Poor old UKA. Obviously I still follow their news, but following my performance on the podcast warning about "forced Western diversity" causing nothing but division, they can't really report anything but the announcement of the show to keep safe now.
I, on the other hand, can tell the entire story. Which I feel a bit guilty about. Sorry everyone :/
So, Crunchyroll has announced that their parent company, Ellation, have created a company called Ellation Studios which will produce original content for Crunchyroll (an online streaming service for anime for those who don't know). They have appointed the current President for Women in Animation as the head of the studio, Margaret Dean, who has supervised production on shows like Robot Chicken for Adult Swim and Buddy Thunderstruck for Netflix.
The first announcement is High Guardian Spice, which has dropped a trailer on Youtube. Unfortunately controversy started here, as comments and likes/dislikes were disabled. This appears to have caused some backlash within Crunchyroll's own subscriber base, as many see this as an attempt to bring a SJW agenda into a channel supposedly dedicated to simply providing access to Japanese content.
I won't go into the comments made, especially since One Angry Gamer has compiled a pretty comprehensive list, but suffice to say much of it is very negative. This is, of course, before the show has even aired. You should keep in mind that One Angry Gamer is itself pretty anti-SJW, so take the tone as intended from the site.
The trailer is embedded below so you can make your own judgement.
Taking the positives, Margaret Dean has cited a return to 2D hand-drawn animation, which is certainly welcome. The storyboards look fun, and despite the heavy-handed voiceover citing diversity and overwhelming number of female creatives working on the project (I don't really care so long as the product is good), everyone looks like they're having fun which will hopefully come across in the show itself. I'm not sure about the idea to "get those voices in there that are not being heard" as quite frankly they're quite deafening these days, believe me :)
What we do know is that the show is about four girls training to become guardians. Nothing else is divulged and I suppose I can see the frustration of the launch trailer for a new series being more about the studio than the actual show, but if you think about this more as announcement than a trailer, then it becomes a lot less galling. The video doesn't help itself by showcasing stereotypes of women in media and then adding a voiceover that seems more concerned with the virtues of the studio than informing about the product. It seems a tad ill-judged given the current climate in my opinion.
Let's hope that Ellation Studios can produce a cartoon that speaks to everyone and doesn't demonise the normal to elevate the unusual. A truly inclusive cartoon would be more than welcome. For more on a show that really got the balance right, check out AI's article on the original Bubblegum Crisis.
