Huh?! What's this!?

A New Challenger is Approaching!?

Ahem.

Okay, so as I mentioned previously...

We may have been approached by our good friend Flou Art to create an animated short featuring his original cast of characters.

After a lot of discussion, we decided we really wanted to try our hand at creating...

⚔️ A 90's Dark Fantasy OVA

Yup!

Initially, it all started by sharing a lot of Berserk (1997) screenshots. Specifically the background paintings, compositing, cel paint and overall visual style.

From there, we just wanted to see if we could create something that genuinely felt like it belonged to that era.

So over the past few weeks we've been spending a lot of time researching productions such as:

Record of Lodoss War

Bastard!!

The Vision of Escaflowne

As well as studying character design from series like:

You're Under Arrest

Ah! My Goddess

Now that production is officially beginning, Flou has very generously given us permission to start sharing some of the production materials as we progress.

I thought it'd be another great opportunity for you guys to watch a project from the ground floor and see how we go from a random idea to a finished animation in real time.

So, hang tight!

For the next little while, production updates will be split between:

⚔️ Flou OVA – Production Updates

🐰 Otachan! Rabbit Season – Production Updates

🐰 Otachan! Rabbit Season

Don't worry...

I haven't forgotten our purple dysfunctional adopted daughter just yet.

Episode Five is sitting at around 80% complete, and at the moment I'm leaning towards releasing it as its own standalone episode.

Although it'll be a little shorter than our previous double-features, I think the action is strong enough that it completely holds its own.

What's left for me now is mainly:

Final editing pass.

Reviewing and updating the foley with Askon.

Going through everything with the episode director.

Prepping a small merchandise release to launch alongside it.

So we're definitely getting there!

📦 Merchandise Update

We're still ironing out the last few little kinks with Otachan's plushie skirt...

But that's honestly about it!

Everything else has now been approved and is moving into bulk manufacturing.

Which means I'm hoping we'll be able to begin shipping throughout September! 🤞

🎁 Patreon Stickers

The stickers are finally complete too!

Hopefully they'll be heading to our staff in the USA, as well as to me here in the UK, very soon so we can begin distribution.

Before the shipping cutoff, we'll post another reminder just to make sure everyone has their shipping details updated.

I don't want anyone missing out!

❤️ Thoughts So Far

I'm honestly really excited to start sharing more of the Flou OVA.

Especially once the character designs begin coming in.

Because it's such a genre-specific project, I've really been enjoying learning more about that particular era of animation production, and seeing how we can bring those same design philosophies, compositing techniques and storyboarding approaches into a modern production.

It's honestly been a lot of fun.

AND if I'm being completely honest in this bitch.

I'm also excited to try something a little different outside of Otachan!

(Don't tell her I said that.) 🤫

As always, thank you all so much for your continued support.

Let’s keep pushing forward!!

—from your boy,Yusef / OtakuVs 🐇💥