or shows they've barely watched, and then spamming fans of the actual media to read their claptrap.

If this were 10 years ago with Donut Steels plaguing fan-bases were at their peak, I might be inclined to agree. But I think there's actually a lot more damaging attitudes currently plaguing fanfiction circles at work here. (Unless of course you mean the trend of basically writing a fanfiction first, changing a few names - if they even go that far - and presenting it as a totally original new piece.)

While ff.net was a total cesspool, it's one arguably redeeming quality was that it did at least have a community environment where everyone, for the most part, understood "if you want to get better - bacuse of either aspirations of professionalism or just to gain notoriety in your fanbase - accepting and dissecting critique is important" and criticism for the most part was welcomed, provided you weren't rude.

At some point down the line between jumping from FF.net to LiveJournal to Ao3, fanfiction kinda lost that attitude. Now reviews of your shitty fanfiction are called "unsolicited critique" and are treated with hostility. That their fanfics exist purely for self-masturbatory reasons, and it's condescending or even damaging to point out something as simple as a grammar mistake. Yet at the same time, those same fanfic writers still think they're entitled to the same amount of feedback as the people who do ask for advice to improve and work hard to follow it, and then wonder why no one wants to comment when they've put up a ton of parameters on how a reader is "allowed" to comment on their shit.

You see that sort of attitude plaguing a couple industries with SJW/hipster problems. The most common I've seen in animation are either "IT'S NOT FOR YOU (it's for me)," dismissing criticism as coming from a place of entitlement or prejudice, or vaguely threatening opponents in the same industry (aspiring to be in the industry) that they'll use their influence to gatekeep those people out of the industry like this is a high school clique... or a fanfic forum. In the case of HGS however, I think they'll most likely stick with the former two since they don't really have any influence yet.