After getting a glimpse into various parts of the anime industry, I’ve come to understand how difficult it is, in the current climate, to air one cour of an ambitious original anime. Or rather, how difficult it is to even get such a project approved.
Anime production costs are rising visibly year by year. At the same time, the number of shows airing each cour keeps increasing. In that situation, if you want to “recoup for sure,” the safest path is to adapt a manga that already has an established fanbase and a proven level of interest. If you glance over the talked-about anime of this season, almost all of them are based on existing source material.
Now that five episodes have aired, I think the general atmosphere has come across by now, but the NEEDY anime can honestly be called an original anime series at this point. Of course, KAngel appears as one of the main characters, but episodes 4 and 5 are made up about eighty percent of new characters.
If I had to describe, in abstract terms, what I wanted to express with the NEEDY anime, it would be the excitement of “a late-night original anime where you have absolutely no idea what will happen each week.”
NEEDY was already an indie medium where total chaos was allowed. If the original creator himself writes the anime, then thirteen episodes that are basically original should be possible. Or at least, the project could get approved. I had a gut feeling that no matter how it turned out, it would become something worth airing.
Of course, the NEEDY anime is not a work with an abundant budget. Even so, ANIPLEX has given us more than enough to fight with, and there was no way I was going to miss the chance to make something original with that.
For the composition and MVs, I relied on friends I had worked with before. I wrote the lyrics myself. So the NEEDY anime is also packed with new songs. Now that we’ve reached the middle, I think that strange little festival feeling is starting to come through.
I felt that from the reaction to the MV above, too.
No matter what, the early episodes were always going to be rough because they departed from the original. But now that we’ve crossed that stage and people are starting to accept that “the anime is the anime,” Lollipop’s character song has been received very happily. Of course, that is thanks to Kawaguchi-san’s powerful singing and Haraguchi-san’s composition, but still. We’ve started seeing reactions like, “I wasn’t sure at first, but I’ve come to like the new characters!” The whole staff is happy about that.
Especially because this work was always going to be selective by nature. Thematically, it was meant to feel eroge-like, and even among that, denpa-like. With the themes we’re handling, if we want to depict them sincerely, it cannot be something everyone can casually step into.
The overseas reaction to Lollipop in glasses was incredible.
From here, while continuing to bring out the charm of the new girls, we will keep moving through the trial and error that only an original work can have. That sense of not knowing where it will go. At the same time, because these new characters exist, we can bring out new possibilities for KAngel.
Since ancient times, when a work with source material adds a lot of original characters, the result has usually been fierce criticism. Or at best, it becomes one of those “well, I liked it” things.
I can’t stop admiring Sengoku Collection. Even though it was based on a social game, it didn’t just do an original storyline. It completed an anthology of episodes themed around classic films. That’s what I want to be. That anime felt like a miracle, born because the entire social game industry was still feeling its way forward and forming its own peculiar fanbase. And it even got two cours.
─────•✦•───── Purple Lollipop ✨Figure Announcement✨ ─────•✦•───── One poison strike straight to an otaku’s heart ♡ The deadly toxic denpa girl ☆ Purple Lollipop is now in production as a 1/7 scale figure! Stay tuned for more updates 🧬
In the middle of all this, we’ve at least gotten the anime onto a track where goods and figures can be announced while it is still airing. I think I should let myself feel, just a little, that we’ve worked pretty hard.
Of course, that is only possible because there is a massive trunk called KAngel at the center of it all. And in the end, everything will depend on how the final episode is received. But the staff is putting a great deal of strength into the final stretch, and that is exactly why we are doing it as an original work. One advantage of a one-cour original is that we can put everything in and end it there. Unlike adapting a long-running manga, it does not have to stop halfway.
Budgets and luxurious animation will probably keep getting picked up by film distribution and Netflix. Safe manga adaptations will be fought over even more fiercely. Challenging original anime will only keep decreasing, I think. Either that, or it will be series with established brands, like Gundam.
In that kind of era, I hope you can calmly watch over how much of a mark NEEDY can leave as something essentially original. Including the unease that comes from not knowing where it will go. Including the praise and criticism.
I love that kind of late-night anime.
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