Forum - View topic

NEWS: Azuki, Dentsu Announce Enter the Garden Anime Anthology Series With 1st Part 'The Waiting Man'

I'm one of the founders of the Azuki manga app and I immediately let the other company know the day they announced their NFTs that the Azuki name conflicted with ours. At that point we had already announced and launched our manga app almost half a year prior so it was pretty easy to look up too. =\

Mikan-box Glasses-kun wrote:

SunflowerSamurai wrote: snip Protip: when you've just joined today and both of your only posts are vague, don't meaningfully address how this is any different from those other NFTs, and read like you're financially invested in the situation, it just makes it sound even more like a scam. (Also, personally, the fact the company didn't even bother to check whether there's another company with the same name in the anime and manga industry bugs the hell out of me.)

I'm one of the founders of the Azuki manga app and I immediately let the other company know the day they announced their NFTs that the Azuki name conflicted with ours. At that point we had already announced and launched our manga app almost half a year prior so it was pretty easy to look up too. =\

SunflowerSamurai wrote:

As far as the brand name goes, I don't believe there was any ill intention to undermine another entity using the name. From what I've heard, it was entirely accidental. Obviously the manga licensing company you are referring to did not create any restrictions for another brand to come in to copyright and trademark usage of the name. That's business I guess. But I definitely understand where you are coming from and empathize with that particular concern.

OK, so are you or are you not an employee of Chiru Labs, because if you aren't then how in the world would you know anything regarding the copyright situation of the term "Azuki"? At this point you are only coming off more & more sketchy, and if you had simply stated that you are a representative of Chiru Labs from the start then at least everything you're saying would have some context behind it.

Oh. I was excited for this until I realised the company does NFTs........
A shame, the trailer is really cool.

I usually don't chime in but something seems odd in this thread. The account that was made 24 hours ago is pushing hard for this. It also reads like it a script from some PR release and definitely not authentic at all.

harminia wrote:

Oh. I was excited for this until I realised the company does NFTs........ A shame, the trailer is really cool.

Only from the minds of an NFT salesman can someone try to market a IP about sentient beans lol. "Beanz" reminds me of those 25cent machine figures called "Homiez".

I'm a huge fan of the IP, so obviously I want to see the series succeed. What is unauthentic about that?

They don't train you enough. You talk exactly like a businessman selling products to other businessmen, not a human who authentically cares about anything

your praise of these "IPs" consists of them being "on-trend" or "on-brand" and having financial potential. Humans who actually care about art don't talk that way.

Only from the minds of an NFT salesman can someone try to market a IP about sentient beans lol. "Beanz" reminds me of those 25cent machine figures called "Homiez".

So, my issue is: I hate NFTs. I think they're scummy for a number of reasons.
Even if the anime is separate to the NFTs, watching it still supports an NFT business. I do not want to support NFTs in any way if possible.
You can "Hi friend!" as much as you like but I don't think you're convincing anyone beyond those who were already mostly ok with NFT/web3.

I'll be blunt. This looks like an absolutely generic "anime original". So many anime original stories follow the same... story/structure to a tee. Generally there's a ragtag group of characters, often adult characters, its hard to explain exactly, but if you've seen one you've seen a dozen.

These were flaws I was half interested in looking past since at first I believed this was a passion project... No, no. This isn't a passion project, this isn't artists "showing us their creative vision". It's NFT bros who are imitating making an anime... (Similarly, the style over substance might be forgivable if this were made by passionate people who wanted to show off what the animation medium can do...)

Sort of like a lot of OEL manga/anime. The creators have to spend all their energy imitating the trappings of anime/manga so that their work looks convincingly japanese, actual japanese authors don't have to do that since anything they draw is automatically 'anime/manga'... and then the oel author of course neglects to tell a compelling story.

And thats exactly what the creators of this have done, they are as far as I'm concerned more interested in the idea of having an anime, or the 'cultural capital' of having an anime tiein, than the storytelling aspects of anime. It honestly visually reminds me of dimension w, all style over substance, vaguely "cool" but in an "anime way".

snip

AsleepBySunset wrote:

I'll be blunt. This looks like an absolutely generic "anime original". So many anime original stories follow the same... story/structure to a tee. Generally there's a ragtag group of characters, often adult characters, its hard to explain exactly, but if you've seen one you've seen a dozen.

Hey friend. Your comment is thoughtful and refreshing but I must respectfully agree to disagree on a number of things.

How exactly can you say something is “generic” based on such a vague trailer? Don’t you think you are putting the cart before the horse? I think if you look at the About page on their website, you will see a lot of interesting lore and IP that actually isn’t generic:

https://www.azuki.com/about

Granted, this first episode of the anthology trilogy will only be 5 minutes long, so I’m not not sure how “cutting edge” any anime can showcase in such a short period.

AsleepBySunset wrote:

These were flaws I was half interested in looking past since at first I believed this was a passion project... No, no. This isn't a passion project, this isn't artists "showing us their creative vision". It's NFT bros who are imitating making an anime... (Similarly, the style over substance might be forgivable if this were made by passionate people who wanted to show off what the animation medium can do...) Sort of like a lot of OEL manga/anime. The creators have to spend all their energy imitating the trappings of anime/manga so that their work looks convincingly japanese, actual japanese authors don't have to do that since anything they draw is automatically 'anime/manga'... and then the oel author of course neglects to tell a compelling story. And thats exactly what the creators of this have done, they are as far as I'm concerned more interested in the idea of having an anime, or the 'cultural capital' of having an anime tiein, than the storytelling aspects of anime. It honestly visually reminds me of dimension w, all style over substance, vaguely "cool" but in an "anime way".

How can you justify saying this isn’t a passion project? All major anime franchises cost a lot of money to produce and the goal of all of them is to make the money back tenfold. Despite this, there were obviously passionate creators helping to produce these projects along the way.

The “NFT bros” (your words, not mine) have nothing to do with the production process either, they've only hired passionate (Japanese) anime professionals with many years of experience in the industry. Believe it or not, these professionals are actually interested in Azuki because of the unique web3 aspect. And for the record, this NFT collection was actually designed by a group of passionate artists. There are thousands and thousands of amateur and serious visual artists in the world who looked to NFTs as an extra source of income. There is nothing inherently wrong with the tech. Think about how many people have used the internet in unethical ways, yet here we are posting on the internet. A few bad apples doesn't make an entire technology rotten.

I don’t know if you are familiar with, or saw my earlier comment describing, the outdated production committees that are used to fund and manage the majority of major anime productions today. They don’t make the process easy and they are 1000% guided by corporate greed. One of the most notorious things these committees are known for are the low paying wage standards set for artists in the industry. It’s largely unethical and an issue all anime fans should be aware of. Especially someone like you who is obviously passionate about the creative-side and seeking out equally ardent creators.

This new funding model disrupts all of that and is a breath of fresh air for this commercial industry. Here is a direct quote by Taniguchi-san about his excitement for producing this series:

“The way Japanese anime has been made until now has been a one-way flow, starting at the top with the original creator or manufacturer, then the production company, then the staff. I thought that the one-way flow could be replaced through the process of creating this project, which allows for horizontal cooperation among staff members, which is exactly what Web3 is all about.”

This is clearly a passionate, and well respected, man in the industry who is excited about producing anime in a completely new way.

I do believe you aren't being paid though! These kinds of projects rely on gullible idiots to fill the web with lame ass manager speak responses with the idea that eventually they won't be the ones holding an empty bag. That surely they didn't do the equivalent of setting a stack of cash on fire for a literal jpeg that anyone can save to disk. But hey, that market has already completely cratered and all the grifters that were involved with it have moved onto AI scams. But by all means, continue to roll in shit and then assure us you don't smell of it as you fling it on the walls here, but don't be surprised when everyone easily deduces that you're still full of it.

The concept of NFTs just seems stupid to me. It's different to being the only person with the original copy of a painting. It's like having a print copy of the painting but saying you own it and it's yours, except anyone can also print off that copy and say the same (right click>safe).

bitcoin etc is bad for the environment. I know there's been improvements and a push for more enviro friendly stuff but not everyone is doing that, and it's still got issues.

I think Azuki's whole world and community idea could've been cool without adding NFT to it. It's sad that fun community creation ideas get wrapped up in NFT etc.

There's other stuff like the whole money laundering idea behind it all, and the insufferable attitude of a lot of NFTbros but I'm probably not knowledgable enough to go into that.