High Guardian Spice - Tumblr: The CalArt Anime

[M80]

Does anyone remember Afro Samurai? It started as a doujinshi about a black samurai in Japan, that was picked up by studio Gonzo for an anime adaptation. Well, someone caught wind of it and sent Samuel L. Jackson a demo. He was so blown away, he got in touch with the studio and creator and became not only the voice for the main character, but a part of the creative team and co-producer.

Through his connections, he managed to get other big name actors to contribute and RZA from the Wu-Tang Clan to score it. The names attached started drawing lots of attention from people in the West, even from those who aren't fans of anime and it even got aired on Spike TV. It was a hit and spawned a franchise that Jackson continued to contribute to due to his love and passion for the project.

The creator, Takashi Okazaki, was a huge fan of Western media, particularly hip-hop, so not only was this a dream come true for him, but the success and exposure it garnered him in the West, allowed him to start finding work all around the globe.

Why is this important? Because unlike females and fags, anime that focuses on a black person as the central character (and takes them on as major staff members) is practically non-existant. So basically, Samuel "tired of these snakes" Jackson, has had a bigger direct impact on the lives of Japanese creators and has done more for "diversity in anime" than this gaggle of bulbous dykes could ever dream of achieving.

I don't know, that's just funny to me.

-"#highguardianspice takes a lot of influence from Dungeons and Dragons, in fact by the end of this the @ellation office will know how to play D&D!"

Because when I think of anime, I think of D&D!

You know what else took inspiration from a creator's D&D campaigns? Daikatana. This show is clearly in good company.

 

[Ruin]

This is literally Gen Zed weeb edition.

 

[Puddleduck]

A twelve year old girl with reality warping powers and minimal social skills lives in a town where supernatural crap like this is the norm. 150 million years ago, a meteor hit and left a crater that was 11 miles in diameter. Said crater works like the zone in Roadside Picnic and it's where her town is. Together with her new muggle best friend, the girl has to deal with Aztec gods, unicorns, interdimensional creatures, and school board engineered chicken pox strains.

Why not make it yourself? Have you ever played with animation software at home?
Why not use something like Plotagon to make the characters, something else to make the faces look not-Plotagon, run it through Gimp to look more "cartoony", and animate it in AnimeStudioPro (fairly cheap/easy to find a pirate)

Even if it looks "just okay" you could make a concept episode to use to find help to make something better...

 

[Wärring Ornac]

All this whining and crying and I'll bet you will still watch it when it's released

Probably.

We'll probably wont buy it though. We'll just get it from our Swedish friend, who runs a bay, for privateers.

 

[Varg Did Nothing Wrong]

And no I'm not shitposting. This is what I got from the cast page.

It's like what Bruce Vilanch would look like if he trooned out in college

 

[Helvetica Scenario]

Also the pink-haired girl makes me think she's based off the design of Candy from Candy Candy, but they fucked it up because no one seems to understand character design.

... yeah, Rosemary. About her design. It's more obvious the further you go back in Rodriguez's Tumblr archives looking for High Guardian Spice-related artwork. The problem?


Yeah. The problem is that Rosemary started off as 'edgy CalArts Madoka Kaname'. For fairly obvious reasons, like the bit where her design is a total fucking rip-off, this needed to be changed if High Guardian Spice was going to be released as a stand-alone, entirely original piece of work. Throwing a shitty brown vest-thing over the dress and dropping the hair ribbons seems to have been about the extent of it, not including the PoC makeover that would probably have happened anyway, but I guess that was good enough for Studio Woke.

Incidentally, it triggers my :autism: that the show is called High Guardian Spice, but all the main characters are named after herbs.

 

[Judge Holden]

... yeah, Rosemary. About her design. It's more obvious the further you go back in Rodriguez's Tumblr archives looking for High Guardian Spice-related artwork. The problem?

View attachment 532777 View attachment 532778
Yeah. The problem is that Rosemary started off as 'edgy Madoka Kaname'. For fairly obvious reasons, like the bit where her design is a total fucking rip-off, this needed to be changed if High Guardian Spice was going to be released as a stand-alone, entirely original piece of work. Throwing a shitty brown vest-thing over the dress and dropping the hair ribbons seems to have been about the extent of it, not including the PoC makeover that would probably have happened anyway, but I guess that was good enough for Studio Woke.

Incidentally, it triggers my :autism: that the show is called High Guardian Spice, but all the main characters are named after herbs.

Madoka as a franchise is pretty much dead at this point and yet this shit gets life

Not fair my nigger. not fair

 

[Clop]

The best part in this for my liking is that in Rodriguez's original Newgrounds artpost all the characters are white.

The long-haired blonde elf got changed to a brown redhead, and the mage got a slight tan. Token black and token in-betweeny. Why the fuck is the Madoka-ripoff slightly orange? Character design anime-style: Fuck introducing personalities in those teasers, let's just put on some bright differentiating colors and everyone will swallow that shit up. Lina Inverse or Pacifica Casull this kid isn't.

 

[Star Stuff]

I just caught wind of this yesterday. What in gods green earth is Crunchyroll thinking? They can barely update their own website and keep viewers in with guilt tripping, yet they fund some garbage show which will challenge my belief that Steven Universe is the most poorly written cartoon on the market? I'm almost positive, like some other folks here said, that it's because Netflix got their hands on Little Witch Academia and that attracted a LOT of eyes from the weeb sphere. Hell, Netflix also had an pseudo-original anime that I think was made in the West. It was literally just Castlevania.

Wanna know something hilarious? The Castlevania show was good. REALLY good. Good enough where if Netflix keeps this up, CR won't be a company anymore past 2020 because now even a fully westernized market is making better anime than them. That's completely ignoring their better platform. If Wakfu wasn't dubbed by dying parrots, I'd have even pegged CRs death to next year.

That's a good thing to bring up, by the way, when do you guys wager Crunchyrolls death?

 

[Tragi-Chan]

I keep on seeing people telling critics of this that "It's not for you." But like, who is it honestly for? Teenage girls? Anime fans?

As someone who falls under both of those labels, and has many friends who do as well, I can say for a fact that literally none of us are gonna touch this trainwreck with a ten-foot pole.

If it's not interesing to us, then who's the target demographic?

“It’s not for you” is just a way to try to pre-empt criticism. A series should aim for as broad an appeal as possible. In fact, a classic problem with long-running series is that they often aim exclusively at their established audience.

Overall. This is going to be a dumpster fire. Not a funny meme like Neo Yokio, but an actual dumpster fire. It's a miracle if the show turns out to be okay.

I’m reminded very much of the Woke Girls doll project. Like this, it was supposed to be an animesque magical girl franchise and like this, there was a lot of talk about diversity with very little on either the storytelling side or the practical side. Like, great, your characters have Real World Issues, but what is the actual story? What is a “guardian?” Why should I watch this and not some other magical girl cartoon?

It’s pretty obvious that either there is no animation or it’s too shit to display. I think that behind the circle jerk of self-congratulation, there are probably a lot of accusatory fingers being pointed. I wouldn’t be surprised if as the release date approaches, the publicity quietens down significantly.

 

[SuperSheep]

-"#highguardianspice takes a lot of influence from Dungeons and Dragons, in fact by the end of this the @ellation office will know how to play D&D!"

Because when I think of anime, I think of D&D!

Well, there's Record of Lodoss War.

 

[Oddjob OTP]

I just caught wind of this yesterday. What in gods green earth is Crunchyroll thinking? They can barely update their own website and keep viewers in with guilt tripping, yet they fund some garbage show which will challenge my belief that Steven Universe is the most poorly written cartoon on the market? I'm almost positive, like some other folks here said, that it's because Netflix got their hands on Little Witch Academia and that attracted a LOT of eyes from the weeb sphere. Hell, Netflix also had an pseudo-original anime that I think was made in the West. It was literally just Castlevania.

Wanna know something hilarious? The Castlevania show was good. REALLY good. Good enough where if Netflix keeps this up, CR won't be a company anymore past 2020 because now even a fully westernized market is making better anime than them. That's completely ignoring their better platform. If Wakfu wasn't dubbed by dying parrots, I'd have even pegged CRs death to next year.

That's a good thing to bring up, by the way, when do you guys wager Crunchyrolls death?

Even fucking Anime Stirke Amazon Prime got a hold of Made in Abyss, which was pretty much the best anime of 2017.

 

[Mapo Tofu]

Yo. I'm reading some of the info for the Q/A and there are some gems in here.

Some choice quotes about the characters and setting include:

-"Thyme is an immigrant from another country being forced to go to High Guardian Academy by her mom. Thyme is very much like if Daria cast a spell."

Gotta shove in that immigration politics somewhere~

-"Rosemary and Sage stay with Aloe and Anise, lesbian witches who live in Lyngarth. “Botanical nerds are going to have a field day!”

Honestly if this was just about Lesbian witches living their lives in a fantasy world it would be far more interesting than what we got.

-"Amaryllis from #highguardianspice is a characterization of teenage bullying, the character lines are wonderful as the writers get the burrow into the brains of bullies, or times that they were bullies."

So basically everyone will be a strawman until saved by the pure main character who is always liked and never wrong

-"None of the characters are depicted in a mean spirited fashion but as away of empathizing each character and what they represent."

So no character can act mean-spirited because having characters that aren't the same mindset as you is a terrible thing now.

-"Some of the animation and in-between teams for #highguardianspice involve a studio that works in Miyazaki films."

If this is true, I'm so disappointed. Miyazaki films don't deserve to be compared to crap. It has to be some sort of nepotism going on here.

-"#highguardianspice takes a lot of influence from Dungeons and Dragons, in fact by the end of this the @ellation office will know how to play D&D!"

Because when I think of anime, I think of D&D!

-"When searching for voice actors the team searched for people of color, transgenders, and more people that really fit into the roles of some of the cast of characters in the show. Trying to bring people who don’t normally have a voice."

Okay, I don't have a problem with them searching for people they want to work with, but I still don't understand how these "troons" are upset about representation when they are literally less than 2% of the population in the U.S.

Overall. This is going to be a dumpster fire. Not a funny meme like Neo Yokio, but an actual dumpster fire. It's a miracle if the show turns out to be okay.

Reading those answers reminded me why I hate Kate Leth writing.
No writer calls their own lines wonderful because everything is a wonderful line once the writer reads it.
It's an obvious bias one has and there is nothing wrong with it jut don't brag it publicly.
Also serioudly at the voice actor part.
I understand diversity and all but do these people even hired and ADR director or will 90% of the cast whine when told they gotta make a better effort while voicing.
And making a character not being mean spirited in certain situations kind of takes away credibilty in personality.
I know it's sperging out but I am passionate about writing and such

 

[Cubanodun]

Madoka as a franchise is pretty much dead at this point and yet this shit gets life

Not fair my nigger. not fair

You did not get the memo? apparently the story continues in the Mobage and that thing is going to have a anime next year, dont know if the butcher is there to deliver despair, dont know much about the game i was in the beta and abandon it because the gacha is more awful that the one in FGO the king of awful gachas

... yeah, Rosemary. About her design. It's more obvious the further you go back in Rodriguez's Tumblr archives looking for High Guardian Spice-related artwork. The problem?

View attachment 532777 View attachment 532778
Yeah. The problem is that Rosemary started off as 'edgy CalArts Madoka Kaname'. For fairly obvious reasons, like the bit where her design is a total fucking rip-off, this needed to be changed if High Guardian Spice was going to be released as a stand-alone, entirely original piece of work. Throwing a shitty brown vest-thing over the dress and dropping the hair ribbons seems to have been about the extent of it, not including the PoC makeover that would probably have happened anyway, but I guess that was good enough for Studio Woke.

Incidentally, it triggers my :autism: that the show is called High Guardian Spice, but all the main characters are named after herbs.

Madoka got a weird reception in the offendatrons community for all the implications that the two main characters were lesbians, to the point that it was deconstructed in the movie in a way that only the psycho urobutcher could do it really just watch it, the movie was aiming for a apparently happy ending but the butcher stepped out and say JAJAJA NO

I feel a little pity for the staff of Madoka, some seiyuus and the character designer were practically traumatized by him

 

[Kari Kamiya]

... yeah, Rosemary. About her design. It's more obvious the further you go back in Rodriguez's Tumblr archives looking for High Guardian Spice-related artwork. The problem?

View attachment 532777 View attachment 532778
Yeah. The problem is that Rosemary started off as 'edgy CalArts Madoka Kaname'. For fairly obvious reasons, like the bit where her design is a total fucking rip-off, this needed to be changed if High Guardian Spice was going to be released as a stand-alone, entirely original piece of work. Throwing a shitty brown vest-thing over the dress and dropping the hair ribbons seems to have been about the extent of it, not including the PoC makeover that would probably have happened anyway, but I guess that was good enough for Studio Woke.

Yeah, I knew her design was basically a retooled Madoka from the start (pretty sure all the main girls are rip-offs of the main characters, not just Rosemary), but the more I saw her, the more I started getting an image of Candy because of how the hair's positioned. And typically when you have a character's long curly/frizzy hair bunched up in ponytails at the temples, they're basically guaranteed to be the bubbly, sweet girl who wants to do good for the world but her naïveté ends up making a mess, but she's real sorry about it 'cause she just wanted to help, and since she's adorbs and a sweetheart, she's easily forgiven.

That's the impression I'm getting from Rosemary, but the design's still really irksome because everything just looks wrong. It could just be because their faces are really dopey and they're all suffering from some severe same-face syndrome, but I personally give faces somewhat of a pass and go for the hair instead, because hairstyles are really important to character design (and when you have characters in silhouette, that's how you can pick them out when they're all the same height and wear similar clothing). Someone pointed out her bangs look really stupid, and I agree, those bangs don't work, at least not in its current style. It looks okay in the picture there, but maybe it's because it's obvious that she does have longer hair just bunched up in ponytails, though the bangs still look really weird regardless, and perhaps just inappropriate for the character as a whole. It might look better on the blue-haired girl, just not her unless she's a princess/really upper-class 'cause that's what's known as the hime cut, usually reserved for those of high-class status, and also it's accompanied by long hair. I have no clue if Rosemary's hair is supposed to be long but bunched up in invisible ponytails, or if she just has voluminous short hair, but it just looks misplaced.

I also have issues with the blonde chubby elf's short shaggy haircut style. It just doesn't look good on her, probably because she's really chubby and short hair draws too much attention to how round her face is. If if was more poofy like Rosemary's or a 1920s hairstyle, it wouldn't look too bad, and it'd probably also help cover up her ears a bit, they just stick out too much in a weird place. She looks too much like Link, too, particularly Toon Link, but Toon Link's design works simply because he's wearing an outfit that makes his colors pop and not blend together into some bland hues of brown. Also he's not chubby and his face isn't an actual circle.

 

[Your Weird Fetish]

Why do they always, always have those glasses?

No writer calls their own lines wonderful because everything is a wonderful line once the writer reads it.

Actually I think real writers mostly hate their own writing and the best they can say about something is that they're satisfied with it.

 

[AnOminous]

How many episodes are they planning on releasing next year? Animation takes months and months. If they're planning on releasing a full season all at once, wouldn't they need to have a couple of episodes in the can already? But it almost seems as though they're still in the planning stages? At this rate how can they possibly finish in time?

Apparently, they don't even have animatics yet. Standard SJW work ethic going on here. Apparently this is complete vaporware as nobody involved in the project is remotely competent to do the job.

O
Holy raviolis. They are not even hiding it. I can't wait for this show to come up. It's gonna be a beautiful clusterfuck of everything wrong with Western Animation in one show. I give it one season before being ripped to shreds by every single reviewer on Youtube. But is better this way tho: can you imagine a toxic fandom of this shit ten times more cancerous than Voltron and SU combined?

They're already revving up the SJW attack machine so anyone who reviews it negatively will get swarmed by dangerhairs screeching about Nazis and rapists and death threats and other Gamergate-tier lies.

“It’s not for you” is just a way to try to pre-empt criticism.

I always view it as just an open admission that whatever they're defending is a complete piece of shit, because nothing actually good ever needs to be defended this way.

 

[Cubanodun]

I always view it as just an open admission that whatever they're defending is a complete piece of shit, because nothing actually good ever needs to be defended this way.

Is actually true because the product is only aimed to a single demographic, themselves

 

[madethistocomment]

If the main selling point if your show is that it’s ~diverse~, that tells viewers that you don’t think your story is good enough to be sold on its own merits.

 

[Woke Blue Muttlema]

It looks like 2019 is the death mark for the CalArts style in both art and writing. With over saturation and the adult animation market growing it seems like we will get streaming full of edgy yet mature options.
Action shows died but might be able to make a comeback, yet someone is going to screw it up.