{"id":37512,"date":"2020-04-11T10:29:52","date_gmt":"2020-04-11T14:29:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.animenation.net\/blog\/?p=37512"},"modified":"2020-04-11T10:29:52","modified_gmt":"2020-04-11T14:29:52","slug":"animenations-doujin-dreams","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.animenation.net\/blog\/animenations-doujin-dreams\/","title":{"rendered":"AnimeNation’s Doujin Dreams"},"content":{"rendered":"

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I’ve related my prominent recollections<\/a> of AN Entertainment’s dabbling in licensing anime. But I forgot to include the anecdote about our aborted work on character merchandising.<\/p>\n

I don’t even recollect exactly when – probably in late 2003 or sometime in 2004 – I was inspired by the idea of commissioning a Japanese illustrator to create original character designs for merchandise that AnimeNation could manufacture and sell, such as t-shirts, mugs, posters, and so forth. My goal was to seek an artist whose aesthetic style evoked stylish modernity, bold cuteness, and a distinctively “anime” visual. I was looking for something that would appeal to both hardcore otaku as well as mainstream consumers with a taste for trendy and alternative design. I ended up conducting an email correspondence with doujinshi artist “null500.”<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

At his own cost, Null500 mailed me copies of his (I presume “he.” Apologies if “Null500” is female.) two self-published art collection comics. I passed the books around the AnimeNation office seeking input and opinion on whether my artist pick seemed viable. Meanwhile I began to negotiate with Null500 regarding what sort of character and image I wanted, and what rights and royalty split we could agree upon. Null500 began sending me rough design sketches which I critiqued and asked for revisions of.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

But then the greatest regret of my decade spent as a paid employee of AnimeNation occurred when the AnimeNation owners decided that they didn’t want to invest in either paying a Japanese artist or producing AnimeNation merchandise featuring original characters. After weeks of discussing and collaborating with Null500, I felt very guilty about having to back out of the commission negotiation that I’d initiated. But I didn’t at the time and have never since blamed the AnimeNation owners. I’m confident that they reluctantly made the decision that best served the company interests at the time.<\/p>\n

These brief picks and comments from the AnimeNation staff are now over a dozen years old.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

In the early 2000s we didn’t even realize that these images were Kizuato<\/em> fan art.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve related my prominent recollections of AN Entertainment’s dabbling in licensing anime. But I forgot to include the anecdote about our aborted work on character merchandising. I don’t even recollect exactly when – probably in late 2003 or sometime in 2004 – I was inspired by the idea of commissioning a Japanese illustrator to create […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":37515,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37512","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture","category-random-thoughts"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.animenation.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/null500.front_.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.animenation.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37512","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.animenation.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.animenation.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.animenation.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.animenation.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37512"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.animenation.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37512\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37527,"href":"https:\/\/www.animenation.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37512\/revisions\/37527"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.animenation.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37515"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.animenation.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37512"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.animenation.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37512"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.animenation.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37512"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}