X Space Review | How will Animechain change the anime industry?

On January 13th, the anime project Animecoin announced the tokenomics of ANIME Token. Total supply: 10 billion ANIME, initial circulation: 7.69 billion ANIME, of which 37.5% of the tokens will be allocated to the Azuki community. Azuki is the most important contributor to the Anime Foundation, and the emergence of Animecoin is also highly followed by the Azuki community.

On January 23, Azuki’s content director, Er Yue Cha, was invited to discuss the latest developments and future directions of Azuki and Animechain under the theme of ‘How will Animechain change the anime industry?’.

**: Very welcome to our guest today, please introduce yourself first.

Er Yue Cha: Hello, everyone, I am Er Yue Cha. Thank you for the opportunity today to share my thoughts and experiences about Animechain and Azuki with all of you. In the team, I am mainly responsible for the content section, including YouTube short film planning, ongoing anime IP development, and overall coordination of large-scale anime projects.

：Before we start officially, would you like to share a story about Azuki first?

February Tea: Let’s start with the history of Azuki’s image and name. The current Azuki incorporates elements of urban, fantasy, ninja, and Chinese styles, but the initial design direction was actually animal images - the golden age of animal avatars from 2021 to 2022. The four familiar images of sloth, red panda, cat, and frog were chosen based on their lazy traits. After multiple iterations, animal features were combined with human form and integrated with elements of Eastern and Western cultures, ultimately forming the unique style we see today.

There is also a small episode about naming: direct names such as ‘casual ninja’ were considered early on, and finally Azuki (red bean) was chosen not only because it sounds catchy, but also because red beans themselves have strong visual symbolism, which can effectively unify the IP image. Although the form has undergone adjustments, the core temperament has always remained unchanged.

：The TGE of Anime is coming soon, how do you feel as a core builder at this moment?

February Tea: It’s very complicated, on the one hand, very excited, on the other hand, very nervous, and finally it returns to calm. Of course, this is a very special day for us, and everyone is very excited. We hope to give everyone a satisfactory answer in terms of technology, products, and the ultimate vision, so we are very nervous. But actually, from a longer timeline perspective, today can only represent Animechain, Azuki, and even the whole anime industry are just the beginning. It doesn’t mean that everything is done after TGE. After that, various industrial, product, and IP developments still need to be carried out. This is just the first step of a long journey.

: There is currently a misunderstanding in the market that Anime coin is issued by Azuki. Can the relationship between the three be clarified?

February Tea: From a legal framework perspective, the issuer of the currency is Anime Foundation, and Azuki is its core contributor. In terms of strategic positioning: Azuki is the content IP, Anime.com focuses on Web2 product experience, and Animechain provides blockchain infrastructure. The relationship between the three is similar to the symbiotic system of user product platforms and IP, and Web3 technology will serve as the underlying support for the vision of “full-stack animation”. The specific chemical reaction still requires time to verify.

**: Why does anime need its own blockchain? Please explain the concept of ‘full-stack anime’ in detail.

February Tea: This question ultimately comes back to anime fans and the medium of anime. I’m also an anime fan, and I’ve been watching anime since I was a kid, all the way up to now. The medium of anime itself is actually undergoing a lot of changes. From TV to TV, to games, peripherals, to Web3 products like Azuki.

I believe that the art style and expression of anime have unlimited potential. It is because of the love for anime that we have everything now. If anime cannot resonate so strongly with our whole team, maybe we wouldn’t have gone in this direction from the beginning. So, whether it’s our products or Animechain, it will ultimately return to the love for the medium itself.

As an industry, animation has a lot of room for progress. For example, the production logic of TV animation nowadays is not significantly different from that of decades ago. The logic of crowdfunding, distribution, and production of animation is still based on the principles established by Master Tezuka Osamu at the beginning of animation production. That is, taking the low-cost route of TV distribution or manga adaptation. This path is already mature in Japan and has given birth to many great works. However, from today’s perspective, this path may have encountered some problems.

For example, from a production perspective, it is found that the overall salary of many anime studios is relatively low. At the same time, the anime medium requires social platforms, including different ways for each anime fan to consume and share anime. So, whether from a production or fan perspective, there is an opportunity to try practical application scenarios through blockchain, so we propose a Web3-based solution.

：What unique experiences can anime fans get using Animechain?

February Tea: If you like a certain anime, such as Azuki. We have collaborated with Mr. Gorou Taniguchi, the director of Code Geass, on a three-episode anime selection on YouTube. When the first episode was launched, we were thinking: what would a product that is completely oriented towards anime fans and combines Web3 experience be like?

There is a plot in the first episode that dynamically generates and adds the NFT of each Azuki user. It brings a very novel experience to everyone, and directly displays the NFT avatar that you collect in the animation. The overall feedback is particularly good.

In addition, we have also made efforts in the peripheral art of the first episode of the animation. We collaborated with Zora to collect posters and videos as NFTs, which is a specific user scenario. Through Animechain, we hope to expand this application scenario to more scenes and IPs. Last year, we had the privilege to collaborate with Fate on a set of co-branded stickers, which we also shared in advance on Anime.com. There will be more scenes to bring to everyone’s experience. In the IP chain of animation, many powerful game companies, especially some excellent game IPs in China, including Genshin Impact and Stellar Warp, have given us a lot of inspiration.

: After the first short film reached over 2 million views, what is Azuki’s next plan?

February Tea: It must be the development in content. Although short videos have their advantages, they allow everyone to understand Azuki from different perspectives. This short film is a bit like falling in love with a particular model. The same concept needs many different directors to interpret it. Frankly speaking, Azuki is still in the very early stages as an anime IP. However, from the perspective of anime fans, this model is far from enough. What everyone likes most is still the 12-episode or 24-episode seasonal anime.

In addition, there is a lot of room for development in anime movies. From the perspective of the media, our selection this time may only be a beginning. But this beginning is very important and has groundbreaking significance. What we need to do next is to improve the quality of the content. Hopefully in the near future, everyone can remember Azuki in the form of a long anime or anime movie, and anime fans of Web2 can also experience such a world without fully understanding Web3.

**: What challenges are faced in turning NFT projects into animated IPs?

February Tea: Making anime itself is a massive project. Most excellent anime, such as last year’s popular ‘Bold Party,’ ‘Chainsaw Man,’ ‘Jujutsu Kaisen,’ are mostly adapted from manga. These anime have a very long manga that has laid the groundwork for the story and characters before filming. This situation is quite common in Japan, where manga goes through extensive iterations. Especially with hundreds or even thousands of new manga being released every year, the market competition is extremely fierce. The works that survive are bound to have a well-crafted world view, good characters, and captivating stories.

From this perspective, the path of Azuki IP is very different from traditional manga. Azuki is not an animation IP based on a manga, but an animation IP generated in the context of NFT Web3. We need to supplement all the raw materials provided by traditional manga IPs in terms of IP development.

First of all, the construction of the Red Bean worldview. It took us about two years, until the end of last year, to finally create version 1.0 of the Red Bean Bible. This process has gone through many difficulties, and we hope that the document of this worldview can become the cornerstone of future IP development.

In addition, another weakness compared to traditional anime IP is the relatively shallow connection between Web3 and the anime industry. This means that we need to spend more time negotiating with Japanese directors, animators, voice actors, and even existing IP companies. Fortunately, Azuki has gained recognition and support from many Japanese creators, and they are willing to try. So many conversations are very positive, and we can gather a group of excellent directors and animators to cooperate with us on this short film project.

However, this is not enough. We have also encountered many setbacks in the creative development of animation. In addition to IP, it is essential for us to find good studios and directors in the industry to form such a connection in the industry.

: Have you experienced anything particularly interesting when interacting with Japanese anime fans or Azuki fans?

Er Yue Tea: There are many things about this. When we first went to Japan to find IP development and studios, Azuki had been on sale for more than a year and had a certain influence in Web3, so we wanted to use the existing achievements to communicate with them. As a result, a basin of cold water was poured on us. Everyone asked: Who are you? What is Azuki? The world outside the Web3 anime industry is very large, and there are many excellent people and works in the anime industry, so we often encounter obstacles.

But Director Guigou impressed me deeply. When he worked with us, he quickly understood what NFT and blockchain really are. He is a very creative person himself and a senior with a lot of experience in the Japanese anime industry and IP development. On the contrary, he is particularly enthusiastic about the concept of NFT and Web3. After detailed communication, we found that he also noticed the same issues as us, such as the way of fundraising, the way of production, and the way of interaction with fans. In fact, there has not been a particularly big change in the anime industry for more than 30 years. He thinks that perhaps NFT and Web3 can be used to connect the previous anime with fans in a different way, and to incorporate the concept of collection into IP development at the beginning.

During the one or two years when we were making anime, we met many such people. Among them, there was something that touched me very much, which is the character designer for our first episode, Teacher Nishimura. He is also the designer of the game “Street Fighter”. And when we first released it, our art director Steamboy had been greatly influenced by Teacher Nishimura’s design in “Street Fighter”. After decades, these two spiritual ‘master and apprentice’ came together because of anime, to collaborate on a work. This is a very interesting and magical fate.

: Can you share some cool achievements of Azuki community in IP expansion that you think are particularly impressive?

February tea: There are a lot of this. For example, CreatorDAO is led by our master teacher in the Chinese area as the initiator. From a community IP development perspective, this is also one of the luckiest aspects of Azuki, the community has attracted so many people, and many members have chosen to join our team directly, such as myself. As far as creation is concerned, in fact, we have been counting the number of second creations in the community before, and it has exceeded tens of thousands of orders of magnitude very early. The community IP has exceeded my expectations very early on, just from the perspective of art creation. Including the audience, there are many familiar “faces” now, and they have also attracted a lot of fans and influence to themselves through the second creation of Azuki. The previous comics of Spirit DAO were made into physical and NFT, which is very cool.

Similarly, there are also some in-depth content development using their own IP, such as Steve G, who created several small videos with his Azuki, even stringing them together into a story. On the other hand, I think it’s particularly interesting that due to the design of our NFTs, everyone can use their own image for secondary commercial purposes. So, our community members around us have used their Azuki images in some small entrepreneurial projects, which is also very cool.

I run between San Francisco and Japan myself. Here in San Francisco, we have a cool coffee shop called KAIZEN COFFEE in the Bay Area. There is a huge Azuki in front of the entrance. I feel very close to it every time I go there. In addition, there are many coffee beans, children’s books, tea, etc. made with the image of Azuki.

: It’s been almost three years since Azuki, do you still have the same passion and fire when you first joined the Azuki team?

February Tea: That must be there. The interesting thing is that Web3 changes very quickly, and I personally like it very much. In the process of reading the news, I found that a new narrative will emerge every two weeks. Even for me, it is a particularly difficult thing to grasp the pulse of the industry in real time.

So the passion has always been there, but the problems keep changing. Like during the COVID-19 period, the current AI wave, etc., they themselves bring a lot of industry concerns and structural changes. I think it’s hard to keep going in this industry without long-term passion.

**: Over the next three years, what new breakthroughs do you most hope to see Azuki achieve?

February tea: Let’s talk about it from three aspects. First is IP. I hope Azuki can launch more and better content in the next three years to attract anime fans from Web2. When people talk about Azuki, they think it’s amazing and awesome. The second aspect is Animechain. I hope that after the TGE and three years later, Animechain can have a certain influence in the anime fan community and industry. It would be great if it can solve some existing production and experiential issues. The third aspect is Anime.com. I hope that in the next three years, Anime.com can become a gathering place for anime fans, attracting more Web3-based and Web2 anime fans to play and experience.

In short, the road ahead is long, there is still much to be done, and many challenges will be encountered along the way. A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step today. Hopefully, in the next three years, there will be substantial progress in all aspects, and I also hope everyone can continue to follow.

: Is there anything else you would like to say to the members of the Azuki Community and NFT players?

February Tea: I believe that NFT and anime are both in a rapidly changing phase. Whether it’s as a technology, an experience, or a future product, NFT still has many immature aspects, and anime may also. It has come such a long way, and we have a certain understanding of it. But beyond this understanding, changes are also happening at any time.

So whether it’s Azuki or beyond the community, I think the entire Web3 community is in a very lucky time. Many industries, products, and experiences that I have seen before have the potential to be revolutionized by Web3. And how will this potential ultimately land? It is actually a major topic that we have been exploring all along. What we most hope for now is to use this technology to truly change IP and creators, and to make Web3 and anime better and better.

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