X Space Review | How Will Animechain Transform the Anime Industry?

On January 13, the anime project Animecoin announced the ANIME tokenomics. Total Supply: 10 billion ANIME, Initial Circulating Supply: 7.69 billion ANIME, with 37.5% of the tokens allocated to the Azuki community. Azuki is the most significant contributor to the Anime Foundation, and the emergence of Animecoin has also received high attention from the Azuki community.

On January 23, BlockBeats invited Azuki's Content Lead, Er Yue Cha, to discuss the latest developments and future directions of Azuki and Animechain under the theme "How Will Animechain Change the Anime Industry?"

BlockBeats: Welcome to our guest today, please start by introducing yourself.

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

BlockBeats: Before we officially begin, would you like to share a story about Azuki?

Er Yue Cha: Let's start with the history of Azuki's image and name. The current Azuki combines elements of urban culture, fantasy, ninjas, and Chinese style, but the initial design direction was actually animal-themed—2021-2022 was the golden age of animal avatars. The four familiar images now, the sloth, red panda, cat, and frog, were chosen for their lazy traits. After multiple iterations, animal features were combined with human forms, integrating elements of Eastern and Western cultures, ultimately forming the unique style we see today.

There's a little story about the naming as well: early on, names like "Casual Ninja" were considered, but eventually, Azuki (Red Bean) was chosen not only because it's catchy but also because red beans themselves have a strong visual symbolic value that can effectively unify the IP image. Despite the morphological adjustments, the core essence has always remained unchanged.

BlockBeats: As the Anime TGE is approaching, how do you feel as a core builder at this moment?

February Tea: It's very complicated, on one hand very excited, on the other hand very anxious, and finally it all settles down. Of course, for us, this is a very special day, and everyone is very excited in their hearts. We hope to provide everyone with a satisfactory response in terms of technology, product, and the ultimate vision, so we are very nervous as well. But actually, from a longer-term perspective, today can only represent a day for Animechain, Azuki, and even the entire anime industry. It does not mean that everything is done after the TGE. There will still be various developments in the industry, product, and IP after that. This is only the first step of a long journey.

BlockBeats: Currently, there is a misunderstanding in the market that Anime coin is mistaken for Azuki issuing coins. Can you clarify the relationship among the three?

February Tea: From a legal framework perspective, the issuer of the coin is the Anime Foundation, and Azuki is its core contributor. In terms of strategy: Azuki is the content IP, Anime.com focuses on the Web2 product experience, and Animechain provides blockchain infrastructure. The relationship among the three is similar to a symbiotic system of user product platforms and IP, with Web3 technology serving as the underlying support for the "full-stack anime" vision. The specific chemical reaction still needs time to validate.

BlockBeats: Why does anime need its own blockchain? Please elaborate on the concept of "full-stack anime."

February Tea: This question ultimately returns to anime fans and the anime medium. I am also an anime enthusiast, having watched anime from childhood to now. The anime medium itself is undergoing many changes. It has evolved from TV to games, peripheral products, and now to Web3 products like Azuki.

I believe that the art style and expression of anime have unlimited potential. It is precisely because of the love for anime that we have everything now. If the anime cannot create such a strong spiritual resonance between us and the whole team, maybe we wouldn't have started in this direction at the beginning. So, whether it's our products or Animechain, everything will eventually return to the love for the medium itself.

Anime as an industry has a lot of room for progress. For a simple example, the production logic of TV animation hasn't changed much in decades. The general logic of fundraising, distribution, and production of anime is still based on the rules set by Master Tezuka Osamu at the beginning. It follows a low-cost approach for TV distribution or manga adaptation. This path in Japan has matured, giving birth to many great works. But from the current perspective, this path may have encountered some issues.

For example, from a production perspective, it is found that many anime studios have overall lower wages. At the same time, the anime medium requires a social platform, where each anime fan consumes and shares anime in different ways. So whether from a production or fan perspective, there is an opportunity to try practical applications through blockchain technology. Therefore, we have proposed a Web3-centric solution.

BlockBeats: What unique experiences can anime fans have using Animechain?

February Tea: If you like a certain anime, such as Azuki. We collaborated with Takuya Eguchi-sensei, who voiced Lelouch, on a three-episode anime selection on YouTube. When the first episode was released, we were thinking: What would a product that is completely oriented towards anime fans while incorporating a Web3 experience be like?

One subplot in the first episode used a dynamically generated method to include the NFT of each Azuki user. It provided a very novel experience where the anime directly featured the NFT avatars that the viewers owned, and the overall feedback was very positive.

In addition, we also made efforts in the peripheral art of the first episode of the anime. We partnered with Zora to turn posters and videos into NFT collections, which is a very specific user scenario. Through Animechain, we hope to expand this application scenario to more situations and IPs. Last year, we were fortunate to collaborate with Fate on a set of co-branded stickers, which we also shared with everyone in advance on Anime.com. There will be more scenarios to experience in the future. In terms of the IP linkage of anime, many powerful game companies, especially some excellent game IPs in China such as Genshin Impact and Stellar Celestials Railway, have given us a lot of inspiration.

BlockBeats: After the first short film broke 2 million views, what are Azuki's next plans?

February Tea: It will definitely involve content development. Short films have their advantages as they allow everyone to understand Azuki from different perspectives. Our short film is a bit like Love, Death & Robots. The same concept requires interpretations from many different directors. Honestly, Azuki is still very early as an anime IP. But from the perspective of anime fans, this model is far from enough as what they like the most are 12-episode or 24-episode seasonal anime.

In addition, there is still a lot of room for development in anime movies. From a media perspective, 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 not too distant future, everyone can remember Azuki through a feature-length anime or anime movie, and anime fans from Web2 can also experience such a world without fully understanding Web3.

BlockBeats: What challenges does turning an NFT project into an animated IP face?

Er Yuet Cha: Creating anime itself is a massive undertaking. Popular anime from last year, such as Taisho Otome Fairy Tale, Jujutsu Kaisen, and others were mostly based on manga. These anime had a long manga series to lay the foundation for the story and characters before production. This situation is quite common in Japan, where manga undergoes extensive iterations. Especially in a situation where hundreds or even thousands of new manga are released every year, the market competition is very fierce, and the surviving works are sure to have a well-crafted worldview, good characters, and engaging stories.

From this perspective, the path of the Azuki IP is very different from traditional manga. Azuki itself did not originate from a manga-based animated IP but is an animated IP generated from the NFT Web3 direction. We need to fill in all the missing IP development ingredients already provided by manga-based IPs.

First, we need to establish the worldview of the Azuki universe. We went through about two years, until the end of last year, to finally create version 1.0 of the Azuki world bible. This process was very arduous, and we hope that this documentation of the worldview can become the cornerstone of future IP development.

In addition, another disadvantage compared to traditional manga-based IPs is the relatively shallow connection between Web3 and the anime industry. This means 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 of the conversations are very positive, and we have been able to gather a group of excellent directors and animators to collaborate with us on this short film project.

But this is not enough. We have also encountered many obstacles in the creative development of the animation. In addition to the IP, how to find good studios and directors in the industry, and ultimately establish an industrial connection is also essential work for us.

BlockBeats: Have you encountered any particularly interesting incidents when interacting with Japanese anime fans or Azuki fans?

February Tea: There are many stories about this. When we first started looking for IP developers and studios in Japan, Azuki had already been on sale for over a year and had a certain influence in Web3, so we wanted to use our existing achievements to communicate with them. However, we were met with a bucket of cold water. Everyone was asking: Who are you? What is Azuki? The world outside of Web3 anime is very large, with many talented individuals and works in the anime industry, so we often encountered barriers.

But Director Taniguchi left a deep impression on me. When he collaborated with us, he quickly understood what NFTs and blockchain were all about. He is a very creative person himself and a senior with a lot of experience in the Japanese anime industry and IP development. Surprisingly, he was very enthusiastic about the concepts of NFTs and Web3. Through detailed discussions, we found that he also noticed the same issues as us, such as fundraising methods, production methods, and even the way to interact with fans. In fact, there hasn't been a significant change in the anime industry for over 30 years. He believed that perhaps NFTs and Web3 could be used to connect the previous anime with fans in a different way, integrating the concept of collecting into IP development from the beginning.

During the one to two years we have been in the anime industry, we have met many people like him. One particularly touching story was about our character designer for the first episode, Mr. Nishimura. He was also a designer for the "Street Fighter" game. When we first launched, our art director, Steamboy, had been greatly influenced by Mr. Nishimura's designs in "Street Fighter." Decades later, these two spiritual "master and disciple" figures reunited through anime and collaborated on a project. It was a very interesting and magical fate.

BlockBeats: Could you please share more about some of the cool achievements that the Azuki community has achieved in IP expansion?

February Tea: There are many stories about this. For example, CreatorDAO, led by our senior Da Shuo from the Chinese community. From the perspective of community IP development, this is also the luckiest part of Azuki. The community has attracted so many people, and many members have chosen to join our team directly, including myself. In terms of creation, we have been keeping track of the amount of fan works in the community, which surpassed tens of thousands at a very early stage. From the perspective of fan art alone, the community's IP far exceeded my expectations early on. Many listeners are now familiar with these "faces" and have attracted many fans and influencers to themselves through their fan art contributions to Azuki. Previously, Spirit DAO's comics were turned into physical and NFT form, which was very cool.

Another example is using your own IP for deep content development, like Steve G, who created several short videos using his own Azuki, even stringing them together into a story. On the other hand, I find it particularly interesting that due to the design of our NFT, everyone can use their own image for secondary commercial purposes. So, students in our community have used their Azuki images in some small entrepreneurial projects, which is also very cool.

I myself travel between San Francisco and Japan. In San Francisco, we have a coffee shop called KAIZEN COFFEE, which is a very cool spot in the Bay Area. There is a huge Azuki sticker at the entrance, and every time I go there, I feel very at home. In addition to that, there are many coffee beans, children's books, and teas designed with Azuki's image.

BlockBeats: Azuki has been around for almost three years now. Do you still have the same passion and flame as when you first joined the Azuki team?

February Tea: Definitely. The interesting thing is that Web3 changes very rapidly, and I personally really like BlockBeats. I have noticed that a new narrative emerges every two weeks as I follow the news. Even for me, staying completely up-to-date with the industry pulse in real-time is a particularly challenging task.

So the passion is always there, but the challenges keep evolving. For example, during the COVID-19 period, the current AI wave, and so on, they have brought a lot of industry concerns and structural changes. I believe that without long-term passion, it is very difficult to sustain in this industry.

BlockBeats: In 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 that in the next three years, Azuki can release even more and better content to attract fans of anime from Web2. When people talk about Azuki, they will think it's awesome and amazing. The second aspect is, of course, Animechain. I hope that after the TGE, three years later, Animechain can have a certain influence in the anime fan and anime industry. If it can solve some of the existing production and experiential issues, that would be even better. The third aspect is Anime.com. I hope that in the next three years, Anime.com can become a hub for anime fans, attracting more fans with Web3 and Web2 backgrounds to play and experience.

In any case, the road ahead is long, with much to be done and many challenges to face along the way. The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step today. I hope that in the next three years, there will be tangible progress in all aspects, and I also hope that everyone can continue to pay attention.

BlockBeats: Do you have anything else to say to the members of the Azuki Community and NFT players?

Er Ye Cha: I believe that both NFTs and anime are in a rapidly changing stage. Whether it's as a technology, an experience, or a product of the future, there are still many immature aspects to NFTs themselves, as well as possibly to anime. It has come such a long way, and we have gained a certain level of understanding of it. But beyond this understanding, changes are happening at any time.

So, whether it's Azuki or beyond the community, I believe that the entire Web3 community is in a very fortunate time. Many industries, products, and experiences seen before have the potential to be revolutionized by Web3. How this potential will ultimately materialize is actually a major topic we have been exploring all along. What we most hope for now is to use this technology to truly change intellectual property and creators, thereby making Web3 and anime better and better.

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