"Little Witch Academia" Talkback

[KarlOlson]

Honestly, I would even just shoot for a 13 episode series so long as that translates to splitting the budget in half. Drops the kickstarter goal, and probably makes it easier to find a TV slot/sponsor in Japan.

That said, Trigger definitely is the studio to watch at this point. I hope their kick-starter has some stretch goals, because I wouldn't be surprised if they were given the budget for more than just another OVA.

 

[KYO'NYUU IMOUTO]

They want $150,000 to extend their current plan for a twenty minute episode to thirty-five minutes. They already have twenty thousand. Buy, buy, buy!

 

[GWOtaku]

All right, the Kickstarter project for the Little Witch Academia sequel is live.

In essence it will definitely be twenty minutes long, but if the project works they want to add 15 minutes onto that for a runtime of approximately 35. I'd venture that won't be a problem, given that as I type this it rocketed past $20,000 and even $30,000 because somebody out there just threw in for the $10,000 reward tier. Their goal is $150,000. If all you're looking to do is have a copy that you own and feel good about yourself, $20 nails you a downloadable copy of the episode + this digital copy of the artbook they're offering too. Swag gets better the higher you go.

Be prepared for a wait, they're scheduling rewards for April 2015 with production wrapping up at the very end of 2014. It'll be worth it though.

For context...when Kick-Heart got funded fans came together to do 200k for that. An international Blu-ray release for the movie cut of Time of Eve hit 215k.

 

[KYO'NYUU IMOUTO]

"I funded a full minute of Little Witch Academia 2," read the gravestone of a murdered victim of identity theft after another fan attempted to steal his dinner reward with the Studio Trigger crew.

 

[GWOtaku]

All right, my socks are well and truly knocked off. I crunched numbers a few minutes ago and taking away donations $1,000 and up, as I type this Little Witch Academia 2 would be 82% funded already. The project has succeeded, passed 178k and become one of the most successful crowdfunded animation-related projects ever. This happened while I was sleeping in ONE NIGHT. It hasn't even been twelve hours.

 

[MDawg]

I went to bed like 2 hours after funding opened and like I suspected, it's fully backed and still growing without the help of a sleeping portion of anime fandom in the US to put in their own funding in yet. Today is gonna be really interesting to see how much farther it grows as the news spreads that funding opened in what was basically a "stealth" launch. I knew they wanted to do this, but I honestly figured it would be a project that would launch later this summer, not yet. Glad to see them strike while the fire is hot.

 

[Funkatron]

According to Kicktraq They are currently trending to $3 million. I'm expecting at least $1 million.

I find it hilarious that gaijins are saving anime

 

[MDawg]

Yeah, Kicktraq's initial projections are always wildly skewed. Makes things exciting, but as you point out, completely implausible in most cases.

 

[Funkatron]

Yeah, Kicktraq's initial projections are always wildly skewed. Makes things exciting, but as you point out, completely plausible in most cases.

almost 200k in 1 day would certainly skew the numbers. I can see one of two things happening:

1. Extended episode becomes a 1 cour series
2. Extended episode becomes full length Ghibli-esque movie

 

[KYO'NYUU IMOUTO]

2,313
Backers

$207,695
pledged of $150,000 goal


29
days to go

Well, dang. I went to sleep at eleven last night when we were at a mere $74,000. Good on you, western fans of Japanese animation. Everyone at Trigger is probably wasted right now, not like they're have to drive home anyway.

At $200,000 and episode one cour would need a budget of $2,600,000 million. Depending on how these next few days go, that might just happen. Then again, maybe Trigger would like to do a full-on film? If they built off of the first OVA they could easily turn that footage into a first act.

 

[SigmasonicX]

Wow, not even the first day--it was funded in the first six hours!

 

[KYO'NYUU IMOUTO]

Some swell Twitter fellers are suggesting key animation art books as other potential rewards. Good on 'em! I think a great extra would be a subtitle track with each cut's key animator listed in the corner of the screen while the film plays. Speaking of which, I wonder if the plan is to simply use the key animators from the first short or bring in some of the big guns we all know and love?

Also, from Twitter:

 

[Dudley]

Wow, not even the first day--it was funded in the first six hours!

Damn that was fast. Though I shouldn't be too surprised, the short was very well-received and I hope we can get the same level of quality as we got before.

 

[KYO'NYUU IMOUTO]

Assuming this continues to rise...

$0: twenty minutes
$150,000: thirty-five minutes
$300,000: fifty minutes?
$450,000: sixty-five minutes?
$600,000: eighty minutes?

If Trigger simply added this extra footage onto the first they could easily turn the first short into the first act of a larger film.

 

[macattack]

They're going to clear $300,000 by the end of the tomorrow at the rate it keeps going. We could wind up seeing a full-fledged series being funded if this keeps up.

 

[KarlOlson]

Kickstarter anime series actually seems like a great plan in a weird way. For otaku by otaku, no middleman.

I hope Little Witch Academia keeps this level of interest up.

 

[GWOtaku]

Here's update #3 on Little Witch Academia 2. Apparently their max for this is 40 minutes or it takes much, much longer to get LWA 2 out there (I'd venture that this length is also just right for everything good they've thought up so far). They're set on adding audio commentary & a making-of documentary (to the normal release) + a soundtrack & a line art collection book (to the limited one) should the Kickstarter hit 500k, which I'd say it is definitely on track to do. Growth is slower (naturally) but steady as they approach $325,000.

I'm good with it. Bonuses are nice, and who knows what they decide to make after this one.

 

[KYO'NYUU IMOUTO]

Looks like they added room for seven more studio tours. Talk about having high hopes for another seventy thousand.

 

[Funkatron]

With the rate of pledges slowing down, Kicktraq says this is trending at 2.6 mil. I still say this will end with at least 1 million but we'll see. $500,000 is definitely doable.

 

[Beefy]

Since they do not want LWA2 to be over 40 minutes, it would be nice if they could make a "Director's Cut" of LWA1 and extend its running time by adding more scenes that were cut due to time/budget restrictions.